Your feedback on proposed changes to reduce the loss of housing across the City of Sydney area
Project Status: Under review
Contributions to this consultation are closed for evaluation and review. The project team will report back on key outcomes.
What we’re doing
We invite your feedback on proposed planning rules that will help us retain the number of homes available for people in the City of Sydney area to rent, buy and live in.
Our proposed changes are designed to ensure when a residential building is redeveloped the number of ‘dwellings’ or homes within that building does not drop significantly.
Planning proposal
The proposed changes:
- apply to residential flat buildings or a mixed-use building that contains 3 or more dwellings
- limit the loss of dwellings in redevelopment of existing residential flat building or mixed-use development to 15% (rounded to the nearest whole number) or one dwelling, whichever is greater
- include savings and transitional provisions.
These changes do not impact on the conversion of residential floor space to a non-residential floor space.
This means that if a block of 100 units is renovated, the new building must still have at least 85 individual residences. In a block of 10 the new building would need 8.
Where an individual wants to turn a block of 6 apartments into 4 or knock down a block of apartments to create a single home, under the proposed changes, this would not be allowed.
Any development application lodged before this planning proposal is finalised will not be affected by these changes.
Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, 5 April 2024
Why we’re doing this
The purpose of this change is to:
- support housing diversity and affordability by discouraging the replacement of smaller apartments with fewer large apartments
- maintain and grow housing supply in the city
- maintain housing close to amenities and public transport.
The proposed changes are in response to the loss of dwellings and diversity of housing supply. The changes ensure that redevelopment of existing housing stock does not significantly reduce the number and diversity of available dwellings in the local area.
Next steps
We’ll consider all feedback and report the results to Council and the Central Sydney Planning Committee. If approved, it will be sent to the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure for final approval.
The Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure has determined that Council will not be the local plan-making authority for this planning proposal.
How you can give feedback
Consultation closes at 5pm on Friday 23 August 2024.
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Complete our feedback form
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Email or post your feedback
You can give your feedback by email to [email protected] or post to:
Gibran Khouri
Specialist Planner
City of Sydney
456 Kent Street
Sydney NSW 2000