Thousands of apartments planned for the Waterloo redevelopment in the inner city will make the suburb the most densely populated part of Sydney, new analysis shows.

About 7500 homes for more than 14,000 residents are planned for towers up to 40 storeys high on the Waterloo public housing estate and the "Metro Quarter" around the suburb's future rail station. This would make the area roughly double the density of two of Sydney's most built-up suburbs, Rhodes and Zetland, according to analysis by urban planners at the City of Sydney.

Waterloo's redeveloped public housing estate will become home to about 14,000 Sydneysiders in the next 20 years. The government plans to demolish the site's existing public housing buildings. Credit:Robert Pearce

The planners compared the state government's plans for Waterloo with built-up areas of a similar size – between 15 and 25 hectares – throughout Sydney.

Under the plans, the 21-hectare Waterloo site will have 360 dwellings per hectare, which the council's analysis suggests would make it the densest mass of development in Sydney.