The Darling Point Society Incorporated
ABN 88 141 102 701
PO Box 1131, Edgecliff NSW 2027
23rd February 2024
Director
Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure
C/- NSW Planning Portal
Dear Sir,
Public Submission – Response to the Proposed Low- and Mid-Rise Housing Reforms
The Darling Point Society objects to the proposed changes to create low to mid-rise housing in the Six Cities Region for the following reasons:
1. They are not supported by modelling showing the likely impact of population increases in the affected suburbs – eg traffic and parking, water and sewage infrastructure, and demand for essential infrastructure and services like schools, green space and community and recreational facilities.
2. They do not take into account local circumstances and local character. The changes ignore the importance of “place” to communities.
3. They completely discount public support for the importance of protecting built and natural heritage, and ignore well established, hard-fought laws and controls designed to ensure the compatibility of new development in historic and environmentally sensitive areas.
4. They reduce landscaping and tree canopy below state and local council targets by allowing new types of development in new areas and on smaller lots sizes with higher FSRs.
5. They weaken residential amenity standards, including solar access, privacy, loss of views from neighbouring properties, and streetscape presentation.
6. They do not require developers to deliver affordable housing.
7. They are not supported by policies to prevent the knock down of “affordable” older style apartment buildings and their replacement with luxury new builds of potentially fewer and more expensive dwellings.
8. They do not take into account the increase in density that has already been imposed on R2 residential zones as a result of state government affordable and senior housing polices.
9. They do not consider environmental and natural hazard risks, including the impact of increasing population density in areas that are subject to localised flooding and rising sea levels or home to threatened species and ecological communities.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Pompei
President
The Darling Point Society Inc