There are big plans for this vacant land in the Harbour City's booming south-west. What the future holds depends on who you talk to.
It was supposed be Sydney's answer to Silicon Valley.
But six years after plans for this $5 billion tech hub were approved, its near 300-hectare site is still a paddock.
The blueprint was bold: gleaming laboratories, office towers, a school and 12,000 much-needed jobs in the city's booming south-western suburbs.
But there are now fears the Sydney Science Park dream is an expensive "mirage", at risk of being turned into another housing estate on the city's fringes, where residents must commute long distances to earn a crust.
Locals have had enough.
Helen Anderson's property is one of 220 homes in the area that have never had water or sewerage connections.
She's been watching authorities installing utilities at the science park, where, after nearly a decade of planning and lobbying, concrete proposals for buildings remain hard to find.
Despite living just 2 kilometres from the project, Ms Anderson says it feels like her community is in "the Bermuda Triangle".
Western Sydney's under-construction airport is already transforming the area around Badgerys Creek.
Its runways and terminals are the centrepiece of a multi-billion-dollar "Aerotropolis" development.
That project also includes manufacturing, office, housing and freight hubs.
Then, there's the science park.
It's due to be built about 3km north of the airport and was not part of government plans.
The park is the brainchild of property development firm Celestino, which bought the site for more than $40 million in 2010.
It was conceived before the airport was given the green light, and in one 2013 meeting, the NSW Department of Planning and Environment described the development as "out-of-sequence" with public priorities.
In a subsequent letter, it said any essential infrastructure required to make the plan a reality — like connections to utilities — should come at "no cost to government".
But a lot has changed in the past decade.
NSW MP Mark Latham claims the project has "received preferential treatment" on a scale "never seen before in Western Sydney".
"I think there's been a deliberate state government policy over many years to do whatever the developer wants."
In a statement, Celestino CEO Matthew Scard said the company had "not had any preferential treatment".
Mr Latham is particularly concerned about a deal, that he says is worth $200 million, between Sydney Water — a NSW government agency — and the developer, which was signed in 2020.
He describes the agreement, which will see water and sewerage services, along with recycled water used in the science park, as a "gift from the state government to the developer".
Sydney Water would not confirm how much money Celestino was contributing to the project.
Publicly available information shows that in January this year, Sydney Water awarded a contractor $25 million to build a wastewater facility at the science park.
"It was a standard policy that whatever happened there to be no cost to the government. It was to be fully funded by the developer. That commitment was broken," Mr Latham said.
In a statement, Sydney Water said its original plan for the area did not include servicing the science park.
However, after reviewing the proposal, "Sydney Water advised they were willing to work with the developer".
"The developer acted on this advice, resulting in a commercial agreement for innovative servicing."
University, residents 'extremely disappointed'
Ms Anderson's property is on the other side of the airport to the science park in an area called the Dwyer Road Precinct.
"Basically, the state government is setting it all up for the developers and leaving out the landowners who pay rates, who pay taxes," she says.
"They are just discounting them because they are not paying the big dollar to get the land developed to support the infrastructure behind the airport. That's what it looks like to us."
Ms Anderson says she and the 1,000 people who live in her community have been given no indication of when they'll be joining the rest of Sydney's water and sewerage network.
In the science park, where there is no concrete timeline to start constructing buildings, Sydney Water said "limited" services were currently being supplied and additional infrastructure was expected to be delivered in 2024.
Sydney Water could not say when Dwyer Road residents would be connected to water and sewerage, and that it was in the "planning phase".
"I think that when you combine that with how, as a precinct we've been treated through the whole Aerotropolis planning process, it makes you think that you're not worthy of the same level of consideration as other landowners," Ms Anderson says.
Mr Scard said Celestino was "unable to forecast" when building works would begin in the science park due to government planning delays.
He said work for essential service infrastructure, including electricity and water, was underway.
"We are keen to progress other construction but we can't while government is still finalising the development controls for the site," he said.
Water isn't the only utility planned for the site — it will also get a train station.
An $11 billion new driverless metro line is set to connect Western Sydney Airport to the rest of the city by 2026.
Western Sydney University's Andy Marks, the pro-vice chancellor for strategy, government, and alliances, is "extremely disappointed".
