Shelter NSW has expressed concern that Government amendments to the state’s planning Act do not give councils a proper choice about how they levy developers to promote affordable housing.
‘The Government has missed an opportunity to fix an anomaly in the planning act that prevents councils from levying developers for affordable housing in a systematic way’, according to Mary Perkins, the executive officer of Shelter NSW.
Ms Perkins was responding to the second reading of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Development Contributions) Bill in the Legislative Assembly, yesterday (4 May).
The Bill regulates the way councils negotiate agreements with developers to provide affordable housing and public amenities, on an ad hoc basis.
‘The Government’s approach is risky. There is a potential for ad hockery across developments in the one local government area, depending on the clout of developers and the gumption of councillors’, according to Ms Perkins.
Shelter had asked the planning minister to amend another part of the Act, during consideration of the Bill, to give councils the choice of levying developers for affordable housing on an ‘all-in’ basis. The model favored by Shelter is used in Willoughby and in City West and Green Square in the City of Sydney.
‘We are very disappointed that the Government has not agreed to our representations on this matter’, Ms Perkins said.
Contact:
Craig Johnston, Principal Policy Officer – 0411 612 453 (m), 9267 5733 ext.11
Mary Perkins, Executive Officer – 0419 919 091 (m), 9267 5733 ext.14
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What the Bill proposes
The Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Developer Contributions) Bill 2004 was introduced by infrastructure and planning minister Craig Knowles into the Legislative Assembly on 8 December 2004.
It regulates the use of planning agreements in New South Wales.
Planning agreements will be voluntary on both sides (developers and councils), and councils will not be able to require developers to enter into one by using their (council) powers to prepare local environmental plans. Nor will councils be able to require developers to enter into a planning agreement as a condition of development consent.
The Bill states that affordable housing is a purpose for which developer contributions may be negotiated under a planning agreement (clause 93F(2)).
The purpose may be provision of or the recoupment of the cost of providing affordable housing (clause 93F(2)(b)), or the funding of recurrent expenditure relating to providing affordable housing (clause 93F(2)(d)).
What Shelter NSW proposes
Amendment of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act by:
(a) deleting the words ‘if a State environmental planning policy identifies that there is a need for affordable housing in the area’ from section 94F(1), and
(b) deleting section 94F(3)(a).
Section 94F of the Act was introduced in 2000. It allows councils to levy developers for affordable housing where a development creates a need for affordable housing, reduces the availability of affordable housing, or if there is a rezoning. This approach is called ‘inclusionary zoning’.
However the section says that councils cannot do this unless the planning minister approves certain matters – those matters are an authorization by provisions in a relevant state environmental planning policy as required by sections 94F (1) and (3)(a) of the Act. No planning minister has yet introduced or approved a state environmental planning policy to satisfy those two sections of the Act for all councils who might wish to use them.
Developer contributions using inclusionary zoning are used in the City of Willoughby and City of Sydney (for City West and Green Square precincts only) and are also possible under the Redfern-Waterloo Authority Act.
The amendments to the Act proposed by Shelter would remove the administrative impediment to those councils, like Parramatta , who want to use a Willoughby-style approach, from doing so.