2. Select one or more of the Sydney Growth Centres Precinct Plans.

Prepare a brief report on the chosen Precinct Plan(s). In your report

you should provide a brief summary, analysis and commentary on
your chosen plan(s).

A Precinct plan is a collaboration with government agencies and local councils to

consider the Precinct development potential that they are a part of, and if they
agree to the plan, they will coordinate together to bring about the most efficient
delivery of key infrastructure for water, sewerage, power, roads, public transport,
education and other services. i Once the precinct plan is released for urban
development by the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure under the Clause
276, of the EP & A regulation, the process for the plan will commence.

The precinct planning process

In this report, I will give an example of a Sydney Growth Centre Precinct Plan,
where we will analyse and understand the qualities of the plan .

SOUTH WEST GROWTH CENTRE - EAST LEPPINGTON

PRECINCT PLAN
Area: 463 Ha

LGAs: Camden, Campbelltown, Liverpool.

Boundary: Bound by St Andrews Road and the North by Sydney Catchment

Authority Upper Canal.

Major Roads: Denham Court Road (East-West Road) Camden Valley Way (North-
South Road)

Based upon the 2005 Metropolitan Strategy City of Cities: A Plan for Sydneys
Future, this metropolitan strategy highlighted the major concerns of
infrastructure, population growth, education, housing and services, and devised
strategies to deal with the issues. 5 years later, a scheduled review was
undertaken in 2010, this was called the Metropolitan Plan for Sydney 2036. In
this strategy it included the South West Growth Centre, which is where the East
Leppington Precinct is located at. Thus under the growth centre SEPP, it will go
under various changes, which will include identifying environmental constraints,
exploring development opportunities and responding to the legislative
requirements and best practice guidelines of state and local government. Taking
on feedback from community and stakeholder groups, and confirming
consistency of the package with relevant planning documents.

Following the precinct planning process, the base structure plan for the whole
south west growth centre sets out the parameters and principles to achieve the
objective, Over 110, 000 dwellings are to be delivered in the South West Precinct
over the next 25 30 years.

The East Leppington precinct was given a target 3,000 dwellings this includes the
East Leppington Precinct. The plan is set out as follows:
Drawn from above, the East Leppington Precinct plan is focused on the public
facilities, infrastructure, and population growth. The unique focus of this precinct
is flooding concerns.

GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

The whole precinct planning process is guided by the Project Working Group,
made up of council and department officers, it meets up regularly with state
agencies and technical advisers to help formulate future plans for the precinct.
The Project Control Group is the group that oversees and manages the whole
process. The technical advisors for the precinct plan were:

Usually they are from reputable companies with relevant experience in the field
and have built up a relationship or a reputation with the council groups or the
area.
East Leppington is predominately rural in nature, with high hills and plateaus,
which make it a flood prone area, (thus the flooding concern in the structure
plan). With watercourses flowing through the Precinct, there are many farm dams
along the course.
RE-ZONING
Currently the land is zoned for rural purposes under the Liverpool LEP 2008. It is
mainly used for agricultural, residential, small markets, childcare centres, and
greenhouses. This is a low populated precinct outside of the Sydney CBD area,
located within the Liverpool, Campbelltown, Penrith triangle. The growth centre is
far inland compared to Sydney, thus the slow growth as compared to coastal
regions which were ports for ships during the early settlement period of Sydney,
But as the Metropolitan plan has highlighted, NSW is aiming to become a
polycentric city with multiple centres, this means expanding further inland. What
this means for the South West Growth Centre, is that there will be a rezoning of
land, and incentives for stakeholders to invest in that area.

What is interesting about the East Leppington Precinct plan is that it is largely
owned by Stockland group (over 70%), which meant that their input as the major
stakeholder was vital to the development of the precinct.

STATUTORY PLANNING FRAMEWORK

The planning framework has been created to guide the planning of the precinct,
and the draft Indicative Layout Plan (ILP) has been created according to EP & A
(1979) Act. The precinct has to consider and address a number of acts to comply
for the plan to be set into motion, below are some that made the area an
interesting case to study

The Special Infrastructure Contributions:

The developer or landowner will have to make a financial contribution, in the

case of East Leppington, the contribution will go towards the Camden Valley Way,
and Denham Court Road. This is very common in many precincts, for
stakeholders to offer a contribution to the enhancement to the area.

Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995:

In East Leppington, it has considered the presence of species, and where

possible conserved them under this act. What this does to the rezoning of the
land, is that where a threatened species is identified to be residing in that area,
either that land wont be rezoned and maintained as an area of conservation, or
the rezoning would include constraints as to not disturb the threatened species.
In some cases, if it is absolutely necessary, the threatened species might be
relocated to a safer location.

Rural Fires Act 1997:

In the East Leppington Precinct, it must obtain permits from the NSW Rural Fire
Service should a development fall within the boundaries of a bushfire prone area.
With that being said, in this particular case, it wasnt possible to obtain permits
over the whole precinct. As to why it cannot be obtained throughout the whole
precinct, one could postulate that there must be some development areas that
are non-complying, and until that is altered, it wouldnt be able to be developed.

