Housing affordability is a critical issue in the City of Parramatta and across Sydney’s overheated property market. The Reserve Bank recently confirmed that Sydney housing prices have surged 18.9% in the year to March 2017. At her first press conference in January, the incoming NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared it “the biggest issue people have across the state.” Independent polling confirms this. The verage price of a house in Greater Sydney is now $1.124 million, and the average unit price is $711,256. Recent international research confirms that Sydney now has the second least affordable housing in the world, and many low and moderate income households, first home buyers and vulnerable people are locked out of the housing market. City of Parramatta is Sydney’s central city, the demographic and geographic heart of the Sydney region, and the centre of the expanding Greater Western Sydney region. In 2016, Parramatta was home to over 230,000 people, and the population is set to grow to nearly 400,000 over the next two decades to 2036. Public and private investment is driving growth and change in the City of Parramatta, including rising property prices.