Wollondilly Council is currently conducting early consultation on plans to amends its LEP to add 55 new heritage items, three new landscape conservation areas, and one new conservation area.

We think this proposal is a bad idea, because it does not balance preserving valuable heritage sites while still meeting current community needs. It is not in the community’s best interest: it would make it harder to build news homes near existing infrastructure, and would preserve buildings that are in states of disrepair.

We want you to make a submission against these proposals (some talking points included below).

Joseph O’Donoghue has written in the SMH that “YIMBYs need to know what they’re saying yes to”. Supply and housing affordability have been covered at length in the media, and we think that argument is pretty much won outside a few fringe actors with motivated reasoning. Here we’ll focus on some of the more intangible ways that local opposition has shaped our planning system for the worse, and how we can correct them.

Housing represents the single largest cost-of-living pressure for NSW households. The best investment the NSW government could make to ease the financial burden on households is to invest in more housing.

In planning for the opening of a Sydney Metro West station in Pyrmont, the City of Sydney is currently reviewing the planning controls for the Pyrmont peninsula, which includes Pyrmont and Ultimo.

With new, better connection into public transport and given the proximity to the CBD, this is an excellent opportunity to provide significant additional high-density housing in an important location.

The Inner West are taking public consultation on heritage listing four properties which take up 4000sqm on Macarthur Pde in Dulwich Hill. We think such listings are a bad idea because the buildings themselves are unremarkable and the combined site is so large that there’s a significant opportunity cost to the listing.

We want you to make a submission against these proposals.

Today we are joining with Business NSW, Committee for Sydney, Unions and Universities to demand real action on our housing crisis. Among our demands are rezoning to allow medium density housing in all parts of Sydney, and to upzone around all train stations.

Council is currently soliciting submissions for a six storey apartment development opposite at 469-483 Balmain Rd, Lilyfield, directly opposite Callan Park. This will include 89 units along with 6000sqm of light industrial and creative space on the lower floors, as well as 1300sqm of public domain open space.

Unfortunately this is being petitioned against by Friends of Callan Park, who take the view that any tall buildings visible from the park somehow detract from it. We think this is a ridiculous stance to take, and that we should be seeking to bring more people close to open space, not less.

The NSW Government has announced they will complete the conversion of the Bankstown line to a metro service.

Eleven stations between Bankstown and Sydenham will receive trains every four minutes during the peak, with travel times to the city up to ten minutes lower than the current heavy rail.

We need to seize this opportunity to build dense, walkable communities near public transport, and address the housing crisis.

Inner West Council has plans to add 1300 properties to their Heritage Conservation Areas (HCAs), mostly in Marrickville and Dulwich Hill and are undertaking a consultation about it.

These HCAs will effectively prohibit any new density in the affected areas, meaning not just no new apartments or townhouses, but no visible extensions to existing houses either.

Randwick Council are currently fighting in the Land and Environment Court to heritage list 3 Berwick St Coogee.

What’s unique about this property is that they *already assessed it for heritage significance* in 2020 and found it had none.

We call these “opportunistic heritage orders”, because they are created in response to the filing of a Development Application. A property that nobody thought twice about yesterday is now a Pillar of the Community which can never be modified. Sometimes you’ll see councils say the quiet part loud: the intent of heritage policy is to block development.

Bayside Council is rewriting its Local Environment Plan to ban townhouses across the bulk of its residential land.

Inner West Council is proposing to heritage list 15 electricity substations at their meeting next Tuesday, 20 June.

Not only are they eyesores, but these kinds of listings are terrible for housing affordability.

In Brunswick in Melbourne recently we saw a development be delayed for 7 years and subject to thousands in legal costs because it would have demolished a graffiti covered substation much like the one above. Ultimately the developer had to scale back plans from 333 apartments to 168 and replace the childcare centre with a commercial space. They also had to keep the substation intact and put it in the foyer.