Blue Mountains City Council will make a submission to the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Planning and Environment opposing initial proposals for the future development of dual occupancies, multi-unit housing and other medium density housing within the City.
Mayor, Councillor Mark Greenhill, said, “The proposed changes have the potential to significantly increase housing density in the Blue Mountains, changing the fundamental character of our City.”
The proposal is to expand the range of building projects that do not require a Developmental Application, but only a complying development certificate, to include low-rise (two-storey) medium density housing in a range of residential zones. These developments would bypass the elected Council, and be determined by technical staff or private certifiers based on set criteria with negligible neighbour notification.
Council’s main concern is that the proposed changes would set State-wide minimum lot size requirements for medium density housing across the board, irrespective of minimum lots sizes in Local Environmental Plans (LEPs). The Department are also questioning whether they should expand zones where multi-unit housing zones would be permitted.
“The ink has barely dried on the Minister’s approval of the new Blue Mountains LEP 2015”, said the Mayor, “Yet we are now faced with the risk of significantly increased development that is inappropriate for a City within a World Heritage Area.
“This proposal is a retrograde step that will erode the strategic planning reflected in the Blue Mountains LEP 2015 and Council’s Residential Development Strategy, as well as the public planning processes that underpin them.”
The Council also expressed its dismay at the Department’s increasing practice of proposing significant, unilateral changes to the Standard Instrument LEP or to State Policy that bypass local planning processes and community engagement.
Councillor Greenhill said, “The NSW Government seems intent on bypassing meaningful community participation on significant strategic planning policy, with a particular penchant for inviting community comment over the Christmas holiday period.”
If the proposal proceeds, the Council will seek an exemption to the Code SEPP. “This is on the grounds that explicit recognition of the special qualities of the Blue Mountains, now enshrined in the Blue Mountains LEP 2015, was acknowledged by the NSW Government only six weeks ago.”
The changes are proposed to apply across New South Wales.
