Waterloo Planning Controls Finalised

by

Waterloo
South Planning Controls finalised

The
Main Links about the decision

Links
to the Key Documents

REDWatch
Comments on Exhibition

Please
note – this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue
underlined word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a
document or to get more information.

Waterloo South Planning Controls finalised

The new
planning controls for Waterloo South have been formally approved and placed on
the NSW Legislation website to come into effect on 28 February 2023.

There appear
to be no changes made by the Gateway section of the Department of Planning and
Environment (DPE) to what the DPE Planning Proposal Authority (PPA) made public
when it submitted its recommendations.

Yet to be
finalised is a planning agreement between Council and Land and Housing
Corporation (LAHC) over how infrastructure will be delivered and paid for. This
infrastructure includes arrangements about the park and community centre
approved in the plan.

When the
planning agreement is finalised it will be exhibited for 28 days for community
input – the period will be extended if it overlaps Christmas / New Year
holidays. DPE expects this process to be complete before the end of February
and before the caretaker period before the NSW election comes into effect on 3
March 2023.

DPE says “finalising
the plan provides certainty to the community, LAHC and the City of Sydney on
the planning controls, while the deferred commencement ensures any renewal is
supported by infrastructure”.

LAHC is currently
in the early stages of selecting a consortium including both a developer to
build and a Community Housing Provider (CHP) to run the social housing. LAHC
expects to appoint a “development partner” by the end of 2023 and it will take
some time for the developer to formulate with LAHC and the CHP its development
plans for the site. Under the controls a Concept Development Application (DA)
is expected to be the first DA for the site and it is expected to show where
social, affordable and private housing will be located. The Sydney Morning
Herald has described the Waterloo Estate as a $3 billion redevelopment.

The planning
controls lock in at least the floor space that LAHC has permission to build and
the process it’s expected to follow. The community will also have a formal say
in all the development applications for the site and the building designs.
Vigilance will be required by the community as the planning rules just set can
be changed with approval on any DA or modification.

LAHC has been
collecting questions from tenants about their relocation concerns and expect to
issue a relocation plan responding to these questions in early 2023. LAHC has
said no one will be relocated before 2024, but that in mid-2023 those who will
be first to move, may be issued their 6 months notices.

LAHC is also
currently talking to the community about what is necessary for it to deliver
the ‘people outcomes’ the community seeks from the redevelopment.

In summary
the main changes from the exhibited proposal are: 

  • Pitt Street is extended, but not opened up to
    McEvoy Street for motor vehicles. 
  • Towers along McEvoy Street have move north a
    little and building foot prints have been increased by up to 25%. As a result
    overshadowing has increased in the small park. There is no increase in Floor
    Space Ratio (FSR). 
  • The Design Guide to now provides “detailed
    flexible provisions” making the design guide less binding on the
    redevelopment. 
  • The percentages of social and affordable housing
    are retained and is made clear they apply to any increase in FSR resulting from
    design excellence. 
  • FSR changes made are primarily for some private
    sites. 

The
Main Links about the decision

The DPE Waterloo South
Priority Growth Areas and Precincts page has been updated.

The final
plan documents can be found at DPE’s Finalised Waterloo Estate
(South) Planning Proposal (REDWatch has provided direct links to the
individual documents below).

This is the
link to the Legislation website where the Sydney Local Environment Plan 2012 is
amended by the Waterloo
South Sydney LEP Amendment (no83)

The
Minister’s media release for the approved zoning is Green
light for Waterloo South rezoning.

The Sydney
Morning Herald got the media drop for this story which you may see behind the
paywall as First
stage of Waterloo public housing estate rezoned for $3b revamp. It is an
excellent article it is just a pity that many people who would benefit from its
summary will not be able to see it!

Information
to the background to the proposal and more news as it happens can be found at http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/Waterloo 

The LAHC
website for the redevelopment is the Waterloo
Project Page

Links
to the Key Documents

These
documents can be found on the Finalised Waterloo Estate
(South) Planning Proposal page

The key
document explaining the rezoning decision is the Plan
Finalisation Report

The Key
documents covering future planning are:

Final
Proposal Documents

DPI Planning
Gateway Determinations

Responses to
public exhibition submissions

REDWatch
Comments on Exhibition

REDWatch was
highly critical that the Response to Submissions (RtS) did not address the
specifics of the community concerns. The DPE PPA out sourced the RtS to an
external company Keylan. The report produced broad summaries of issues raised
in submissions rather than specific concerns. REDWatch was also critical that the
RtS did not include responses to any Government submissions.

The Plan
Finalisation Report and associated finalisation appendices now detail the
Planning Proposal Authority (PPA) and the Gateway responses to the issues
raised in the Government submissions especially from LAHC and Council. It is
worthwhile reading what LAHC and Council requested and how they were responded
to.

Those
concerns were also expressed by tenants as can be seen in the Tenant-Only Subgroup of the WRG letter to the
Minister about the Waterloo (South) Exhibition. The DPE Response to Waterloo Redevelopment
Tenant-Only Subgroup letter on behalf of the Minister did not
address tenant concerns.

If you
compare the responses to Government submissions with the response to the
community submissions you will understand why tenants did not feel they got
what DPE promised them – which was that DPE would tell them what it heard and
explain why things were, or were not, included in the final planning proposal.

The contrast
between how Government and Non-Government submissions get treated in the
planning process can be clearly seen with the release of these documents. While
the submissions saw some changes around the McEvoy opening, many other issues
raised in submissions did not even get mentioned in the Keylan report. Key
concerns such as the need for a Social Impact Assessment was not even
mentioned, let alone responded to.

Does DPE and
its Minister really expect that after this experience tenants and the broader
community will bother with its next tick the box exhibition? This exhibition
makes a mockery of the planning changes that purported to want to get the community
involved in strategic planning rather than have it just complaining about what
happened after the event. Waterloo tenants tried to be involved and the
planning system failed to deliver.