• What is an LEP and DCP?

• An LEP is a statutory document made under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 which sets down the major rules for development of land in a local government area. This includes the “zoning” of land for certain purposes, and specific rules for development e.g. height controls. The LEP must be in accordance with an LEP “template” provided by the NSW Government.

  The DCP supplements the LEP rules with more detailed development controls for matters not normally included in the LEP e.g. car parking requirements for new development.

• Why do we need a new LEP and DCP?

• A new LEP and DCP is required as:

  • we need to bring together our current four LEPs and four DCPs, developed at different points in time, to create a single, coherent, set of rules for future development on the Northern Beaches.
  • Councils must review their planning controls every 5-10 years.
  • we need to implement the actions contained in Council’s recently adopted Local Strategic Planning Statement – Towards 2040.

  It is important to note that the new LEP and DCP are only one means by which the priorities and actions in our Local Strategic Planning Statement will be implemented.

  Many other Council strategies, including, for example, our Environment and Climate Change Strategy – Protect, Create, Live, will play a significant role in that work too.

• What is the purpose of this discussion paper?

• This discussion paper identifies issues that we must address in preparing a new LEP and DCP, describes the work being done to respond to those issues, and, where possible, outlines ideas we are proposing for the new LEP and DCP.

  We are seeking your comments on the issues raised and our proposals to address them. We are interested to know if there is anything we have missed or you believe needs more work.

  The discussion paper does not address every matter to be included in the new LEP and DCP or contain clear proposals on all issues.

• How does it affect me?

• Issues and proposals raised in the discussion paper may affect everyone differently.

  To help you understand how your property is currently zoned or what land uses are permissible, we recommend you check our Property Search tool.

  This information may assist you finding the content that is most relevant to you when making your comments on the discussion paper.
  

• How is the discussion paper structured?

• The LEP/DCP Discussion Paper content is organised in chapters based on the themes and directions contained in Council’s Local Strategic Planning Statement, Towards 2040:

  • Sustainability with directions: Landscape, Efficiency and Resilience
  • Infrastructure and collaboration
  • Liveability with directions People, Housing and Great Places
  • Productivity with directions: Connectivity and Jobs and Skills.

  Sub-chapters are based on some of the thirty priorities in Towards 2040.

• How is Council managing any potential conflicts of interest?

• We prepared the LEP/DCP Discussion Paper in accordance with a Probity Plan for the local planning framework.

  This plan requires Council to identify all property related matters in public exhibition documentation. Council owns and manages several properties that will be impacted by the proposed zoning and land uses, particularly waterway zones (Priority 1), environmental zones (Priority 2), recreation zones (Priority 6) and special purpose zones (Priority 9). Some Council properties may also be affected by changes to business and industrial zones.

  To address any potential conflicts, the discussion paper was drafted by staff separate from Council’s property division. Any submissions by Council’s property department will be assessed independently and reported back to Council.

  Council’s process in managing conflicts will be subject to a Probity Audit to be reported to Council with the draft LEP and DCP.

• Where can I find a glossary of terms?

• There is a glossary of terms available in the LEP/DCP Discussion Paper. Here's the direct link.

Sustainability

• What’s proposed to protect our natural environment (Direction: Landscape)?

• The discussion paper considers a range of controls to better protect our environment. These controls will be informed by a range of technical studies, including the Environmental Zones Review, to be released later in the year.

  The discussion paper includes information on current and proposed waterway, environmental, recreational and rural zones and the Metropolitan Rural Area. Also discussed are controls related to:

  • waterways
  • foreshore building lines
  • watercourses, wetlands and riparian lands
  • stormwater management
  • water sensitive urban design
  • foreshore scenic protection
  • tree canopy and urban heat.
• What’s proposed to improve energy, water and waste efficiency (Direction: Efficiency)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposals:

  • Net zero energy buildings: Adopt performance standards for net zero energy buildings prepared in conjunction with the City of Sydney, industry and government, subject to approval from the Department and outcomes of the Design and Place State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP).
    
    
  • Sustainability outcomes: Consider controls for smaller scale development that will enforce standards over and above State provisions and/or include requirements for independent sustainability certification.
    
  • Waste management: Review permissible land uses to promote a circular economy and prepare new standard controls to ensure waste from developments is appropriately managed, including for non-residential development.
    
    
  • Water efficiency: Review water efficiency controls as part of the Water Cycle Management Plan.
• What’s proposed to address environmental and urban hazards (Direction: Resilience)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposed approach with respect to environmental hazards:

  • Technical studies: New controls and mapping following consultation and finalisation of the:
  • Estuarine Planning Levels Study: addressing coastal inundation at Cowan Creek and North and Middle Harbour.
  • Geotechnical Engineering Study: addressing geotechnical hazards including landslips, excessive settlement and groundwater issues.
  • Deferred Lands Strategic Bush Fire Risk Assessment: addressing bush fire prone land including permissible uses and appropriate zoning.
  • Flooding controls: Align with the Department’s flood prone land package and model LEP clauses.
  • Urban hazards: Review and update controls relating to urban hazards including land contamination, onsite stormwater management and fireplaces.

