Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 128 The Urban Taskforce has proposed an approach to provide significant numbers of affordable homes for Sydney by updating the Affordable Rental Housing SEPP 2009 to match the floor space uplift to the provision of affordable homes. The current SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) requires 20% of the floor space to be allocated as affordable rental housing but the bonus floor space is well below this amount. As a result of the low uplift very few projects are proceeding. By making the floor space uplift at 20% as well as a height increase of 20% then this would be a strong inducement to the private sector market to provide affordable housing. The SEPP is based on the affordable homes being rented at around 20% below market rents for a 10 year period. After this the tenants would be found new rental housing by the Community Housing Provider (CHP) and the developer would be able to sell the dwellings. The National Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS) assessment requirements for tenants based on household income would be used by the CHP to determine eligibility of potential tenants. The end result of this incentive based approach would be that buildings that can be 5 storeys could now be 6 storeys high. The Urban Taskforce believes around 4,000 extra affordable homes could be provided each year leading to a total of 40,000 extra over a 10 year period. The release of the Draft District Plans for Metropolitan Sydney in November 2016 heralded a change in policy direction to work against the zoning for new housing in two important areas. The first was the strengthening of District and Strategic Centres as being more about jobs than housing. The previous definition of these centres had included high density residential as an important use but the new definitions have removed this use. An example is the District Centre of Chatswood that has a Commercial only core but no new commercial buildings have been built in this zone for the last 25 years. A number of Urban Taskforce members have submitted planning proposals for Mixed Use buildings where a podium of 4 to 6 floors would be commercial with a residential tower above. Unfortunately these proposals have been rejected by Willoughby Council and the Greater Sydney Commission Planning Panels. In direct contrast to this approach, the previous NSW Planning Minister, Robert Stokes, issued a Media Release two months before the District Plans were released for a residential tower at Charles Street, Parramatta that was in the commercial core of that city. The Media Release stated that 'The proposal was made possible by planning rule changes allowing residential development on the site, where only commercial uses were permitted before.' The proposal was for a 43 storey residential tower with the bottom 4 storeys to be used for offices or shops. A similar zoning constraint has occurred on industrial land in inner Sydney where the District Plans have established the 'Precautionary Principle' where jobs are preferred over housing. The end result has been to stop potential mixed use projects that incorporated more jobs than were previously on the site as well as significant housing numbers. The reality is that much of Sydney’s industrial and manufacturing industry has moved out to Western Sydney near the M7 and the remaining industrial sites are underutilised. Many of these sites are ideally located for mixed use development. 3 UPDATE THE AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING SEPP TO PROVIDE 40,000 AFFORDABLE HOMES OVER 10 YEARS Cover of 40,000 affordable homes brochure Zoning map of Chatswood CBD with commercial in blue 4 REMOVE ANTI HOUSING ZONING IN CENTRES AND ON INDUSTRIAL LAND