FOKE has heard that there are plans to fast-track six storey or less apartments for the “missing middle” that will devastate Ku-ring-gai’s Heritage Conservation Areas.
Former NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler is currently working with Decode Group and other key industry players to fast-track the delivery of housing projects under $60 million.
Ku-ring-gai is being targetted by the Transport Oriented Development and Low to Mid-Rise apartments of 6-8 storey. This appears to be what David Chandler would be “supporting” fast tracking”.
David Chandler is working to formally launch a ” Future Constructors Academy”, in early 2025 to enable large building firms to mentor, support and invest in smaller builders to assist the delivery of six-storey medium density apartments. The Academy is expected to support the first 10 to 15 start-up builders by the end of 2025.
David Chandler has established a developers’ working group to work with the NSW Government aiming to build the $60 million apartment market.
Chandler believes that the majority of future housing supply – smaller-scale developments face a critical skills shortage.
The NSW NSW Government has set a target of 377,000 new “well-located” homes across Greater Sydney by 2029 as part of its commitment to the National Housing Accord.
David Chandler estimates that around 35,000 apartments need to be built annually with most demand for medium density housing or what is now described as ” smaller-scale developments”, despite towering over low scale residential areas.
The Future Constructors Academy will offer a targeted solution by pairing smaller builders with established firms through a sponsorship model, targeting the under $60 million six-storey apartments. It will also explore ” modular construction methods”, “waste reduction strategies” and “partnerships with universities” to develop efficient, environmentally friendly building practices.
This policy is supported by Decode Group chief executive Divya Mehta who call for the NSW Government to streamline quicker approvals and “unlock opportunities” (ie Ku-ring-gai).
David Chandler supports NSW Planning having a DA “tracker” that is regularly published reporting on the number of over-six-storey DAs being approved from 1 July onwards, and the under-six-storey approvals.
Minns is preparing to scale back his politically contentious “missing middle” housing reforms – that will devastate Ku-ring-gai’s Heritage Conservation Areas
It has been revealed by the SMH that Ku-ring-gai Council will work with the NSW Government to deliver tens of thousands of apartments after reaching a confidential agreement
NSW government-released housing designs allow for speedier development approval but have been savaged on social media, with some likening them to “slums” and “ghettos”.
Ku-ring-gai Council is presenting information forums on five Transport Oriented Development (TOD) rezoning scenario proposals around Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon stations.
Ku-ring-gai residents have been invited to comment on the public exhibition of alternative scenarios to the Transport Oriented Development (TOD) that rezones 400 metres around Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon until 17 December 2024.
Ku-ring-gai Council has based its alternative scenarios on seven principles including avoiding environmentally sensitive areas.
Yet Ku-ring-gai as a collective whole, with its wildlife corridors, canopy trees, and threatened species is one large environmentally sensitive area.
Ku-ring-gai is the ‘middle ring’ that connects wildlife from the western side of the railway line (Lane Cove National Park) to the eastern side (Lane Cove National Park). Even the bushland along the railway corridor has NSW Government signage identifying the fenced off bushland as “environmentally sensitive land”.
One of the challenges in responding to the alternative TOD scenarios is the framing of the NSW planning system that has historically refused to recognise Ku-ring-gai’s environmentally sensitivity and the cumulative damage of successive decades of habitat loss as a result of housing densification.
Knocking down one house means the loss of trees. Knocking down 30 houses along a street means the loss of perhaps 50 trees. Knocking down every house within 400 metres of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon will be catastrophic for wildlife. It is common to see, even 30 metres from Gordon Railway Station, bush turkeys, rosellas, king parrots and king fishers and possums.
Ku-ring-gai Council’s data shows that Ku-ring-gai lost 1.4% of its tree canopy between 2020 and 2022. The Council’s Urban Forest Strategy aims to increase the canopy cover to 49% by 2036, which means planting an additional 44,000 trees. How can this achieved with an additional 23,200 dwellings to be built in the next 15 years?
