Australia

This is the best summary I could come up with:

New South Wales councils that meet and beat new housing targets will be given extra cash by the state government for sporting facilities, parks, footpaths and road maintenance under a $200m grant program.

The premier, Chris Minns, will announce the updated housing targets for 43 councils on Wednesday along with the incentive scheme, as the government attempts to speed up infill development across Sydney.

He said one of the reasons housing targets had failed was the “enormous burden” placed on western Sydney, in areas lacking infrastructure for their growing populations.

“We’ve asked local councils to pick up the slack, to maintain the roads, to provide the parking, to make sure services are there for entire new communities but they haven’t been given the help they need to do it,” he said.

It also announced a speculative plan to build two new metro stations and transform the Rosehill racecourse into a site for tens of thousands of homes, which the premier described as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to deal with the state’s chronic housing crisis.

According to KPMG analysis released on Tuesday, developers have yet to begin work on about 40,000 new homes across Australia – including 11,170 in Sydney – despite being granted building approvals.

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