Infrastructure

• What's outlined for Infrastructure (Direction: Infrastructure and collaboration)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposed approach noting local controls generally only facilitate smaller scale infrastructure usually associated with non-government owned land or operators:

  • Infrastructure and Education State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs): Rationalise land uses listed for each zone that are permitted in State Environmental Planning Policy (Educational Establishments and Child Care Facilities) 2017 and State Environmental Planning Policy (Infrastructure) 2007.
    
    
  • Facilitating resilience: Permit emergency facilities, environmental protection works and flood mitigation works in all zones and allow Council to assess the impacts of any works not outlined in the Infrastructure SEPP and/or undertaken by or on behalf of a public authority.
    
    
  • Special Infrastructure zones: Retain existing sites zoned as either SP1 Special Activities and SP2 Infrastructure and consider other compatible uses to promote co-location and social infrastructure. Zone all existing public and private schools and educational establishments as SP2 to ensure these facilities are identified in the zoning framework.

Livability

• What’s proposed for housing (Direction: Housing)?

• The discussion paper outlines how we propose to implement the Northern Beaches Local Housing Strategy. This includes:

  • For this LEP, implementing Housing Diversity Areas (HDAs) in the R2 Low Density Residential zones within 400m of identified local centres including Avalon Beach, Newport, Warriewood, Belrose and Freshwater, where suitable.
    
    In these areas we would be permitting dual occupancies (attached, and detached on corner lots only) with strata subdivision on lot sizes to be determined, and permitting seniors housing and boarding houses on sites greater than 1000m2. It would also mean we would prohibit dual occupancies in R2 low density residential zone (currently permitted on certain land under Pittwater LEP and Manly LEP). We also propose to prohibit attached dwellings, multi-dwelling housing and semi-detached dwellings in Manly LEP R2 zone as density and lot size provisions make these developments difficult to achieve.
    
  • For future LEPs: implementing Centre Investigation Areas (CIAs) undertake further planning within 800m of Brookvale, Dee Why, Mona Vale, Manly Vale and Narrabeen, and potentially Forestville and Beacon Hill subject to the future B-Line route.
    
  • For secondary dwellings: seeking community feedback on current controls, noting the findings of technical studies may see these restricted in some areas.

  The discussion paper also outlines our proposed approach to residential zones and permissible uses. We also seek feedback on removing floor space ratio requirements for dwelling houses and semi-detached dwellings in Manly LEP and managing these developments through other controls such as landscape area and open space requirements, boundary set-back controls, building height/ building envelope controls, and local character controls.
  

• What’s proposed to protect local character and create great places (Direction: Great places)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposals to address this direction:

  • Design excellence and urban design: Work with our Design and Sustainability Advisory Panel to assess existing design excellence controls in Manly and Warringah LEPs and built form controls under investigation in the urban design study.
    
    
  • Amenity impacts: Update controls for noise and vibration; solar access; visual privacy; natural ventilation (with efficiency controls); glare and reflection; and air quality and odours. Create additional controls relating to late night trading venues and the night-time economy to address negative amenity impacts for these types of developments.
    
  • Centre controls: Provide more detailed controls around the design of centres to make them more pedestrian friendly and amenable including continuous awnings, active street fronts and public art in private developments.
    
    
  • Signage: Apply a consistent approach to the permissibility of signage with controls to ensure signage is of high-quality design and does not present any hazards.

  A local character study is currently underway and will be released later in the year.

• What outlined for heritage (Direction: Great places)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposals:

  • Aboriginal heritage: Create DCP controls relating to Aboriginal Heritage Significance to consider during a development application , recognising and protecting any potentially unidentified Aboriginal objects or sites. Noting known Aboriginal sites must be kept confidential hence cannot be included in Council’s LEP.
    
    
  • Non-Aboriginal heritage:
    • Review the accuracy of current non-Aboriginal heritage lists and maps for each LEP and investigate whether some heritage conservation areas listed in the Warringah LEP are more appropriate as individual landscape items.
    • Consolidate and improve DCP controls for heritage items and archaeological sites including controls for ancillary development such as fencing or signage.
    • Review existing heritage controls for heritage conservation areas including Manly Town Centre and Manly Pittwater Road and consider mapping items that contribute to heritage significance (e.g. buildings, fences or gardens).

Productivity

• ​ What are we doing for transport (Direction: Connectivity)?

• The discussion paper proposes changes to the following local controls:

  • Parking provisions: Update and consolidate parking rates for various developments, including requirements for car share, electric vehicle charging, bicycle parking and end of trip facilities and will do further work to identify localised parking rates based on rates of car ownership, public transport accessibility and car share rates.
    