Ku-ring-gai is one of the few remaining suburbs that contains houses surrounded by front and back gardens. This residential housing type across established Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane suburbs is fast disappearing, being bulldozed for ‘in-fill’ low-to-high rise apartments. To build these apartments the tree covered gardens have been felled, bulldozed, subdivided and replaced by hard surfaces. This urban densification increases population pressures on suburbs with increased traffic congestion and demands on water, sewerage and energy infrastructure. Where once wildlife was abundant. They now disappear. Their homes have been displaced by concrete. The fragmentation of habitat makes life more threatening to them.
The anthropocentric focus of our modern society prioritises human need before wildlife and the natural world. Australians are now facing a ‘housing crisis’ that is intertwined with an environmental crisis. More housing supply brings more habitat destruction.
People are utterly dependent upon wildlife, trees and the natural vegetation. Collectively they are our “ecosystem engineers” that provide us with the clean air, soil and water to stay healthy and alive.
The NSW Government appear to be willfully ecologically ignorant in relation to Sydney’s urban bushland suburbs – including Ku-ring-gai. Tim Flannery described are ecological ignorance as:
Such is the depth of public ignorance about Australia’s extinction crisis that most people are unaware it is occurring, while those who do know of it commonly believe that our national parks and reserves are safe places for threatened species. In fact, the second extinction wave is in full swing and it’s emptying our national parks and wildlife reserves as ruthlessly as other landscapes. ”
Tim Flannery ‘After the Future’ Quarterly Essay (2012)
Like climate change, wildlife extinction is an existential crisis. By the time we are made aware of the Powerful Owls’ or the Blue Gum High Forest’s dire future it is almost impossible to reverse their extinction trajectory.
Governments are determined to focus on economic growth through more housing ‘supply’. This means deregulating the planning system, removing environmental controls and allowing developers to bypass local government rezoning controls. The current NSW Government is handing over planning controls to developers who are advocating for a tsunami of high rise to replace Sydney’s remaining garden and bushland low residential suburbs. This will decimate Sydney’s fragile urban environment on a scale never seen before.
While most of us were getting ready for bed on Monday night, a sad situation was unfolding in one Aussie suburb. Clinging to the back of a road sign was an iconic marsupial that belonged up a tree.
Although koalas are used to promote Australia as a wildlife-friendly tourism destination, they are facing extinction in Queensland and NSW, and are listed as endangered. Rescuer John Knights was almost asleep when a phone call came through about the displaced animal.
“It just had this ‘what do I do next’ expression on its face,” he told Yahoo News on Tuesday.
Had Knights not arrived, the animal’s prospects were not good. He was beside a major road, and close to an industrial estate in the Brisbane suburb of Mount Gravatt East. Like most of Queensland’s southeast, large backyards that once contained trees have been bulldozed and subdivided, increasing human density while forcing out koalas.
“When you decide to knock your house down, that’s one less tree and a few bushes gone. But then the bloke over the road does it, and the bloke around the corner does it,” Knights said.
“These koalas have no sanctuary when they’re trying to get from one area to another. So they’re just wandering around hopelessly lost. And people say: Isn’t it wonderful to see these urban koalas. They’re not urban koalas. They’re frightened lost animals because we put a road in where they want to live.”
Koalas a sign of a healthy ecosystem
Knights describes koalas as an umbrella species, as when they flourish, it means the rest of the environment is also healthy. And seeing so many regularly displaced is sign of a “problem” facing Australia’s suburban wildlife.
“If you create good habitat for koalas, everything that lives underneath their trees has a happy home,” he said.
“From possums, to gliders, the owls, the birds that live in the trees, the animals that live on the ground, the insects that live in the bush, the microbes that keep everything working — it’s a reverse domino effect.”
This spring, Knight is on track to have responded to 200 callouts by the end of the month. During the season, males looking for mates, and sub-adults looking for new territory often find themselves on roads and in backyards.
That’s because the forest they once called home has been destroyed to make way for new developments. Crossing between the fragmented remnants of habitat often means traversing suburbia.
