Page 1677 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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This motion for rejection, if passed, will disappoint many intending applicants and, in the broader planning context, limit housing diversity and housing choice. In established areas, secondary residences will help to stem population decline and take advantage of existing infrastructure and facilities to the benefit of residents and the wider community. Secondary residences will also play a part in delivering a more sustainable, compact city.
The rejection of variation 306 will also disappoint many who rely on this variation to ensure that multi-unit housing redevelopment in the suburban core zone is in keeping with the existing neighbourhood character.
In response to community concern about multi-unit housing redevelopment, variation 306 introduced new controls that apply to the RZ2 suburban core zone. These concerns related particularly to the bulk and scale of development and its effect on the neighbourhood character. New rules have been in place since June 2011 under the interim effect provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2007.
There has been criticism by the housing industry of the application of interim effect, and that it was imposed without warning in June 2011. Interim effect is applied where notice of proposed changes would risk a rush of development applications under the old rules. It should be noted that advanced proposals and development applications that were in the system before June 2011 could be determined under the old rules.
Under the old rules an unlimited number of dwellings were permitted on parcels over 1,400 square metres, provided that the overall plot ratio did not exceed 50 per cent. In many cases this led to the consolidation of blocks and redevelopment proposals comprising numerous single bedroom units in buildings that were, because of their bulk and scale, not in keeping with the neighbourhood character.
The new rules imposed restrictions on block consolidation and limited the density to not more than one dwelling for each 350 square metres of site area. Slightly higher density is available where all dwellings are designed to be adaptable under the relevant Australian standard. In addition the new rules limit the number of dwellings in any one building to four. This is designed to reduce the bulk of buildings in an effort to ensure consistency with neighbourhood character. The rule restricting multi-unit housing redevelopment with three or more dwellings to parcels with a frontage of more than 20 metres is retained.
The rejection of variation 306 will effectively reinstate the old rules, with the inevitable conflicts between proponents and the community that often lead to appeals before the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. This would be a poor outcome for our core suburban areas.
This motion, if not rejected, will shelve the proposed estate development code. Under variation 306 the residential subdivision development code is replaced by a new estate development code. It differs from the current code in format and some key policies, not least being new block compliance tables designed to achieve improved solar performance for residential subdivisions.
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