Acting President’s Annual Report 2026

By Duncan Leys, presented to the Annual General Meeting, August 2026

The Glebe Society acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

I am standing down today after serving for a year as Acting President.

Traditionally, Presidents have used this report to summarise the achievements of our subcommittees. I do not propose to do that today. The August 2026 Bulletin already contains detailed reports from Bays & Foreshores, Heritage, the Blue Wren and the Communications subcommittees. Each of those reports is worth reading in full; a few minutes from me would not do justice to their work.

Instead, I will use my time to raise some matters which I believe are of most importance to our Glebe and Forest Lodge community.

Planning system reforms

Members will be aware that the NSW Government has been rewriting major parts of the planning system in an effort to make housing approvals faster and more predictable. The existing system has long been criticised as slow, confusing and full of duplication, with councils, state agencies, developers and communities often working at cross purposes.

Two new agencies have been created to streamline decision‑making:

• Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) – empowered to unlock housing sites, coordinate agencies, and adjust planning rules for major projects.
• Development Coordination Authority (DCA) – tasked with preventing delays caused by state agency referrals and concurrences.

In addition, the Government is redesigning how development applications move through the system by introducing:

• Expanded complying development for straightforward, low‑risk projects.
• New targeted assessment pathways, allowing DAs to bypass full merit assessment where issues have already been resolved.
• Clearer rules for State Significant Developments (SSD) and infrastructure.
• A standard Community Participation Plan, providing more consistent and predictable engagement for residents and fewer conflicting requirements for applicants.

At the moment, developers are making great use of the SSD provisions to subvert the City of Sydney Council’s planning controls to get bigger and higher projects approved. Council’s guidelines are being bypassed.

An example of this has occurred with the former Remand Centre site at Bidura on Glebe Point Road.

How are these changes going?

It is too early to judge their effectiveness. Broader economic conditions are working against the Government’s intentions. Higher interest rates, elevated construction‑cost inflation, shortages of skilled workers, changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, falling home prices and flagged reductions in immigration levels all make it harder for developers to predict a profitable outcome.

Buyers are waiting to see what happens with interest rates and to see if property prices will fall further.

It is unlikely that the current planning reforms alone will deliver the level of housing completions needed in the short term.

Where is the need for housing the greatest? It is at the lower levels of the market where we have 70,000 people on the public housing waiting list, low and middle income private renters and an unknown number of potential first home buyers. Domain’s 2026 First Home Buyer Report found that the average first‑home buyer couple cannot affordably buy an entry‑level house in any major Australian city, including Sydney.

Former NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has warned that the housing system ‘is not delivering for the people who need it most.’ The small, mid‑rise apartment buildings that once provided economically realistic options for singles, couples and downsizers have become almost impossible to build at reasonable prices. (See SMH 13 August 2026)

This is precisely the kind of housing our inner-city suburbs including Glebe and Forest Lodge need. The collapse of the mid‑rise market is reshaping inner‑city neighbourhoods. Without it, communities face:

• fewer affordable options
• more competition for existing stock
• greater pressure for high‑rise and high‑cost developments that do not fit Glebe’s character or needs.

Chandler’s model offers a different path: government takes on the land component; builders use standardised, well‑tested designs; and smaller local builders are supported to deliver repeatable, high‑quality apartment projects. Chandler believes this approach can reliably produce sub‑$1 million homes while maintaining strong consumer protections and construction quality. (Apparently no need to gut the Construction code but marble bench tops are out.)

For Glebe and Forest Lodge, providing the ‘missing middle’ is essential to maintaining our social diversity, walkable streets, and human‑scale-built form—and ensuring future generations can continue to live here.

Bays West and Blackwattle Bay: The impact on Glebe and Forest Lodge

Around 10,000 new dwellings and 25,000 new residents are proposed for Bays West and Blackwattle Bay. Something like 700 of these homes will be affordable—just 10%, down from an earlier proposed target of 30%.

The problem, as the Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Perspective report, is the price tag. A one‑bedroom apartment in Bays West is expected to cost around $2 million, a figure that exposes the central flaw in a precinct the Government is promoting as part of Sydney’s affordability solution.

Although these developments sit outside Glebe and Forest Lodge, their close proximity means our neighbourhoods will absorb significant secondary impacts on heritage character, amenity and shared community infrastructure.