The callout to help the koala on the road sign on Monday was Knights’ second for the day. Earlier a koala climbed up a power pole at nearby Camp Hill. It was brought down safely and released into nearby bushland.
Australia’s environment laws failing to protect endangered species
Sadly, finding places to release koalas is becoming increasingly difficult, as koala habitat continues to be destroyed. An independent review of Australia’s nature protection laws under the Morrison government in 2020 found they are “ineffective”, “weak” and “tokenistic”. While there have been some reforms since the Albanese government was elected in 2022, endangered species are continuing to lose habitat at an alarming rate.
A Worldwide Fund for Nature report this week found there has been a 73 per cent decline in global wildlife populations in 50 years. While an investigation by Wilderness Society this week found 300,000 animals a year are being displaced or killed by Tasmania’s logging industry every year, including endangered species.
The Queensland government has refused to release environmental reports about its impact, claiming they are “ecologically sensitive”. But rescuers say it’s routinely displacing wildlife, and because of ongoing development across the Gold Coast, they believe the city’s urban koalas face extinction.
FOKE has been invited to speak at the Planning Panel regarding its opposition to the Patyegarang/ Lizard Rock, Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802) development proposal.
FOKE will join Northern Beaches Envirolink Inc who has also registered to speak and who will speak on behalf of the people who signed their petition and supporters.
It is important that the panel hear the overwhelming weight of public sentiment who are opposed to this proposal, and hear their broad range of concerns. As such, we strongly encourage people to register to speak by registering at https://forms.office.com/r/5ZXRvmdXUz .
FOKE opposes the rezoning of land at Patyegarang, Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802), formerly known as ‘Lizard Rock’ on public exhibition until 7 November, 2023
FOKE wishes to express its strong opposition to the proposal to rezone 71ha of high conservation value bushland at Patyegarang, Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802), formerly known as ‘Lizard Rock’. If the 450 residential dwellings at Morgan Road, Belrose/ Oxford Falls are approved it would have a detrimental, devastating and irreversible environmental impact on the Northern Beaches’ biodiversity, climate, bushfire safety, strategic planning as well as setting a dangerous precedent for other bushland sites, some of which will impact on Ku-ring-gai’s bushland.
Friends of the Ku-ring-gai Environment (FOKE) is a community based organisation aimed at protecting and conserving the natural, built and cultural heritage of Ku-ring-gai.
FOKE opposes the rezoning proposal of Patyegarang, Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802) for the following reasons:
Negative impact on Biodiversity
NSW is facing an extinction crisis with over 1000 species on the threatened list, yet the Patyegarang Planning Proposal will clear massive areas of intact and pristine bushland that will destroy habitat and exacerbate NSW’s biodiversity crisis.
FOKE notes that the planning proposal seeks to rezone 19.8ha of the site for C2 Environmental Conservation purposes but argues that this is inadequate in protecting the high biodiversity of the whole site.
If approved the rezoning will lead to irreversible loss and local extinction of endangered species including powerful owls, red-crowned toadlets, bandicoots, lyrebirds, wallabies, threatened glossy black cockatoos and endangered heath monitors.
Negative impact on the Narrabeen Lagoon Catchment
If approved the rezoning will create unacceptable increases in stormwater runoff that risks flooding the Wakehurst Parkway and Oxford Falls Roads.
Excess stormwater runoff will also negatively impact on threatened species including the red-crowned toadlets and spotted-tail quolls and other marine animals living in and around the Narrabeen Lagoon.
Negative Impact on Sydney’s air quality, temperatures and carbon emissions If approved the rezoning will exacerbate air pollutants, increase urban heat and reduce opportunities to capture greenhouse gases.
Urban bushland provides vital ecological services, such as oxygen, and water. Urban bushland sites, such as Patyegarang “plays a key role in the climate system” providing essential carbon sinks to regulate Sydney’s temperatures and help store carbon. The NSW Government has a responsibility to commit to climate action and ensure it contributes to keeping global warming to no more than 1.5°C as agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement. Australia is one of twenty countries that is responsible for about 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Negative Impact on Life and Property during Bushfires The site is located on bushfire-prone lands above a forested valley. Northern Beaches Council has identified the site as having ‘extreme bushfire risk’ and evacuation problems with limited egress.
