NSW Government to take over Fairer Future plan

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30 July 2026

 

Inner West Council’s Fairer Future plan had many unacceptable impacts, including the removal of heritage items and areas, the destruction of Marrickville Rd, a tiny amount of new open space per new resident and the potential removal of public car parking.

 

Now this situation could be made even worse, with the news that the NSW Government will be taking over the Fairer Future plan as a State-led rezoning.

 

We’ve been waiting since September 2025 for news whether the NSW Government would accept the council’s plan. Many meetings have been held in secret. There has been no useful information provided to Council meetings, and rumours that the NSW Government was pushing back against the council’s proposal to remove the Low and Mid-Rise housing reforms with alternate housing proposals.

 

Now a new webpage has popped up on the NSW Planning Portal which states the council “seeks state assistance to finalise parts of Inner West Council’s ‘Our Fairer Future’ masterplan. The proposal seeks to amend various applicable development controls to achieve better housing outcomes.”

 

An “evaluation report” on this page shows a panel of unelected bureaucrats have now decided to take over planning across the entire Inner West LGA as a ‘State-led rezoning’.

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Find out more here.

 

This situation raises many questions, some of which are below:

• Is the Inner West community going to be notified about this decision? Or are we going to be left in the dark, just like we have been since September 2025?

• When did the Council request such an intervention? If such a request has happened without a formal Council resolution (as seems to be the case) is this a breach of the NSW Local Government Act? 

• Will there now be a re-exhibition?

• Is this a political fix to attempt to defer this contentious matter until after the State election, in March 2027?

• Is the NSW Government proposing to further increase dwelling numbers, even higher than the dwelling numbers in the Fairer Future plan which were way above NSW Government targets?

• Is it appropriate this happens when the State MP for Summer Hill has said she is unable to represent constituents on the Fairer Future plan, due to a personal conflict of interest?

• Will the government commit to preserving heritage areas?

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What does seem certain is that, after the NSW Government introduced the Transport Oriented Development and Low and Mid-Rise reforms, and then appeared to let the local council provide an alternative to this, the government once again has taken control. What a mess.

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Save Dully will be actively pursuing this issue, and keeping our subscribers informed, in conjunction with other community groups across the Inner West.

 

By way of background, please read our submission to the original Fairer Future plan here.