    
  • Reduced parking rates and maximum rates in strategic centres: We propose to introduce maximum parking requirements for townhouses, villas, apartments. Reduced minimum parking requirements are proposed for shops, restaurants/cafes and hotel/motel accommodation within these same centres. We seek feedback on reduced rates for non-residential development. This will reduce further traffic or parking demand in these centres as the local road network cannot accommodate additional cars
    
  • Sustainable transport: Requiring a Green Travel Plan for certain new developments to encourage employees, students or customers to use sustainable transport.
• How will the new controls support a vibrant economy (Direction: Jobs and skills)?

• Data from our employment study currently underway informs recommendations for business and industrial zones. These will be reviewed together with community feedback and draft employment zones reforms by the NSW Government.
  
  Visit www.planning.nsw.gov.au for more information.

• What’s proposed for town centres (Priorities 22-27)?

• We define town centres as areas zoned as either B1 Neighbourhood Centre, B2 Local Centre, B3 Commercial Core or B4 Mixed Use. For these areas, the discussion paper proposes:

  • amending zone objectives to better define their intent
  • resolving inconsistencies in permissible land uses across current LEPs, including low impact industrial uses, sex services premises and working from home
  • maintaining provisions to protect commercial floor space and restrict large scale retailing in local centres.

  We seek your feedback on the use of incentives for additional commercial floor space as currently applied in the Manly LEP.

• What’s proposed for business employment zones (Priority 28)?

• We define business employment zones as areas zoned as either B5 Business Development, B6 Enterprise Corridor or B7 Business Park. For these areas, we propose:

  • B5 Business Development zone: Rezone existing bulky goods or large format retail clusters to B5 to limit this use moving into other employment focused zones. This includes new B5 zones in these locations:
    • in part of the current Warriewood B7 zone
    • in part of the current Austlink B7 precinct
    • in place of the current Balgowlah B6 zone.
      
  • B6 Enterprise Corridor zone: Continue to support commercial and light industrial uses including specialist showrooms for the automotive and construction industries along main road corridors. Retain at North Narrabeen on Pittwater Road. Rezone B5 zone on Pittwater Road Brookvale to B6. Permit early education and child care facilities to encourage these uses outside of industrial precincts and prohibit uses that would encourage pedestrian activity such as information and education facilities and restricted premises.
    
    
  • B7 Business Park zone: Retain the B7 zone as it applies at Frenchs Forest Business Park and Vuko Place at Warriewood and change parts of the B7 zone at Austlink Business Park in Belrose and Warriewood to B5. Align land uses with business park zone objectives to differentiate the role and function of a business park from nearby industrial precincts.
• What’s proposed for industrial areas (Priority 28)?

• The discussion paper outlines the following proposed approach to industrial areas:

  • Industrial land uses: Protect industrial land for industrial uses and prevent expansion of commercially viable non-industrial land use such as child care, community centres and respite day care centres in these zones.
    
  • Gyms in industrial zones: Seek feedback on whether to permit recreation facilities (indoor) in industrial zones, noting prohibiting this use would protect industrial land for industrial uses (existing gyms are likely to be protected as under existing use rights) yet permitting this use recognises the benefits of these facilities to local residents and workers.
    
  • IN1 General Industrial zone: Investigate rezoning the Mona Vale and Warriewood IN2 light industrial precincts to IN1 based on the scale and range of land uses. Retain Brookvale and Cromer IN1 zones. Consolidate land uses to permit horticulture, animal boarding or training establishments, funeral homes, landscaping material supplies, crematoriums, car parks and recreation areas, and to prohibit community centres, respite day care centres and centre based and school based child care to protect industrial land for industrial uses.
    
  • IN2 Light Industrial zone: Consider reducing the range of permissible uses in Pittwater LEP IN2 zone to prevent nuisance or adverse amenity impacts on small neighbourhood industrial precincts. This includes uses such as funeral homes, landscaping material supplies, timber yards, vehicle sales or hire premises, industrial retail outlets, wholesale supplies, boat building and repair facilities, vehicle body repair workshops and crematoriums. This would only impact the North Narrabeen industrial precinct if Mona Vale and Warriewood were to change to IN2.
    
    
  • IN4 Working Waterfront zone: Retain as identified in Pittwater LEP, along with the additional permitted use for the Mona Vale industrial zone.
• What’s proposed for tourism (Direction: Jobs and skills)?

• To support tourism, we propose to retain the existing SP3 tourism zone at Manly and the Narrabeen caravan park and support tourist and visitor accommodation where currently permitted. Duration of stay provisions will be subject to Government changes to short term rental accommodation rules.

• What’s proposed for building heights?

• The discussion paper proposes:

  • An increase in LEP height controls by 1-1.5m, but not the number of storeys, in B1 and B2 zones to increase the floor heights for better retail experiences (excluding Dee Why, Mona Vale and Frenchs Forest).
    
    
  • An 11-18 metre building height limit for the Frenchs Forest Business Park B7 zone.
    
  • Including LEP height controls for the Warringah Mall B3 zone.
    
  • An 11m to 16m height increase in industrial zones to address the significant demand for more industrial space.

  There are no plans to increase permissible building heights in residential zones.