When plans for the line were finalised last year, a station was included at the science park, but the university's campus at nearby Werrington, which services more than 5,000 students, missed out.
"We understood that this route was about building connections into the new airport and sites of job creation, so we thought that the case that we made was pretty strong," he said.
"A rail line or a metro line doesn't come along every day.
"That's a generational opportunity and to have it come so close and yet be still so far away, is extremely disappointing."
The NSW Long Term Transport Masterplan, released in 2012, shows a rail corridor running east of Celestino's science park development.
By the time another government employment plan was released in June 2013, the corridor had moved so that it passed through the science park.
Two months later, Celestino's official blueprint for its Sydney Science Park was presented to Penrith City Council, and included not just a train line, but also a station.
At that stage, nothing was official.
But when the final plans for the metro line were released in July last year, the science park was given a station.
A report by Sydney Metro on the new line notes the university missed out because of construction constraints and the extra travel time it would have added for patrons heading to the airport.
A spokesperson for Sydney Metro said the station locations were decided based on a range of factors, including supporting population growth and new jobs, providing better transport connections, value for money and community and stakeholder feedback.
In the latest version of the science park plan released in 2019, Celestino said building a metro station would mean it could expand the project.
It claimed the planned space for employment developments could be more than doubled to 1 million square metres, and that retail space could be tripled to 100,000sqm if the train stopped in the science park.
The number of new homes could also be 10 times higher, and include up to 40,000 dwellings.
Developments can be a 'mirage'
Penrith City Council estimates it will need between 80,000 and 110,000 new jobs in the next 20 years to help support a population explosion.
The area is an important part of the NSW government's long-term vision in which Greater Sydney's sprawling metropolis is carved into three distinct cities, where most residents live within 30 minutes of their jobs.
Sydney Science Park — hailed by local media as "Penrith's answer to Silicon Valley" in 2017 — promised 12,000 knowledge jobs, according to the developer's masterplan.
For developers though, houses offer a much faster return than the longer-term investment required for commercial projects.
Mr Latham is worried Celestino is trying to increase the number of homes in its development.
The approved plan for the nearly 300ha site is for 3,400 dwellings.
Celestino asked to increase the number of homes to more than 30,000 at a meeting with the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) in 2018.
When the Aerotropolis plans came out in 2020, Celestino requested the 3,400 cap on homes be removed.
So far, that wish has not been granted.
In a statement, Mr Scard did not rule out pushing for more homes in the future.
"If we do pursue additional dwellings, we will follow the DPE's masterplan guidelines," he said.
A DPE spokesperson said the developer had not received preferential treatment and that there were no plans to approve an increase in the number of homes on the site.
Mr Latham claims developers have historically promised jobs to Western Sydney councils in order to get the initial zoning.
"Then they walk it back to just another housing estate," he says.
"Penrith Council is not the first council in the history of Western Sydney to be sucked in by the promise of big employment land development that turned out to be a mirage."
University of Sydney planning expert Glen Searle said the Aerotropolis would not create the 200,000 new jobs — particularly in health and education — promised in plans.
He said the main employment opportunities it would create would be in the logistics sector.
"But beyond that, it's hard to see the high-tech thing really getting off the ground in a meaningful way because those jobs are already located around Westmead and Parramatta," he said.
Buildings related to science are hard to find in the park's blueprint.
Organisations like the CSIRO and Sydney University were set to be involved initially — but four years on, their commitments are less firm.
In 2018, Penrith City Council approved a development application for a seven-storey laboratory for a company called Baiada, which owns Celestino.
Sydney Water is now also listed as a partner.
Development of the science park was expected to continue for 25 years.
Mr Scard said "Celestino has established relationships with a range of organisations", including the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, for a 2,000 student STEM school.
He said delays in government Aerotropolis planning had affected the science park, and, that when there was more certainty, "Celestino expects to formalise its commercial agreements with potential tenants".
Mr Latham says the project is getting favourable treatment over existing organisations and residents.
"It was all very well-intentioned but it was it was pie in the sky and always ran the risk of ending up as a housing estate," Mr Latham said.
More than 10 years after Celestino purchased the land, it's unclear when, if ever, the vision will become a reality.
Credits:
Editor: Riley Stuart
Graphics: Mark Doman, Thomas Brettell
Video: Peter Robinson
Photography: Jack Fisher
