About the City Plan
Background
The City of Sydney is undertaking a City Plan Review. The necessity for this review has arisen from LGA boundary changes in 2003 and 2004, enlarging the City to 26 square kilometres.
Due to the amalgamations and boundary changes, the City currently operates under four different sets of planning controls which includes several Local Environmental Plans (LEP) and Development Control Plans (DCP) being:
- Central Sydney LEPs & DCPs & Urban Development Plan
- South Sydney LEPs & DCPs
- Leichhardt LEP & DCPs
- Draft Green Square Town Centre LEP & DCP.
The City Plan Review is the umbrella program for reviewing some of the existing controls and to deliver a new comprehensive Local Environmental Plan (LEP) and Development Control Plan (DCP) and supporting information. The Review involves a number of projects, studies and research which all inform the new City Plan.
Why do we need a City Plan?
The existing controls have different approaches to encouraging and regulating development. This situation is confusing for the community, Council and developers. The existing controls are very good in many cases and the Review is not intended to start from scratch but to build on, improve and update the existing planning controls.
There is a need to integrate the planning controls across the entire Local Government Area (LGA), so that consistent planning controls will exist in a single plan. The new City Plan will provide this frame. This is also consistent with the recent State planning reforms which specify that only one Local Environmental Plan (LEP) can apply to the whole LGA and one Development Control Plan (DCP) can apply to a site and/or the whole LGA.
What happens now?
Council has proposed that a new City Plan for the whole LGA be prepared as soon as possible. Work is currently underway to review various elements of existing plans in order to integrate these into the best possible City Plan package as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Projects
As part of the City Plan Review there are over twenty projects underway which will all feed into the new City Plan. These projects are examining various elements of the current plans so as to identify the positive elements to retain and those which need improvements and updating.
The projects are varied but can be categorised as reviewing:
- Issues Based Planning
Controls
These projects examine planning controls focused on specific issues and uses. - Site Specific Planning
Controls
These projects examine planning controls that are specific to a particular site or area.
Two overarching projects will draw together the issues based planning controls, site specific planning controls and supporting studies. They are:
Plan Integration
This project is focused on integrating all of the existing LEPS into one LEP for the whole LGA. The work involves reviewing a number of planning provisions on a clause-by-clause basis and selecting the optimum approach for these provisions in the new City Plan. This must also take account of the proposed ‘standardised LEP’ that the State government is seeking Councils to comply with.
DCP Consolidation
This project involves the review of existing DCPs and establishing an approach to amalgamate these into one consistent DCP for the whole LGA. This project involves an amalgamation (and some review) of the existing three large DCPs, the numerous issue and area focused DCPs and incorporation of new provisions and policies resulting from the studies and projects listed here.
Last Updated: Wednesday 27 February, 2008
