Comment wanted on new housing controls

Central Coast Council has called for comment on changes to planning controls for single dwellings which will unify regulations across the former Gosford and Wyong council areas.

Council administrator Mr Ian Reynolds said: "We want to align the controls so the same rules apply for homeowners across the Coast.

"This plan will harmonise planning controls for single dwellings across the Coast only, not for multi-unit developments.

"More consistent housing development controls will help reduce development application turn-around times, align terminology, reduce and simplify the information needed, basically cut red tape and make it really clear what residents can and cannot build on their property."

Residents will have 28 days to review the draft Housing Development Control Plan and have their say via Council's Your Voice Our Coast website.

At the March ordinary council meeting, administrator Mr Ian Reynolds resolved to endorse the exhibition of the draft amended chapter 2.1 of Development Control Plan 2013 for the Wyong Shire and Chapter 3.1 of the Gosford 2013 Development Control Plan.

Under the provisions of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, the council is not permitted to have two separate development control plans applying to the same land.

Until such a time as a single consolidated plan is adopted by Central Coast Council, the plans of the former councils will need to be retained.

"This means that if the proposal proceeds the Wyong 2013 plan and Gosford 2013 plan will still both have a housing chapter.

"However, the controls in each housing chapter will be aligned."

According to a report to the administrator, the proposed alignment of the two plans involved changes to the site coverage, rear, front and side setbacks, building heights and car parking.

A site coverage control is not currently used under the existing Gosford plan but other controls, such as floor-space ratio and landscape area, have been relied on to achieve the desired outcome.

The Wyong plan, on the other hand, required a maximum of 60 per cent site coverage on lots with an area less than 250 square metres and 65 per cent on lots with areas greater than 250 square metres.

The proposed plan would require a maximum of 60 per cent on lots less than 450 square metres, 50 per cent on lots of between 450 and 900 square metres and 40 per cent on lot sizes of 900 to 1500 square metres.

In terms of front setbacks, the Gosford plan required six metres, Wyong required 4.5 metres and the proposed alignment would be for 4.5 metres or "as per adjacent dwellings".

Rear setbacks in the Gosford plan will change from three metres to six metres for up to 4.5 metre height and 3 metres for more than 4.5 metres height.

The Gosford rear setbacks for outbuildings have been three metres or 900mm if the building height is less than four metres and the building floor area is less than 20 square metres.

The draft proposal would change this to 0.5 metres plus one quarter of the height of the building above 3.8 metres for buildings from 0.5 metres, which is an adoption of the existing Wyong provision.

Under the former Gosford plan, outbuilding areas were limited to 60 square metres which will be changed to a sliding scale similar to that of the existing Wyong plan.

Outbuildings on land less than 600 square metres can be 45 square metres in size.

If the block is between 600 and 700 square metres, the outbuilding can be 60 square metres.

Under the proposed aligned plan provisions, blocks of land between 700 and 800 square metres can have outbuildings up to 75 square metres; blocks 800 to 900 square metres in size can have out buildings up to 85 square metres and lots above 900 metres square could have outbuildings up to 100 square metres in size.

The building height for outbuildings and detached ancillary development in the former Gosford Council area will be reduced under the proposed alignment of the plan from five metres to 4.8 (as with the former Wyong plan).

The Gosford plan required two car parking spaces for residential developments with a floor area of 125 square metres or more.

The aligned version will require two car spaces per three bedrooms, in line with the former Wyong requirement.

Some of the elements that cannot be aligned and will remain as is.

The existing Gosford house building height will stay at 8.5 metres (generally) in residential areas (as opposed to 10 metres under the Wyong poan); floor space ratio which will stay at 0.5:1 and foreshore building lines which will remain six metres for single storey dwellings and 10 metres for two-storey houses.

SOURCE:

Media release, 22 Mar 2017

Ian Reynolds, Central Coast Council

Central Coast Council agenda 2.4, 22 Mar 2017