Bayside’s Townhouse Ban

Bayside Council is rewriting its Local Environment Plan to ban townhouses across the bulk of its residential land. This comes about by removing some Additional Permitted Uses (APUs) that allowed owners to knock down a non-residential use like a warehouse to replace it with townhouses or a small set of residential flats.

Here’s how it shakes out:

• R2 Low Density Residential: Previously permitted townhouses and residential flats (subject to ordinary height limits), now will permit neither. This zoning covers over 80% of residential area in former Botany Bay Council (which is where the change is operative).

• R3 Medium Density Residential: Previously permitted townhouses and residential flats, now will only permit townhouses. This covers most of the remainder of residential land in that LGA.

Almost all of the development Bayside has experience recently is high-rise, large-scale development at Mascot and Eastgardens. There has been very little missing middle development, which provides people with a choice at price points between a high-rise unit and a large detached house. This move further limits housing choice.

This is completely the wrong direction to go in a housing crisis!

Townhouses in Arncliffe

Council’s justification for this is removing inconsistencies between Rockdale and Botany Bay’s zone definitions, as Rockdale did not permit replacement of non-residential uses with townhouses.

In our opinion, missing middle should be permitted in Rockdale too, and council should explore opportunities to allow replacing detached houses as well.

For more details, read our full submission here.

To stop this you need to write to council. You can email them at planningourfuture@bayside.nsw.gov.au or visit the Your Say page.

You can also become a member of Sydney YIMBY to support our campaign for more missing middle housing everywhere in Sydney.