Housing Diversity plan on pause for pondering

Council’s Housing Diversity Planning Proposal, a major planning document which has the potential to reshape residential zones across the City, was presented to the new Councillor cohort in December 2024. 

Thankfully the new councillors were concerned enough about the lack of genuine community consultation and city-wide impacts of this controversial issue to not support the proposal, request more information, have more options considered, and have several internal workshops to better understand the issues, options and implications. 

To address the housing crisis the State Government has already directed local governments to permit increasing housing density within 400m of designated train stations (Fassifern is not a ‘designated’ train station) and local business centres, including Toronto. 

In addition the State government is aiming “to permit three to six storey flat residential buildings in the R3 Medium Density Residential Zone within 800m proximity of town centres and train stations. It also aims to permit multi-dwelling housing, attached housing and two-storey residential flat buildings in the R2 Low Density Residential zone within 800m proximity of town centres and train stations” (p12 LMCC’s Recommendations to the Development and Planning Standing Committee Meeting - Monday 2nd December 2024)

Council is, however, proposing to allow for potential density increase in every R2 and R3 zoned block across the entire city, subject to their suitability. It will also allow suitable blocks to be subdivided down to 200sqm. 

From a local perspective where our community is dominated by large, often bushland, blocks in a R2 zone (low density, the proposed changes have the potential to see a land use change that would decimate our bushland corridor as building footprints are increased at the expense of our biodiverse assets. Council states the planning proposal applies to residential zoned land and will not increase risk to critical habitat or threatened species, populations or ecological communities, or their habitats. Within our community threatened species, such as Squirrel Gliders, Powerful Owls and Tetratheca juncea, do exist, fragmentation of vegetated corridors is a key driver of local extinctions and in a biodiversity crisis this should be acknowledged. Indeed,  Council’s own species management plans recognise this. 

Additionally, as many would be aware, our existing infrastructure is inadequate for the current population  let alone the projected increase. Footpaths are almost non-existent locally and Council has repeatedly advised that new ones will not be constructed due to geography and low population; increasing density in a geographically constrained area will still not result in more footpaths. Local roads are already too narrow in places hampering parking and access during construction projects. Public space per capita for the Toronto area has already been identified as not meeting the needs of the projected population increase.

Genuine community consultation is required to better understand the Council’s proposal and its impact. Only 20 submissions were received during the public consultation period. The question has to be raised, is this a representative sample of the residential population that will be impacted by the city-wide Housing Diversity Plan?

Our local councillors are keen to ensure that the community is aware of the very real impacts this proposal would deliver. 

Take a chance to read the Housing Diversity plan and communicate with your councillors. https://shape.lakemac.com.au/housing-diversity 

Cr Anthony Swinsburg is actively seeking community feedback. 

All Councillors have a workshop on the Housing Diversity proposal in early February. 

Our West Award Councillors are; 
Anthony Swinsburg (Ind) - aswinsburg@lakemac.nsw.gov.au 
Madeline Bishop (ALP) - mbishop@lakemac.nsw.gov.au 
Kate Warner (LI) - kwarner@lakemac.nsw.gov.au
Jason Pauling (Lib) - jpauling@lakemac.nsw.gov.au