Councillors meet to decide which shire locations should be the next to be rezoned for apartments

The council's Strategic Planning Unit has made confidential recommendations, designed to meet a target in the draft housing strategy being developed by the council, which would see apartments making up about 30 per cent of new homes by 2041.

Decisions will be revealed when the draft housing strategy and draft local environmental plan (LEP) are finalised and released.

An overview provided in a staff report said there was inadequate capacity under the 2015 local environmental plan (SSLEP2015) to provide sufficient apartments to meet community needs to 2041.

"Analysis shows that apartments in centres are not financially feasible to develop under existing height and density limits and remaining capacity in the R4 High Density zone will be exhausted in five-six years," the report said.

"The Strategic Planning Unit has explored where growth can be best accommodated."

The report said properties within the B3 Commercial Core zone benefited from generous height and floor space ratio provisions under the 2015 LEP, however, development within centres had been rare despite the recent development boom.

"This is largely because the centres are characterised by small lots with fragmented ownership patterns, where existing businesses have long term leases.

"This gives properties high underlying value relative to the size of the land parcel. As a result, it is simply too difficult and expensive for developers to amalgamate large sites for redevelopment in centres.

"There is theoretical capacity for up to 6000 future dwellings to be accommodated in centres under SSLEP2015.

"However, feasibility testing has proved these are not feasible under current controls.

"While there will always be some sites that due to their historic ownership or nature of use will support redevelopment, the Local Housing Strategy must be based on options that are feasible."

The report said, in contrast, there had been strong take up of opportunities for apartments in the R4 High Density Residential zones.

"This is largely because it is feasible to redevelop older houses sitting on large lots of land.

"The greatest remaining capacity for apartments is in Caringbah, due to the areas rezoned to R4 under SSLEP2015 being the Medical Precinct [where extra building height and floor space is allowed for developments with medical suites at the bottom and apartments above] and North Caringbah former high school site.

"Engadine and Gymea have no capacity for apartments in the R4 zone.

"Cronulla has low potential capacity, and significantly new apartments in Cronulla generally have a large floor area and replace smaller apartments."

The report said recent developments had resulted in a decrease in the actual number of dwellings [older style flats being replaced by a smaller number of larger apartments].

"Fine grain analysis of remaining capacity suggests that there is only five to six years capacity remaining in the R4 High Density Residential zones across Sutherland Shire."

The report said the state government required all councils to prepare a Local Housing Strategy to ensure that there is an efficient pipeline of housing supply into the future.

"It takes at least five years to go from a council decision to rezone land to it being occupied.

"Focusing a Housing Strategy to 2041 gives council a longer-term view.

"To ensure adequate future housing supply in Sutherland Shire, Council needs to amend the planning framework to facilitate the delivery of more apartments.

"Decisions made by this council will deliver housing from 2027."