Heritage Act 1997:

In this precinct the Sydney Catchment Authority Upper Canal has been identified
as state significant as well as a number of potential items.
DRAFT INDICATIVE LAYOUT PLAN
The draft ILP is a response to the technical data that was gathered through
studies, and is indicative of what will be proposed for the East Leppington
Precinct.

What is interesting about the precinct design is an echo of many modern urban
planning principles. It focuses on utilizing their open spaces passively, and using
tributaries and waterways as a physical boundary, in this case the existing Bonds
Creek is used to break up the Precinct into different residential areas. The layout
plan indicates that there will be low residential development in the area from the
previous rural area, at least 15 dwellings per hectare. Due to the instalment of
low residential, a finer grain of roads will be implemented into the existing road
grid.

The East Leppington Precinct was planned to have a total of three centres, one
major centre, and two smaller neighbourhood centres. But after consultation with
local councils, they decided to have only one centre and one neighbourhood
centre. It would seem that through the consultation, that the councils did not
wish to have another centre, rather than seeing it as an advantage, they saw it
as a burden, or that another neighbourhood centre wasnt within their capacity
to manage and maintain, due to the medium density residential around the area
which requires greater scrutinization in development applications.

The treatment with difficult terrains, such as flood prone areas and steep terrain,
will be placed with low density developments. In analysis of this decision, it
would seem that the councils have decided to place the public buildings (local
centres) and utilities away from troublesome areas i.e. Flood prone areas, which
will attract potential intensive maintenance. With the low residential
developments in the flood prone areas, it would mean that the potential issues
that the property might have, will be in the hands of the residents, and will take
the burden off the councils. Even though insurance will usually be the norm with
most low density housing, the responsibility has been given to the residents, and
in event of floods, they will have public shelters within the local centres.

The precinct has a distinct feature of a riparian corridor that divides the site,
along the corridor, the councils decided to place the public utilities, and
parklands. As well as preservation of native vegetation. One advantage of
placing the public activities near the riparian corridor is to minimize the pollution
to the waterway, whereas if residential was placed near the waterway, there
would be domestic pollution as well as a very un-uniform grid for laying out the
residential housing due to the nature of the corridor.

In procedure with the metropolitan plan, local cycle networks will be

implemented strategically so that the use will be maximised by pedestrians. As
well as the provision of more buses to be routed throughout the area.
DEVELOPMENT CONTROL PLANS AND SEPP

With the ILP approved, or in the process of approval, draft Development Control
Plans (DCP) and amendments to the Growth Centre SEPP to support the precinct
plan will be made.

The SEPP amendment will include amendments to the complying and non-
complying developments to exclude the operation of the General Housing Code
from applying to land that is zoned as Environmental Conservation or
Management. What this achieves is the preservation of natural habitat, and if
development is to occur on the protected land, development consent must be
obtained from Council.

The SEPP will also reflect the ILP requirement of a school, and it will be
highlighted in the map, as well as the maximum height of various areas within
the precinct has been adjusted according to the sensitivity of relevant land use
zones. In the local centres, the allowed building height will be a bit higher, and in
the lower residential, it will be conditioned properly to ensure that there isnt
much overshadowing and noise pollution.

In this precinct there are three councils and instead of consolidation under one
DCP, they decided to create separate DCP for each council to amend. This will be
the most efficient method, as merging three councils into one, would require
consideration of each councils point of view, and extensive consultation to
achieve a positive outcome.

From analysing the East Leppington Precinct Plan and the Campbelltown City
Council Submission, It was highlighted that they were upset and frustrated with
the lack of commitment and direction from the State. It was highlighted that the
ILP was inconsistent and inflexible to accommodate changes to the development.
As well as the infrastructure being possibly too costly for the Council to manage.

Liverpool Council holds a stronger opposition than Campbelltown Council. In the

letter from Sam Haddad (Director-General of Department of Planning), he goes to
say that there isnt enough council involvement, that the council representatives
of the PCG were not able to endorse the exhibition package prior to the
Department of Planning and Infrastructure proceeding with public exhibition. As
well as a lack of contributions plan and lack of commitment from the State
Government to fund critical Infrastructure or acquire required land, he goes on to
criticize AECOM for preparing minimal details regarding the funding of critical
infrastructure.

Stockland has highlighted their concerns that the suggested land fragmentation
and ownerships will not be possible on the land that they currently control. This
reaction from Stockland is to be expected, as they do own the land, and unless
they have a greater incentive to fragment the ownership to other stakeholders,
they will not do so.

It would seem that the Draft Precinct Plan will have to go through amendments
until the Department and relevant councils are satisfied with the result, and that
financially they are capable of carrying out the works that they suggested. As
well as undergo exhibition again for the broader community to assess.
i