Mid-rise Housing Submission Guide
The state government have announced a policy to permit six storey apartment blocks within 800m of transport hubs and town centres across Sydney. This will apply in R3 medium density zones, which in most places only permit townhouses.
We need your submissions!
Here’s some of our thoughts:
Overall we support the policy. It’s real progress to allowing density across Sydney, including in higher amenity areas which have to-date successfully opposed new development.
Councils will try to frustrate this policy by downzoning land or imposing other conditions like traffic studies - these must be rejected by the planning department when they come to gateway approval.
New apartment buildings are typically more accessible and energy efficient than what they are replacing.
Where this new policy intersects with heritage conservation areas, we need to find a model that does not ban redevelopment. This could be done through adaptive reuse of ‘contributing’ buildings, and allowing general redevelopment of ‘neutral’ or ‘non-contributing’ contributing buildings event where they are taller or bulkier than the existing streetscape.
Applying an Floor Space Ratio of 3.0 with a height limit of six storeys is likely to induce just one kind of development with very high lot coverage. It would be good to offer more height flexibility up to nine storeys while maintaining the same 3.0 FSR in recognition that taller buildings with more landscaped area will have a better urban design outcome on many sites.
We should reduce or remove parking requirements in areas covered by this scheme, since they are by definition close to amenities.
