Council staff have consolidated your feedback around preferred Transport Oriented Development (TOD) scenario for Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon and come up with a new draft, which will be considered by Council this coming Monday 31st 7pm.
Their method of reviewing the public consultation material, selecting a community reference (3b), and rationale for adjustments to the revised scenario are provided in the report linked below. This new TOD scenario means that some areas will be taller while other are shorter, but overall it matches or exceeds the state’s housing target while providing a better chance of preserving canopy and most of the heritage conservation areas.
https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/03/OMC_31032025_AGN_AT_EXTRA.PDF
The page most people are interested in (with the maps) is page 26. (Note, I haven’t had the chance to study this map in detail yet but upon first viewing it seems quite different / weird compared to the draft shown to councillors 7 weeks ago.)
There are also plans for new parks on pages 49-50 of the report.
As with anything that involves people’s homes, I understand that this will draw strong emotions with some who are for what is proposed and others who are strongly against. But as a councillor I need to consider what I believe is in the residents’ and ratepayers’ long term interests for the local area, rather than short term personal preferences.
If you feel strongly about what you see, you have the opportunity to present at the public forum this Monday 31st at 5pm. Details of how to register to speak are below.
https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums
As for the top three questions….
I understand that there are residents who are concerns about how the updated TOD interacts with various State Significant Developments. I share their concerns, and the Department of Planning is aware of these issues. More detail on where the SSDs are along with the council officers’ suggested approach is detailed on pages 18-21 of the report. Of these, I find #7 (Lord St and Roseville Ave) to be most concerning as it is clearly incompatible with the draft TOD scenario.
I also know some of you have questions about properties that are part of the State’s default TOD but not part of the Council’s alternate TOD. My personal understanding of this matter is that the Low- and Mid-Rise Housing provisions will apply, but this has yet to be confirmed in writing and there are others who don’t believe that I am correct in my interpretation. Pages 17-18 has some commentary on this topic but I don’t understand what has been written, and will need to follow-up with staff.
Finally, there are residents living in individually listed heritage items with concerns of being surrounded by development under the TOD alternative. From my understanding, a potential solution is for council to allow these sites to be incorporated with the home preserved while the FSR is distributed elsewhere in the consolidated site. This is on pages 14, 269 and 271 of the report.
I currently haven’t read through the entire report yet so I may have more observations in the coming days.
