Image: Wentworth Towers
17-25 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney - 11th April 2022. The Smart Green Apartments programme is a scheme designed by the City of Sydney to improve the cost-effectiveness and environmental performance of apartment buildings. Photo by Katherine Griffiths
by GRACE JOHNSON
The City of Sydney Council has endorsed changes to planning and development rules, encouraging more build-to-rent housing and family-friendly apartments.
The changes will next be presented to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment for gateway determination, a review process.
These proposed changes to Sydney’s planning rules also come ahead of the launch date for the Federal Government’s five-year plan to build 1.2 million new dwellings across Australia.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore AO said, “Exciting changes include new incentives for build-to-rent housing in the CBD, embedded Net Zero building controls, the promotion of increased tree canopy and green roofs and a streamlined processes for design excellence and major development applications.”
“We are also supporting housing diversity and addressing the loss of smaller and more affordable dwellings as a result of redevelopment.”
The proposed changes came about after a notable drop in demand for particular types of office space following the pandemic.
Vacancy rates for non-premium offices in Sydney currently sit around 14%.
With the changers, developers will get between 20 to 75 per cent more floor space for build-to-rent projects, depending on the site location.
The changes would see developers handed between 20% and 75% more floor space for build-to-rent projects.
“We’ve seen build-to-rent work well overseas to help address the housing crisis, with these types of developments providing stable and secure accommodation for renters,” the Lord Mayor said.
“Build-to-rent housing does not sit idle with lights out, as some high-end investor apartments do, and these developments will help revitalise and boost the local economy,” she continued.
Build-to-rent projects are specifically developed with the intent to provide only rental accomodation – they cannot be sold to property investors.
The City of Sydney has also offered developers 20 per cent more floor space in a bid to encourage co-living developments, stimulating an increase in student and low-income worker accommodation.
“We know that students are one of the groups that have been hit hardest by the rental crisis in Sydney, with lack of appropriate accommodation and affordability both major issues,” the Lord Mayor said.
“By offering these additional floor space incentives we hope landowners and developers will create more co-living accommodation in areas like Haymarket area, which has proved popular with students in Sydney.”
In addition to creating more family-friendly accomodation and raising the minimum number of units with three bedrooms or more, the City has also proposed incentives for developers to build ‘green’ roofs. This would enable developers to build their projects higher than those that don’t include green roofs.
“We have introduced incentives for developers to install lifts and stairs for roof access, shade structures, accessible bathrooms and kitchen facilities to encourage better use of communal and social spaces on top of residential apartment buildings,” the Lord Mayor said.
