Finishing Woollahra Station Won’t Deliver the Affordable Homes Sydney Desperately Needs, Town Planners Argue.

The NSW Government has proposed completing the long-abandoned Woollahra train station, located on the Eastern Suburbs line between Bondi Junction and Edgecliff. Originally started in the 1970s but abandoned due to cost overruns and community opposition, the station is now being revisited as part of a broader strategy to unlock up to 10,000 new homes in the area.

By rezoning Woollahra and surrounding areas, authorities hope to enable additional housing close to public transport, jobs, and green spaces, a seemingly ideal way to increase urban density without creating new stress on roads, water, or essential services.

But as any development expert would note, the question is not whether the station can be built, but whether it will actually deliver on the promise of increased housing supply and affordability.

The Promise: More Trains, More Homes

The government’s pitch is simple: complete Woollahra station, and the area becomes a magnet for new housing. A functioning stop would, in theory, unlock the development of apartments and mixed-use projects, making the inner east more accessible and livable for new residents.

The logic extends further. With faster access to the Sydney CBD, people may be more open to living in smaller, denser apartments near the station. That could free up pressure elsewhere in the city, especially in areas currently straining under demand.

And there’s an almost symbolic appeal here, too; the station has been sitting half-built for decades, a ghost of an abandoned plan. Turning it into a working hub could transform an eyesore into a housing opportunity, delivering thousands of homes in one of Sydney’s most expensive postcodes.

On paper, it’s a compelling case: dust off old infrastructure, plug it into the network, and create housing in a high-demand area. But as every planner knows, the leap from theory to delivery is where things get tricky.

Expert Town Planners Warn Transport Alone Won’t Fix Sydney’s Housing Crisis

More trains, more homes, more affordability. While this theory is attractive, the practice is far more complicated.

Take transport, for instance. The proposed station would sit a mere 900 metres from Edgecliff and just over a kilometre from Bondi Junction. That’s barely one stop apart, and as Professor David Levinson from Sydney Uni put it, “an eight-carriage train itself is about 160 metres long, as a point of comparison.” In other words, we’re talking about a stop that might shave minutes for a handful of locals, while slowing down the entire Eastern Suburbs line. Without significant new density around Woollahra, this becomes a case of infrastructure running on hope rather than numbers.

Then there’s the politics, and in Woollahra, politics matters. Locals famously killed off the station in the 1970s, described at the time as resisting “practically over the dead bodies of Woollahra residents.” Half a century later, not much has changed. The current mayor has already floated the idea that government money would be better spent on parks, not stations. And let’s be honest: when some of Sydney’s most well-heeled suburbs push back, governments tend to listen.

And that brings us to the housing question. Supporters argue that finishing Woollahra station could unlock 10,000 new homes. But transport infrastructure doesn’t magically deliver supply. Sydney has a habit of building shiny new projects and crossing its fingers that density will somehow follow.

Take the Metro Northwest: billions poured into brand new stations at Kellyville and Tallawong, yet years later, the surrounding areas remain largely low-density suburbs. The housing uplift simply didn’t materialise at the pace or scale originally promised. Infrastructure alone didn’t move the needle, it was the missing density that stalled the vision.

Without rezoning, clear housing targets, and actual delivery of affordable stock, Woollahra risks joining the list of costly infrastructure projects that over-promise and under-deliver.

As Peter Tulip, chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, bluntly put it: “Because Woollahra residents got there first, they are claiming finders keepers.”

It’s a sharp reminder that building a station is the easy part - it’s the politics and planning around density that make or break these projects.

So yes, Woollahra station could help. But only if the government is willing to tackle the density question head-on, not just cut the ribbon on a long-forgotten train stop.