Council opposes Affordable Housing SEPP
Parramatta City Council will make an urgent submission to the planning minister in a bid to stop the state government’s ‘‘one size fits all’’ affordable housing planning laws.
The state government’s contentious Affordable Housing (State Environment Planning Policy), introduced in 2009 and amended in 2011, was designed to bolster affordable housing but has enabled developments that contradict the council’s local planning controls.
Parramatta lord mayor John Chedid told last night’s council meeting that the region’s neighbourhood’s would be destroyed if these types of developments continued.
‘‘The message needs to be clear,’’ he said.
‘‘We want this SEPP removed as quickly as possible.’’
He said there was a need for drastic reform particularly around boarding houses and student housing.
In his mayoral minute he asked that the government give councils authority to introduce appropriate local planning controls that can prohibit or limit the size of boarding houses in residential zones and appropriate local development standards for these developments.
‘‘We want to stop the detrimental impact the current planning laws are having on our neighbourhoods,” Cr Chedid said.
The SEPP, implemented under the previous state government, overrides local planning requirements, makes boarding houses permissible land uses in all residential zones and can prevent councils from refusing eligible development applications.
“The current state government introduced some positive amendments to the planning laws, but they still fall short of the changes needed,” Cr Chedid said.
“Councils in this state have little or no autonomy in making decisions about where boarding houses should be allowed to be built or under what circumstances.
“The state’s laws take a one-size-fits-all approach to the planning for land uses such as boarding houses [and] assumes the same parking requirements can apply in places such as Telopea, as they may apply in an inner city area such as Redfern,’’ he said.
The council will meet with the Planning Minister who will also attend two on-site meetings on February 12 in Telopea and Dundas to hear from the community.