Signature Care Holdings submitted a proposal to rezone 12 hectares of land at 20 Hely Avenue in Turvey Park, once home to Charles Sturt University's south campus, into residential land.

On Monday night, the application was approved six votes to one, with Councillor Amelia Parkins the lone dissenting voice.

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Cr Parkins said she wasn't against the planning the proposal or residential building on that site, but voted against the proposal because of what she saw as a lack of future-focused planning and information available to council.

"The reason I voted against it was that I didn't feel I had enough information on whether residential development there is appropriate and what the implications of a development would be on the broader community," she said.

"It's the lack of strategic planning."

She said that council had to seriously consider the type of housing Wagga needed for a future that might see the city's population reach 100,000.

"I recognise there's a huge shortage of housing," she said.

"What I'm most interested in is the type of housing Wagga needs to provide and what council can do to meet that demand.

"And that we're doing that in a strategic, future-driven manner, rather than ad hoc which is how it felt to me."

Senior strategic planner at Wagga City Council Crystal Atkinson said the council planned to develop a residential strategy, but in the meantime it would judge proposals on their merits on a case-by-case basis.

"Housing availability is quite critical at the moment ... if we put a hold on this development ... that would mean we get to a point where housing supply was too diminished," she said.

Cr Parkins said the council should get a clear housing strategy in place before any new subdivision was given the green light. But she believes the council's lack of resources stands in the way of any long-term planning.

"We don't know what the future will look like, but we need to plan for that, all the indicators are that we are going to reach 100,000 [people]," she said.

Cr Parkins points to the newer subdivisions at Estella and Gobbagombalin, which are still waiting for essential services such as shops, as an example of a lack of forward planning.

"We're going to need more than houses, we're going to need usable open space, we're going to need transport, we're going to need shops," she said.

"That's where my concern lies, that we're not looking at it strategically as a big picture. We're saying 'there's an immediate need for housing, here's some vacant space, let's throw some houses on it'."

Despite the vote, Cr Parkins said she would continue to "keep pressure on the executive at council" and advocate for a housing masterplan for the future.

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