In a changing climate, bushfires are increasing in frequency and intensity. It is no longer acceptable for new developments to be built in bushfire areas. They pose unacceptable risks to the safety of residents, RFS and SES volunteers. Preserving bushland corridors are also vital escape routes for wildlife during bushfires. If the NSW Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the ‘Bushfire Royal Commission’ it must reject this rezoning proposal.
Broader Strategic planning implications
This rezoning proposal is effectively a ‘spot’ rezoning and inconsistent with key aspects of the Greater Sydney Region Plan, North District Plan, Northern Beaches Local Strategic Planning Statement – Towards 2040, and Northern Beaches Local Housing Strategy, particularly in terms of the preferred location and type of new housing and impacts on the environment and Metropolitan Rural Area.
The site lacks infrastructure and appropriate services (schools, open spaces, sports fields, bus services, health services, libraries).
Despite the proposal seeking a limit of 450 dwellings, it is highly likely that once approved, further rezoning applications will occur to increase the site’s density.
Unacceptable traffic and urban sprawl Theproposal will add to traffic congestion along Forest Way, Wakehurst Parkway, Warringah Road and Mona Vale Road contributing to more greenhouse gases. Evidence shows that long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution has detrimental impacts on human health.
Precedent for further inappropriate overdevelopment
If the Patyegarang Planning Proposal is approved it sets a precedent for further rezonings of Northern Beaches Aboriginal Land that that includes the 135-hectare bushland site at Ralston Avenue in Belrose (only 3.5km from the Patyegarang/Lizard Rock site) adjoining the Garigal National Park and the Ku-ring-gai bushland suburbs of St Ives, East Killara and East Lindfield. Development on this site poses extreme bushfire risk with the presence of overhead power lines with electrical currents between 66,000 to 500,000 volts surging through them.
Overwhelmingly community opposition to rezoning proposal The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC) owns 912ha of bushland in the Northern Beaches, much of it permissible for residential development under the Aboriginal Land State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP). Ownership has been made possible by the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 that supports First Nations people’s economic self-determination through property development.
However, development needs to be assessed on its planning merits. The proposed development is not ecologically sustainable and not in the public interest.
On 29 June 2023, a Northern Beaches Bushland Guardians petition, signed by 12,000 people, including FOKE members and Ku-ring-gai residents, was presented to the NSW Legislative Assembly calling for the NSW Parliament to “repeal the amendments to the State Environment Planning Policy (Planning Systems) so that 227 hectares of land in the northern beaches is no longer subject to the development delivery plan.”
Sydney is blessed to have this bushland site, Patyegarang, with its rich Aboriginal cultural heritage and high conservation value. This is something that the NSW Government should celebrate and protect.
FOKE thus strongly urges the NSW Government to reject the Patyegarang, Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802) planning proposal.
Yours faithfully
Kathy Cowley
PRESIDENT
cc The Hon Paul Scully MP Minister for Planning and Public Spaces
cc The Hon Stephen Kamper MP Minister for Lands and Property
cc The Hon Jihad Dib MP Minister of Emergency Services
cc The Hon Penny Sharpe MLC Minister for Climate Change, Minister for the Environment
cc The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water
cc Ku-ring-gai Mayor and Councillors
cc The Hon Matt Cross MP Member for Davidson
cc The Hon Alister Henskens SC MP Member for Ku-ring-gai
cc The Hon Paul Fletcher MP Member for Bradfield
Summary
FOKE was established in 1994 to protect and conserve the natural, built and cultural heritage in the Ku-ring-gai local government area and is a member of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW and the Better Planning Network.
For over thirty years FOKE has argued for the need for ecologically sustainable planning, the protection of environmentally sensitive bushland and the need to protect urban bushland from habitat deforestation.
