Council's appalling planning record stands out
The changes proposed by the Department of Planning for low and mid-rise residential buildings ("Blanket planning rules could change the Peninsula", PN 587) are a step in the right direction, but the explanatory document on exhibition is vague in its detail.
The various housing types and standards proposed are so complicated and arbitrary that they confuse rather than clarify the picture.
Of course, this is still better than the shambles of the Central Coast Development Control Plan, but it is difficult to work out.
For example, exactly how much of the Peninsula's medium-density zone is within 800 metres of a shopping centre, what kind of development already exists within those boundaries and what impact will the proposed changes have on population densities and amenity?
This is, of course, the kind of data we should be getting from Central Coast Council, but, if the Council is making any submission to the Department on our behalf, it is being kept a deadly secret.
I seriously doubt that the average layman will be able to make head or tail of the report contents, so the invitation to make comments must be largely pro forma.
I, also, think it is a pity that the opportunity was not taken to introduce some rationality into the zoning system, but I suppose that one fight at a time is all that the state bureaucrats can manage.
Extensive research has established that almost all residential buildings are occupied by human beings, and the level of residential safety and comfort provided for every individual should be the same, regardless of where he/she lives or what kind of building he/she occupies.
If we establish the necessary performance standards, we don't need elaborate and arbitrary definition of finicky detail, but the suggested changes still muddle up housing types, housing heights, housing densities, housing requirements and housing amenities in ways that make no sense, particularly when some important amenities, such as access to sunlight, are completely ignored.
Nevertheless, the goal of the exercise is to make housing development easier (much to be desired, given the Council's abysmal record in this area), and the changes might go some way in this direction.
Let us wait and see what the outcome is.
The campaign by CEN to deprive the Council of planning powers ("CEN announces campaign to fix planning scheme", PN 587) is, no doubt, well-meaning, but one wonders what other body could take up the task and do a better job of it, as things stand.
The Council's appalling planning record stands out among the state's municipalities' standings, so it seems not to be the system but the personalities that are at fault.
How one deals with this I do not know.
That said, the CEN's apparent obsession with peripheral issues, such as conservation zones, flora and fauna, and cultural heritage, when the whole development pattern of the region is at stake, does not inspire confidence that it has any real grasp of the action priorities that we have to set.
It is clear that, in setting up its Developers' Committee, the state government intends to exercise far greater control over strategic decision-making for the "Central Coast City" than in the past and that this decision-making will be directed towards developers' interests rather than the welfare of the community at large.
This is where local interest groups should be directing their attention, if the place is going to be worth living in over the next couple of decades.
SOURCE:
Email, 10 Feb 2024
Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy.