Kellie Sloane
Leader of the Opposition
NSW Liberal Leader
Chris Rath
Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces
The NSW Liberals and Nationals will restore the voice of local communities in how homes are delivered and targets met under a new Low and Mid Rise (LMR) Alternate Plan Pathway.
The announcement comes as the Minns Labor Government's flagship LMR policy continues to significantly underperform. The Government promised the policy would deliver 112,000 homes over five years, yet as of February 2026 only 4,900 homes had been approved under the scheme; just 22 per cent of where the policy should have been two years into its rollout.
Leader of the Opposition Kellie Sloane said the Liberals and Nationals support increasing housing supply, but the current one-size-fits-all approach has failed to deliver the homes NSW needs.
"We need to build more homes, but we also need to recognise that good planning isn't about applying the same template to every community," Ms Sloane said.
"The Minns Government has created an adversarial planning system where councils are effectively told to accept a rigid planning template or resist the State Government. This is in addition to new taxes and charges that are crippling the construction sector and contributing to our state's lagging housing completions."
"Our policy changes that. If a council can demonstrate it can deliver the same number of homes, or more, through a plan that is best for a community, it should have the opportunity to do so."
Under the proposal, councils would be able to submit an alternate housing delivery plan that meets or exceeds their existing LMR housing allocation. Any proposal would be independently assessed and certified by the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.
If no alternate plan is approved, the existing LMR settings would continue to apply.
Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Chris Rath said the proposal would protect housing supply while encouraging better planning outcomes.
"This is not about reducing housing. The target number of homes stays exactly the same. What changes is how those homes are delivered," Mr Rath said.
"Councils understand their communities better than anyone. They know where infrastructure has capacity, where heritage constraints exist and where growth can occur most effectively."
"By giving councils a formal pathway to put forward better solutions, we can reduce unnecessary conflict, improve local infrastructure planning and ultimately deliver more homes."
Mr Rath also said that the policy builds on planning approaches the Minns Government has already accepted in practice.
"In Bondi Junction, Waverley Council was permitted to pursue its own place-based masterplan rather than relying on blanket controls, while Burwood successfully worked with the Government to reshape where higher-density housing would be delivered to better align with local planning priorities."
"What we are announcing today is simply a formal, transparent mechanism so every council has the same opportunity to put forward a better, locally-tailored, way of delivering the same, or a greater, number of homes."