FOKE borders the Northern Beaches Council areas with the interface of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and Garigal National Park – important wildlife corridors to Ku-ring-gai. The Ku-ring-gai suburbs of St Ives, East Killara and East Lindfield face Belrose.
FOKE is very concerned about the high risk of catastrophic bushfires particularly with increasing heat waves and extreme weather conditions as a result of climate change.
As well the dangerous precedent that the Patyegarang planning proposal at Morgan Road, Belrose (PP-2022-3802) has on other sites including the Raulson Avenue site – which would have negative impacts on Garigal National Park and the suburbs of St Ives, East Killara and East Lindfield.
Australia’s two largest capital cities have far too little tree canopy, which increases the cities’ heat island effects and leads to increased rates of obesity, depression, anxiety and heatstroke.
The Victorian government says Melbourne by 2050 will be home to nearly 8 million people and as part of a plan to future prove this city it wants to introduce swathes of new housing stock to make it easier for people to buy at home, but critics of the scheme say it threatens Melbourne’s’ reputation as one of the world’s most livable cities.
Sue Higginson, Chair of the Legislative Council’s Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment, has announced the release of its report – ‘Planning system and the impacts of climate change on the environment and communities’.
Premier Chris Minns has announced that he will allow developers to bypass council approvals and to seek spot rezoning, in order to speed up approval and delivery times.
Though at first glance the Draft Design & Place State Environment Planning Policy incorporates all the ‘well meaning’ principles of good planning in its introduction, the detail in the objectives will lead to the destruction of the integrity of many suburbs, including Ku-ring-gai.
The principles espoused in this Draft Policy include delivering beauty and amenity through improved overall design, delivering inviting public spaces, improved sustainability and greener spaces for well-being and improved resilience to climate change.
However, the objectives in the Urban Design Guide highlight that the true purpose of this Policy is increased density across NSW, especially targeting current R2 low density residential areas.
Objective 3 aims to build ‘Compact and diverse neighbourhoods’. Critically this is to be met by targeting density levels of 30 dwellings per hectare within a 5 minute walk to neighbourhood shops and centres. The minimum density of 15 dwellings per hectare is targeted everywhere else. In areas of greater intensity or where there are excellent active and public transport networks, development should aim for a minimum density of 30 dwellings per hectare across the entire walkable neighbourhood.
The reasoning that these minimum residential targets will guarantee a more vibrant urban area has absolutely no foundation.
Objective 3 effectively ignores current LEP’s, environmental and heritage considerations and will impose a blanket density over the entire municipality that will extinguish any individual characteristics.
This objective overrides the local Council zoning plans and will destroy the character of established suburbs and LGAs, such as Ku-ring-gai. High and medium density should not be allowed within R2 Low Density Residential areas. This is completely contradictory to Objective 16 which calls for the retention of existing built heritage, landscape and other unique features, including reinstatement of historical street patterns where possible.
Within Objective 15 is the damaging recommendation to override any current zoning and reduce detached dwellings to only 30% in areas where the number of dwellings per hectare is currently 15 dwellings or greater!
The use of the term ‘compact neighbourhoods’ as a preferred outcome litters the document as the preferred planning outcome.
We believe this is another assault by the current State Government on the current character of existing suburbs and puts increased density as the key aim of this Policy. It is apparent that this policy is not about better design and quality sense of place, it is about providing developers and the property industry with greater options for increasing density in our suburbs.
In terms of the Apartment Design Guide, there appear to be few mandated minimum standards, with developers able to freely depart from the recommended provisions with the use of offsets and alternative designs.
Another area lagging behind the rhetoric is the engagement with the community as a key stakeholder in any design plans during the full process, not just in the initial information gathering phase.
FOKE does not believe that this Policy will assist in building community trust in an already flawed planning system and has made a submission to this effect.
The submission period closed on 28th February. However, it would be worthwhile to contact or email your local MP to let them know you are concerned about the impact of this Policy unless significantly altered to address these concerns. You can find the documents at Design and Place SEPP.
