Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils
Data centres are rapidly reshaping employment lands in Northern Sydney, raising urgent questions for planning, infrastructure and local communities.
SGS was engaged by the Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (NSROC) to support its submission to the NSW Legislative Council Inquiry to Data Centres. Our role combined strategic, spatial and economic analysis with direct engagement across the region’s eight councils, including a facilitated workshop to scope key issues and responses.
We analysed the location, scale and infrastructure demands of data centres across Northern Sydney, with a focus on employment lands in precincts such as Macquarie Park and Artarmon. This work examined how data centres are concentrating in industrial and mixed-use zones, and what that means for land supply, job capacity, infrastructure demand and local amenity. We also benchmarked NSW's approach against international examples, including the UK, the Netherlands and Singapore, to identify practical lessons for the local context.
The project informed a set of targeted recommendations to guide future data centre investment and policy. These included clearer state-led spatial planning, stronger environmental performance standards, improved infrastructure contribution frameworks, and better integration of local government expertise in decision-making.
A key focus was infrastructure funding and accountability. As highlighted in NSROC’s submission and reported in media coverage, data centre developers should bear the full cost of connecting to and upgrading energy and water infrastructure, as well as remediating impacts on local systems. “Local communities should not bear the cost of these impacts.”
Overall, the work provides a place-based foundation for balancing the growth of data centres with broader economic, environmental and community outcomes.
