Is Your Property in a NSW TOD Precinct? What It Means for Landowners

There’s a reasonable chance the NSW Government changed what you can build on your block — and never sent a letter. If you own land within a short walk of a train or metro station, the Transport Oriented Development (TOD) reforms may have quietly handed you significantly more development capacity, and with it, a real lift in land value.

Here’s what the program actually does, which areas are affected, and how to find out if your property is one of them.

What the TOD program is

TOD is the NSW Government’s plan to put more homes close to existing transport, jobs and services. It’s a central plank of the state’s commitment under the National Housing Accord, and it works by increasing the density permitted around selected stations — turning underused, well-located land into sites that can take apartments and mid-rise housing.

The program runs on two tiers, and the difference between them matters a great deal to individual owners.

Tier 1 — the eight accelerated precincts

Tier 1 covers eight major transport hubs — including Bankstown, Bella Vista, Crows Nest, Homebush, Hornsby, Kellyville, Macquarie Park and Bays West. Land within roughly 1,200 metres of these stations is being master-planned and rezoned by the Department itself, with capacity for around 47,800 new homes over 15 years. These precincts also carry affordable-housing requirements and coordinated infrastructure spending.

If you’re in a Tier 1 precinct, your outcome is shaped by the precinct master plan rather than a single statewide rule.

Tier 2 — the 37 station precincts

Tier 2 is where most private owners will find themselves. It applies new planning controls to land within 400 metres of 37 stations across NSW, creating capacity for around 138,000 homes over 15 years. Rather than a bespoke master plan, Tier 2 works through statewide planning controls that lift what’s permitted in one move.

What changed for Tier 2 owners

Inside a Tier 2 precinct, the controls open up meaningfully:

• Residential flat buildings are now permitted in residential zones and local-centre zones, with shop-top housing permitted in local-centre and commercial zones.
• Height of up to 22 metres for a residential flat building, and up to 24 metres for shop-top housing.
• Floor space ratio of up to 2.5:1 — a major uplift on typical low-density controls.
• Minimum lot size requirements removed, though lots must still have a minimum width of 21 metres.
• Active street frontages required at ground level in local-centre zones (think cafés or shops below housing). For a site that was previously limited to a single dwelling or a duplex, that’s a different proposition entirely.

Why this is now, not “coming soon”

The important shift in 2026 is that the controls have been finalised. That means owners and developers can lodge applications directly and bypass the lengthy rezoning process that used to stand between a site and a redevelopment. The opportunity is live, not theoretical — which is also why competition for well-located sites in these precincts is sharpening.

What it means for your land

If your property sits inside a Tier 2 precinct, three things are worth thinking through:

• Value. Land that can now take a mid-rise building is worth more than land capped at one or two dwellings — often substantially more. Even if you never build, that capacity is now part of your asset.
• Redevelopment. A higher FSR and the removal of minimum lot size can make a standalone apartment or shop-top project feasible where it wasn’t before.
• Amalgamation. Many TOD sites work best when neighbours combine lots into a single, better-shaped development parcel. If you and your neighbours are all newly “up-zoned,” a coordinated sale can be worth more than selling individually.

The catch — read before you celebrate

The reforms expand what’s permitted; they don’t remove assessment. A few realities to keep in front of you:

• Most TOD redevelopment still runs through a development application, assessed on its merits.
• Design quality, setbacks, privacy, parking and overshadowing all still apply.
• Tier 1 precincts carry affordable-housing contributions held in perpetuity.
• Infrastructure capacity, heritage and environmental constraints can limit what a specific lot can actually achieve.
• Not every property near a station qualifies — the 400-metre walking-distance boundary and the precinct maps decide it, not the straight-line distance. In other words: the headline controls tell you the ceiling, not what your particular block can deliver.

How to find out if you’re in a precinct

Start with the NSW Government’s TOD precinct mapping and the Planning Portal’s Spatial Viewer, and check your property against the relevant station list. The boundary is measured as a walking distance, so two lots the same distance “as the crow flies” can land on opposite sides of the line.

Once you know you’re in (or near) a precinct, the real question becomes what your specific site can support once setbacks, frontage, parking and design controls are applied — and whether the numbers stack up.

[ Is your block inside a TOD precinct? ]

PlanLand helps NSW property owners work out exactly what the reforms unlock on their site — capacity, feasibility, and the pathway to an approval. If your property is near a station, it’s worth a proper look before the market does it for you.

Link Teale · Design Manager 0403 993 876 · link@planland.com.au · planland.com.au

General information only, current as at June 2026. Planning controls vary by site and council and change regularly — get a site-specific assessment before you act.