North Gong station not suitable for high density, says council

The state government's Transport Oriented Development program is focused on easing development controls around selected train stations to allow apartment towers up to 24 metres high within a radius of 400 metres.

The aim is to deal with the housing crisis and ensure future residents have easy access to public transport.

The government on Monday announced the rule changes had come into force for Corrimal and 17 other stations across the network, with North Wollongong due to follow in April next year.

However, the city council has put forward Coniston and Unanderra as high density options, in part because it has concerns about the suitability of North Wollongong.

"We've made it very clear that North Wollongong is problematic because it's vulnerable to flooding," Cr Bradbery said.

"And in recent times, you know, we've seen around Porter Street and up that end, there are problems with the flooding events and the stormwater and things of that nature.

"So the reasoning was that we were basically saying, if we're going to go down this path, these would be the better options in terms of where we place high density housing."

The council had been involved in the process of selecting Corrimal station, so Monday's announcement of the easing of planning rules wasn't a surprise to the Lord Mayor.

Cr Bradbery said Corrimal was chosen because of the cokeworks site, which represented a rare large site for redevelopment in the northern suburbs.

"So you had a large area that was available for development," Cr Bradbery said.

"It was also next to a train station anyway. And we as councillors know that was an ideal location for such an intense development."

However, he said the council had flagged the problems of the rail network; for the logic of the cokeworks site to pay off, there needs to be more rail services stopping there.

At present, express services between Wollongong and Sydney do not stop at Corrimal.

"It's one thing to say, let's build around rail transport infrastructure, but where are the rail services that support that?"

"People argue what comes first, chicken or the egg, in terms of the development and the density of population, then that'll attract the rail services.

"But I think it should be the other way around because that will facilitate the uptake of higher density. When you've got better rail services, people will want to live around rail stations."