The TOD SEPP amendments apply to a corridor of land with an area of approximately 1.6 million sqm (160 Ha) and impacts approximately 4,800 individual dwellings including 551 properties of heritage significance.

The average canopy cover of the area is 34% which is high when compared to most parts of Sydney.

As a result of Ku-ring-gai’s historic pattern of development as railway suburbs concentrated along the train line, the TOD SEPP upzoning around the train stations disproportionately impacts Ku-ring-gai’s heritage.

For the land within 400 metres of the four train stations identified as a “TOD site”, the TOD SEPP directly impacts 23 listed heritage conservation areas (HCAs), representing half the total conservation areas of Ku-ring-gai. There are 410 properties within these HCAs that are upzoned by the TOD SEPP. The TOD SEPP also directly impacts an additional 136 properties individually listed as heritage items that, while not mapped as TOD sites, are adjoined by land identified as TOD sites. These sites have no beneficial uplift from the TOD SEPP, and in some cases, are quite negatively impacted.

The impacts of the TOD Program will be significant because the provisions are applied without consideration of factors such as biodiversity, heritage, and tree canopy and other constraints applied in a traditional and well accepted “sieve mapping” process.

Matters such as these would normally be considered as constraints or limitations to development in a best-practice planning process.

The TOD controls are:
·    Maximum height control – 22 metres (6-storey residential flat buildings) and 24 metres (7-storey shop top housing);
·    maximum floorspace ratio (FSR) 2.5:1; and
·    minimum lot width of 21 metres.

Development controls that are critical to the protection of heritage and canopy cover are minimal or absent in the TOD, these include:

·    Minimum lot size;

·    setbacks;

·    site coverage;

·    deep soil; and

·    tree replacement.

The TOD SEPP is in place now and landowners, real estate agents, and developers are already responding to the opportunity provided by the SEPP amendments.

As of late September 2024, there were at least 34 EOIs on the market, involving over 100 individual properties, with potential for up to 3,300 new apartments.

In addition, Council has received:

·    one DA and 2 pre-DAs with potential for about 150 new dwellings;

·    three Planning Proposals with potential for about 1,200 dwellings (two predating the TOD SEPP; and

·    some twenty-four (24) enquiries and/or requests for de-listing of Heritage items for which no specialist heritage advice has been provided in support.