Sydney could run out of land for new housing within a decade because of its burgeoning population.
Apartment towers and master-planned houses are mushrooming up to 60km from central Sydney, with heavy construction underway in the the city's south-west and north-western outskirts.
Former farmland on the edge of Sydney is being consumed by new housing projects, as the city continues to expand towards the city basin limits.
Australia's biggest city could run out of land for new housing within a decade because of a population boom (pictured is Oran Park in Sydney's outer south-west)
In just a decade, the population of the Camden local government area ballooned by 58 per cent, surging from 49,645 in 2006 to 78,218, Australian Bureau of Statistics Census figures show.
That rate of growth was more than triple that of greater Sydney - at 17 per cent - over the same period, as the population climbed to 4.8million, fuelled by high levels of immigration.
In Sydney's south-western outskirts Oran Park, a former car race track, mushroomed from less than 200 people in 2011 to 4,765 people five years later.
In another part of Sydney, the opening of the Metro Northwest railway line is also underpinning apartment construction near the Rouse Hill station, almost 50km from the city.
Nearby, West Schofields is expected to house another 45,000 people between 2021 and 2031, the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment projected.
Mark Steinert, the chief executive of residential building group Stockland, this week predicted Sydney could run out of land for new housing within a decade.
Hemmed in by the Blue Mountains to the west and national parks to the north and south, there was little room for further expansion.
Apartment towers and master-planned houses (Oran Park pictured) are mushrooming up to 60km from central Sydney, with heavy construction underway in the the city's south-west and north-western outskirts
Former farmland (Narellan pictured) on the edge of Sydney is making way for new housing projects, as the city continues to expand towards the city basin limits
'There's very little housing land left in Sydney, in fact we'll be out of housing land in 10 to 15 years,' Mr Steinert told the Committee for Economic Development of Australia luncheon.
Former New South Wales Labor premier Bob Carr said high population growth in Sydney would unavoidably lead to high-density housing, killing off the backyard.
Stockland chief executive Mark Steinert: 'We'll be out of housing land in 10 to 15 years'
'What has been Australian life will vanish inevitably,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'You cannot ramp up the population of the Sydney basin with the highest level of immigration of any developed country - in proportion to the existing population - without forcing the city to go up in increased densities.
'We are now looking at the last land available for broad-acre subdivision and development.
'We were never going to be able to sprawl forever.'
Former New South Wales Labor premier Bob Carr said high population growth in Sydney would eventually kill off the backyard
Australia's population surpassed the 25million mark in August 2018, 24 years earlier than predicted in the federal government's first inter-generational report of 2002.
The 1.6 per cent population growth pace is also more than double the rich-world average of 0.7 per cent.
Mr Carr served as foreign minister in 2012 and 2013, as Australia's annual net immigration level surged above 200,000 for the first time, when Julia Gillard was prime minister.
'There was no discussion in cabinet on immigration levels,' he said.
'They continued to be pumped up but there was no opportunity to have a broad debate on migration and population.'
Since the late 1990s, backyard sizes in new Sydney houses have shrunk from 700 square metres to just 400 square metres, in places like Oran Park in the Camden Council area.
Dr Tony Matthews, a senior lecturer in urban and environmental planning with Griffith University, said backyards had shrunk from 700 square metres to just 400 square metres (new house at Oran Park pictured)
Sydney's median house price has fallen by 16.1 per cent since peaking in July 2017.
But at $880,369, detached homes with a backyard are still more than 10 times an average full-time salary of $83,500, which is forcing couples with children to move to an outer suburb.
Griffith University senior lecturer in urban and environmental planning Tony Matthews said backyards, during the past two decades, had shrunk from 700 square metres to just 400 square metres.
