The City’s submission on the draft RWA
Contributions Plan details the draft’s failure to ensure the current per capita
rate of open space is not reduced, despite proposed massive increases in the
residential and worker population. Our submission also raises serious concern
about under-funding of promised public benefits, leaving Council to ultimately
foot the bill once the Authority winds up.
This contrasts with the City’s own draft
Development Contributions Plan, currently on public exhibition, which maps out
expected new development up to 2021 and provides for developers to contribute
an estimated $434 million in cash and kind over the next 15 years.
These contributions ensure developers meet
the costs their projects impose for new infrastructure, including streetscape
improvements, community facilities, new parks, libraries, improvements to
existing parks and aquatic facilities. The City’s Plan earmarks $11.3 million
for more than 200 child care places; $267 million for new parks totalling
170,000 square metres, equal to 20 football fields; and $40 million for a major
community facility at Green Square.
The Redfern Waterloo Authority is also now
exhibiting its Draft Affordable Housing Contributions Plan until 12 February
2007. The Plan sets out the way that the
RWA will levy developers to provide for affordable housing in the area.
Over the life of that 10 year plan, 75 affordable
housing units are proposed at a cost of $35 million. The Plan requires
developers to pay
$59 per square metre of floor area for all
new development, with around 600,000 square metres of new development expected.
The Plan only applies to development which the Minister for Planning approves,
not development assessed by Council.
In April 2006, I told Parliament that the
RWA should prepare these affordable housing and development contributions plans
before completing its Built Environment Plan. That did not occur and I remain
concerned that the RWA is working in an ad hoc way without a full understanding
of the area and is relying on overdevelopment to fund essential services.
Urgent solutions are needed for the lack of
green open space and the significant traffic and transport issues to avoid
repeating past mistakes of urban consolidation without prior infrastructure
investments.
The RWA Draft Affordable Housing
Contributions Plan: www.redfernwaterloo.nsw.gov.au/development_applications/draft_rwa_housing_plan.htm
City of Sydney submission on RWA Development
Contributions Plan: www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/UrbanRenewalProjects/RedfernPrecinct/AuthorityDraftContributionsPlanUpdate.asp
City’s Draft Development Contributions Plan:
www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Council/OnExhibition/DraftSection94DCP2006.asp