What’s happening to property rights in NSW?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald,

[NSW] Homeowners will not lose their property to developers under proposed compulsory acquisition laws, unless an urban renewal project is in the works, NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor says.

Governments can already compulsorarily acquire land for roads and railways. This is generally accepted. However, being also able to compulsorarily acquire land for an urban renewal project is going too far.

The Herald writes:

Mr Sartor said legislation has long existed for the government to resume land but the draft legislation will further clarify existing laws and prevent owners holding out for more money.

He said a billion dollar civic project for Parramatta, in Sydney’s west, has been stalled by a number of small commercial property owners who refuse to sell up and get out.

“Why should we have one or two property owners standing in the way - it just seems crazy,” Mr Sartor told reporters in Sydney today.

“It’s the power to better plan our cities.”

“It just seems crazy”? To whom?

Under these proposals, the benefits from “urban renewal projects” would be taken to be so great that the property rights of affected property owners would be effectively abolished. This is extraordinary. The state is effectively saying that the balance between the property rights of a small number of individuals and the projected benefits from the urban renewal project are to be tilted to the planned large urban renewal project.

Mr Sartor has been quoted on tonight’s ABC news as saying that the proposals would not affect 99.99% of householders (or property owners). This is irrelevant. Too bad if you’re the property owner whose property is acquired for the “greater good” - with planners having determined this “greater good”.

Compulsorarily acquisition for infrastructure is different to this type of acquisition for “urban renewal projects”. The benefits from the former are much more predictable than the latter. I’m sure that people will remember the story a few years ago from China in which a householder held out against a large development for a while and their house appeared like a stalk and flower in the middle of a large hole in the ground. That was China, in which property rights are less developed than NSW.

Mr Sartor apparently doesn’t like people exercising their rights to not sell their property. Well, once you start nibbling away at property rights, where will you stop? What other nibbles will be taken to be beneficial and thus defensible?

This policy looks like a mistake.