Growth Centres Program

The Growth Centres Program is playing a critical role in delivering much needed housing in the north-west and south-west growth areas of western Sydney, while protecting some of the city's best remaining bushland for generations to come.

The program enables faster development approvals in 6 local council areas, including Blacktown, Hawkesbury and The Hills in the north-west, and Camden, Campbelltown, and Liverpool in the south-west. This is achieved through biodiversity certification, which removes the need for individual biodiversity assessment in certified areas when development applications are lodged. The program applies to approximately 27,000 ha of land and has already delivered almost 100,000 homes. It is expected to support the delivery of an additional 150,000 new homes by 2041.

The program also generates revenue for the NSW Government to buy land for new reserves and secure funding agreements with landowners to permanently conserve their land, offsetting the impacts of development on biodiversity through the Growth Centres Biodiversity Offset Program.

The program sets out commitments which require the permanent protection of 2,000 ha of existing native vegetation within the growth areas and the protection of at least 2,400 ha of either Cumberland plain woodland or other grassy woodland communities outside the growth areas.

The biodiversity certification applies to land identified in the North West Growth Centre and the South West Growth Centre. Biodiversity certification helps speed up the development application process by removing the need for site-by-site threatened species assessments. By addressing environmental impacts upfront, it provides greater certainty for developers and improved conservation outcomes for the community.

On 6 June 2025, the Minister for the Environment extended the biodiversity certification for the Growth Centres planning rules for 1 year, to 30 June 2026. This extension allowed a review of the program, while ensuring continued certainty for stakeholders.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is conducting a detailed review of the biodiversity certification.

Depending on the review outcomes, DCCEEW may recommend an extension for the program's biodiversity certification beyond 1 July 2026.

We are supporting the review and potential extension through:

• reviewing the funding arrangements associated with biodiversity offsets and land acquisition for conservation
• a proposed transition from the special infrastructure contribution (SIC) to the housing and productivity contribution (HPC) framework from 1 July 2026.

The Housing and Productivity Contribution – Implementation Guideline (PDF, 6.4 MB) released in August 2023 provides further details of the proposed transition to the HPC framework.

Together, these coordinated efforts are planned to support the housing and productivity contribution transition and biodiversity certification by 1 July 2026.