A long-awaited plan to transform Parramatta's underdeveloped 'other side' has been revealed, putting the vast car park at the centre of the precinct at the heart of the proposal.
The plan, reported by Anthony Segaert for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Brisbane Times, confronts a question that has lingered for years: can this neglected part of the CBD really be made new? The area — separated from the rapidly changing heart of Parramatta by the rail corridor — has remained a patchwork of surface parking and older buildings, even as the city's northern flank has been reshaped by projects such as Parramatta Square, new towers and the riverfront renewal.
At the centre of the precinct sits the car park, a sprawling single landholding that planners have long viewed as both the problem and the opportunity. It occupies some of the most valuable land in Western Sydney, yet it functions as a low-density hole in the middle of a CBD that the state government has designated as Sydney's second city centre. The plan treats the site as the key to unlocking the rest of the area, with redevelopment intended to provide the density, activity and investment that the broader precinct has lacked.
Its release comes at a politically sensitive moment. The NSW government is pushing councils to plan for significantly more housing, particularly around transport hubs, and Parramatta is central to that push. Any scheme that replaces the car park with mixed-use development — housing, commercial space, retail and public open space — would align with those priorities. But it would also displace hundreds of parking spaces relied on by commuters, workers and shoppers, and the cost of replacing them could shape the project's viability.
Supporters argue the precinct's underdevelopment is a waste of one of Sydney's most accessible locations, close to Parramatta station, the light rail and major road corridors. Renewal, they say, would deliver a complete city rather than a CBD with a car park at its core. Critics, however, will ask whether the plan risks repeating past mistakes: density without infrastructure, buildings without public space, and a transformation that benefits developers before residents.
The plan now moves into consultation and assessment, a process that will test both the appetite for change and the depth of opposition. For the people of Parramatta, the 'other side' has been the site of unmet promises for decades. This plan, at minimum, ensures the conversation is no longer about whether it should change — but how.