A mistake in the wording of Sutherland Shire Council’s newly-minted local environmental plan has cast confusion over the future of hundreds of development applications for dual occupancies.
Mayor Kent Johns told the council meeting on Monday, June 29, that an ‘‘error’’ had been identified in the LEP and outlined the council’s plans to rectify it.
Last-minute legal redrafting of wording by parliamentary staff in the final countdown to the gazettal of the LEP last week had created the error regarding dual occupancy subdivision in low, medium and high-density residential zones.
The LEP as exhibited three times by the council included a clause to permit the subdivision of dual occupancy development without the need for minimum lot width and depth requirements.
In the council’s version, minimum subdivision lot size is ‘‘optional’’ in the residential zones if there is a dual occupancy on the lot and one dwelling will be on each lot resulting from the subdivision.
Subdivisions in residential zones have a minimum lot requirement of 15-metres wide and 27-metres deep and in environmental zones of 18-metres wide and 27-metres deep.
The council felt that dual occupancy subdivisions should be exempt from these conditions as developments were planned and completed in conjunction with the subdivision.
But the LEP as gazetted now rules these minimum lot width and depth requirements must apply to all subdivisions including dual occupancies.
The plan does not include any exemptions.
Council staff only identified the problem on June 29 and will clarify with NSW Planning and Environment whether the late amendment to the drafting of the LEP was intended and whether they will stop the subdivision of dual occupancy development.
If this is the case, the council will ask the planning minister to correct the LEP to permit the subdivision of dual occupancy development in low, medium and high-density residential zones without the need of the minimum lot sizes.
If the department cannot amend the LEP under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, the council will submit a planning proposal under the planning department’s Gateway process, asking to approval dual occupancy subdivisions without the need to comply to minimum lot sizes.
Do you think the LEP should be altered to allow dual occupancies without minimum lot requirements?