Potential challenges

Transport, traffic and movement

• Increased traffic on Bridge Road and streets surrounding the new Sydney Fish Market – all residential streets.
• More rat‑running through narrow Glebe streets, such as Wigram Road.
• Greater pressure on on‑street parking, especially along Glebe Point Road and near the Fish Market.
• Higher patronage of the Light Rail, particularly at peak times when already there is overcrowding.

Open space, parks and foreshore

• Increased usage of the Glebe foreshore.
• Higher demand for shade, seating, bins, toilets, lighting and maintenance.

Schools, childcare and community facilities

• Additional pressure on school capacity.
• Increased demand for libraries, community centres, childcare, youth services and medical services.
• Increased demand on our hospital (RPA)
• Increased demand for seniors housing and aged care.

The Future for Wentworth Park Greyhound Track and Glebe Island Bridge

In the past year, the future of these two important community assets has become clearer. Wentworth Park will be returned to the community as greenspace and the Glebe Island Bridge will be restored.

Given the decisions have been made, it would be better if conservation work on the Bridge began now pending its integration into the Bays West Redevelopment.

Retention and maintenance of publicly owned housing stock in Glebe

Despite a boost in funding to address the poor condition of much of the public housing stock, progress has been very slow and some residents report extended delays to get relatively simple but necessary repairs done.

Unoccupied public homes. Why do they exist and why for so long?

Can we build more stock in Glebe and Forest Lodge?  What should new stock look like? Should it be in separate identifiable buildings or embedded within a mixed public-private community? No poor doors.

Should developers be required to build the promised affordable homes within a development or allowed merely to pay a levy to Council?

Glebe Point Road

What’s to be done to make it a more vibrant place where people want to come and shopkeepers can make a living?

Glebe Youth Service

The cancellation of City of Sydney funding for the Glebe Youth Service’s food service is very concerning. But it is not just about food.

Glebe’s Hill

In October last year, City of Sydney CEO Monica Barone said ‘We are now engaging an Environmental Consultant to assess the current site conditions and develop an ongoing management plan. This will help us develop long term plans and determine whether we can act on your proposals, including your suggestion that the site be designated as a wildlife refuge and that no major remediation should occur.’

10 months later the Society has still not been able to arrange a meeting with the City and we are concerned that a consultant may not have been appointed.

Members are reminded that almost a year ago we found in the City of Sydney’s own archives, consultants reports from 2010 which said the site was a contamination hot spot which needed to be fenced to keep the public out, and any workers on the site needed to observe strict protocols to ensure their safety. The reports also said the site needed to be rehabilitated and returned to public space. The site could not be left as it was as it was unsafe.

It is unclear if anything was done about these reports perhaps other than some new fencing (which is frequently breached by members of the public). However, at our instigation Council has put new signs on the main gate warning of the contaminated soils.

Walks and Talks

As Dorothy Davis reports (in the September Bulletin) we ran eight Guided Walks/Tours in Glebe, Forest Lodge and elsewhere during in the year, as well our regular Christmas get together and Anzac Day service at the Glebe War Memorial. 

We also held four Glebe Talks during the year, three on aspects of Glebe’s history and one book launch in partnership with Gleebooks. This doesn’t count the various working bees and similar organised by the Blue Wren subcommittee.

We are looking to open our events to non-members as means of attracting new members; particularly our Talks events which can generally accommodate many more people than our Guided Walks can handle.

Bulletin and website 

Sarah Fogg, our acting editor, has managed a program to update and enhance the functioning of our website and to review the Bulletin production process. You will see in the 2026 accounts we have spent nearly $5,000 to have this work done, as we do not have these skills in-house. We have also paid a graphic designer to do the monthly layout of the Bulletin. This saves the Editor something like 10 hours a month and makes preparing the Bulletin for publication a little easier, but it is still an enormously large job for the volunteers involved.

Volunteers and Management Committee

Thank you to the many volunteers who run our events, walks and talks, write articles and edit the material that goes into the Bulletin, who maintain our website and see that we fulfill our statutory obligations.

Recruiting new volunteers to run the Society and to join committees so that the load does not fall on too few, remains a challenge. We have struggled since before my time to find new people to work on the subcommittees. Some subcommittees have ceased to function as a convenor could not be found.

Finally, I want to say thank you to those standing down from roles on the Management Committee. Tim Hesketh, who has been an Ordinary Member of the Management Committee and editor of the Bulletin when required, is not standing for re-election.

Thank you to our secretary Jude Paul for making the arrangements to make our AGM happen. It is a most stressful time for Jude, so thank you.

Thank you for your continuing interest.