Meet The Greens Candidate For Lord Mayor of Sydney: Sylvie Ellsmore

Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore is running as a Greens candidate for Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney in the 2024 New South Wales Local Elections. 

Who Is Sylvie Ellsmore? 

Greens candidate Sylvie Ellsmore joined the City of Sydney Council in 2021 and was elected as Deputy Mayor in September 2022. 

She is the founding member and Chair of the City of Sydney’s new Housing for All Working Group and Deputy Chair of the City’s Housing for All Committee. 

Ellsmore has worked as a native title lawyer and community organiser. Her roles have included serving as the former Policy Coordinator at the Sydney Policy Lab (University of Sydney), Executive Officer of the NSW Reconciliation Council, and researcher for the Environmental Defenders Office.  

In collaboration with Aboriginal land councils and environmental groups, she has coordinated anti-racism and environmental justice campaigns and secured legal protections for cultural heritage. 

She has previously represented Newtown as a Local Councillor on Marrickville Council from 2012 to 2016. Ellsmore is also a founding member of the Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlington, Waterloo Watch (REDWatch) residents’ action group, which has been active for over 20 years. 

Sylvie Ellsmore’s Key Achievements 

Ellsmore’s focus on the City of Sydney Council has been strengthening the Council’s work on affordable and public housing. This includes helping residents stop the sell-off of public housing, ensuring developers contribute more towards affordable housing, and enacted planning regulations to protect affordable homes from being replaced by luxury apartments.  

Additionally, she helped secured funding for Australia’s first housing cooperative specifically for trans women, worked with locals to make council venue hire free for community groups, and secured support for the phase out of gas in new developments.  

Sylvie Ellsmore’s Policies 

The Green’s Lord Mayoral candidate has outlined her plan to address the housing crisis by constructing accessible, rent-capped public housing, to increase the requirements on developments for affordable housing to 30% minimum, and to establish a community battery & solar network – Sydney Solar – to provide “cheap, clean energy” to renters and those on low incomes.  

She also plans to improve the city’s affordability by expanding essential community services like early childhood education. 

Greens Advocacy 

In December 2023, the City of Sydney voted for a Greens motion, called on the Australian Government to take urgent actions towards a ceasefire in Gaza. 

The Greens have also focused on acknowledging Sydney’s rich and diverse history by incorporating Aboriginal heritage recognition into public domain and park upgrades. They successfully advocated for the naming of two new streets near Circular Quay—Ah Toy Lane and Sai Ying Lane—honouring early Chinese-Australian families and the original Chinatown site. 

With reports of numerous development applications in the eastern part of Sydney aimed at demolishing or renovating relatively affordable homes to make way for large luxury apartments or mansions, the Greens moved to create new rules against ‘net dwelling loss.’ These rules were endorsed by the Council in 2023 and have just been exhibited.  

According to Ellsmore, there is “still so much more to do”, especially in addressing housing affordability and cost of living. 

“Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and the City of Sydney Council is the wealthiest council in NSW. Council focuses only a tiny percentage of its resources on affordable housing and is failing to meet even modest targets to make our city more equal.” 

“We cannot afford any more lost opportunities. Twenty eight years of council schemes have left us with only 1.19% affordable housing stock from developer levies – despite council rezonings which have delivered billions in wealth for developers.  

“It is not good enough to continue with business as usual, when the community needs – and is demanding – radically stronger action, especially on housing affordability.],” Ellsmore said.  

Sydney’s council and mayoral elections take place on Saturday, September 14, 2024. For more information on candidates and the election process, click here.