Last night council resolved to bring the TOD Scenarios out for public exhibition. Members of the public will have the opportunity to have their say about which scenarios they like, which scenarios they don’t like, and why.
The scenarios and the consultation material is being fine-tuned before the public exhibition formally starts in early/mid November. The exhibition period is four weeks, which is longer than the statutory requirement, and given the significance of this topic I suspect that any submissions made after the exhibition close might also be considered before the staff write up their report in February.
More information about the upcoming TOD scenarios is found in the following media release. https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Council-to-ask-for-community-feedback-on-new-housing-scenarios
And for those interested in my opening speech from last night, refer to the below.
In November 2023, the NSW Government dissolved the Greater Cities Commission along with any long-term infrastructure and housing plan that Sydney had in place.
In November 2023, Ku-ring-gai also proactively wrote to the Planning Minister stating that we would like to meet and discuss the approach to housing and infrastructure. This meeting was eventually granted on 29 February 2024 where the minister said that based on his extensive modelling, the suburbs of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon must become Transport Oriented Development precincts and that no other train station within our LGA has the adequate infrastructure to support this scale of development. He also said that these four stations MUST become TOD precincts and that there was no option to opt or swap out.
We asked the Planning Minister whether we can have a 12-month deferred commencement to come up with alternate scenarios and consult the community and he said NO. But he did say that he was willing to lift the TOD maps if council came up with alternate plans that meet or exceed the original policy objectives.
After several more weeks of discussions and a second meeting on 02 May, it was apparent that the NSW Government had no interest in giving Ku-ring-gai residents the opportunity to properly plan housing and infrastructure, and the TOD SEPP provisions were imposed on Ku-ring-gai. At an extraordinary meeting on 08 May, Council resolved unanimously to commence legal action to invalidate the TOD, as well as to prepare alternate long-term scenarios for these four TOD precincts.
The preparation of these scenarios was not easy and took considerable time. Each of the scenarios before us tonight are designed to meet or exceed the State’s target of 22,500 while improving on heritage, urban canopy, and infrastructure outcomes.
These scenarios are by no means perfect. Each scenario has strengths and flaws. And my preference is that all scenarios are put to public exhibition so that members of the public can formally tell us which ones they like, which ones they don’t like, and their reasons why.
After the public exhibition, council staff will consider the feedback and finetune these scenarios. Council might then select a preferred scenario as the basis for updating our Local Environment Plan. The process of updating the LEP is quite lengthy – Department of Planning guidelines state 420 working days from end to end – but we hope that the NSW Government will expedite the process so that we can get on with delivering housing as per the timing of our requested 12-month deferred commencement.
I now want to make a brief comment about each of these scenarios.
Scenario 3a and 3b seek to protect all of our heritage conservation areas while at the cost of additional uplift in the town centre and/or expanding beyond the 400m. Many residents may find the heights too imposing, and they are welcome to provide that feedback as part of a public exhibition process. I suspect scenario 3a will not be supported by council next year, but it’s good to put it out to public so that they know what a ‘worse case scenario’ looks like. I like scenario 3b a lot, but I am not certain whether it will have the Planning Minister’s approval as he previously thought it would clash with low- and mid-rise changes yet to be finalised.
Scenario 2 seeks to protect 78% of our heritage conservation areas while providing milder uplift in the town centre. There are some benefits to this, although there are also peculiarities such as the destruction of HCA’s while non-HCA land is left at 2 storeys. We wait to receive public feedback on these matters.
Scenario 2b is one that we requested as the ‘minor amendment case’ back on 08 May, and we are proposing that this too goes out to public exhibition after some finetuning by our staff. It only saves a third of the HCAs and I personally do not think it is as good as the other scenarios. However, I think it’s very important for 2b to go out for public comment. I think back to September 2020 with Ku-ring-gai’s Draft Housing Strategy, where staff proposed 3 housing options and councillors were bombarded with over 1,200 emails – many residents criticising council for not making a 4th option available. From this experience, I think it’s important to give residents all five scenarios representing the full spectrum of possibilities, silencing any complaints that council has withheld scenarios from the public feedback process.
Finally I’d say that as part of the public feedback process, I encourage all councillors to look at the quality, rationale, and motivations behind each submission rather than the number of residents offering support for or opposition against each scenario. There will be residents providing feedback that maximises their short-term land value, but as Councillors we are looking out for the best interest of our residents over the next 100 years.
