Update: At the 1 December Strategic Planning and Development Committee meeting, the Affordable Housing Contributions Scheme was adopted by Council. To read the Council report, including consultation outcomes, please click here (starts pg. 17). You can read the minutes here (pgs. 3 & 4).
The Draft Waverley Affordable Housing Contribution Scheme is a legislative requirement of Section 7.32 Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (EP&A Act), with further clarification provided by Environmental Planning Assessment (Planning Agreements) Direction 2019 (Ministerial Direction) and State Environmental Planning Policy No 70—Affordable Housing (Revised Schemes) (SEPP 70) that allow councils to collect any monetary or in-kind contributions for affordable housing through the planning system. The draft scheme has two main objectives:
- Give effect to the Council’s current approach of allocating monetary contributions to affordable housing through voluntary planning agreements.
- Introduce a new affordable housing contribution as a requirement in the WLEP 2012, consistent with the recommendations from the Local Housing Strategy including:
— A contribution on all new residential apartment development of 1% of floorspace, typically provided as a monetary contribution towards affordable housing
— A contribution of 10% towards affordable housing for sites that receive planning uplift through a rezoning process.
The NSW Government released a Ministerial Direction requiring that Councils who wish to require in-kind or monetary contributions for affordable housing through a voluntary planning agreement must have an affordable housing contributions scheme. It is intended that the scheme will give Council a legislative basis to require affordable housing contributions from sites that have been granted uplift through rezoning or changes to development standards.
Council wishes to continue allocating planning agreement funds (a minimum 25% as outlined in the report) to affordable housing and hence the preparation of the scheme is required.
Further information relating to these updates can be viewed in the Document Library. You can make a submission to this amendment using the survey below, please reference SF20/4416 in any correspondence.
If you have any further questions please contact Tim Sneesby, Manager Strategic Planning on 9083 8172 or tim.sneesby@waverley.nsw.gov.au.
