It is crunch time for Marrickville! The Urban Design Study for Marrickville and The Heritage Study are now on Council's Your Say page. The studies and your feedback will be used to develop the new Local Environment Plan (LEP) and Development Control Plan (DCP). The urban design study is proposing significant changes to Marrickville Town Centre. The proposed plans could lead to the disappearance of the current Marrickville Town Centre, replacing it with buildings of up to 6-12 storeys.

Save Marrickville is still sifting through both the Marrickville Urban Design Study and the Heritage Report but some of the recommendations that you should know about include:

1. Increasing allowable building heights to 8-storeys on Illawarra Road, Petersham Rd and around the train station
2. Two key sites have been identified that could facilitate 12 storey "landmark " buildings at Station St (just off Illawarra Rd near the train station) and at the corner of Illawarra Rd and Petersham Rd (previous Cornersmith cafe site).
3. Increased density by rezoning selected areas near to the train station to R4 (High Density Residential) including Greenbank Street, Church Street, Leofrene Avenue, Riverdale Avenue, Harriet Street, Fletcher Street and Albion Street. The rezoning would allow 4-5 storey residential flat buildings.
4. Rezoning Petersham Road to B2 (Local Centre) to transform it into a mixed-use high street. The urban design centre talks about Petersham Rd as an important linking road and recommends transforming Petersham Rd into a shared green street that prioritises pedestrian and cyclist movements.
5. Increasing allowable building heights on Marrickville Road from 20m to 23m to facilitate buildings with better amenity while maintaining the existing 6-storey height control
6. The Exchange Hotel is listed for Heritage Status as well as a few new smaller areas. Disappointingly, the Heritage Map of Marrickville is very empty, particularly in comparison to other suburbs in the IW LGA. 

It is critically important that you are aware of the proposed changes. Their impact will be much greater than any of the development we've seen so far.

Inner West Council states that it is planning for sustainable growth and development focussing on: 

1. Housing growth in Marrickville, Dulwich Hill and North Ashfield (uplift around main streets and railway stations)
2. Heritage (unfortunately very few listings for Marrickville)
3. Low carbon precincts
4. Car parking in new developments (looking to minimise car parking)

Council is asking the community ‘Are we on the right track?’. Here are a couple of things you can do:

1. Attend Save Marrickville’s public meeting to discuss the plans on Thursday 22nd September, Marrickville Bowling Club, 7pm.
2. If you only have 5 minutes: Read the summary and answer Council's 5 question survey by Sunday 25th September.
3. If you have more time or you feel strongly: Make a submission to Council by Sunday 25th September.
4. Contact your elected Councillors to let them know your concerns.

There is not much time to absorb the information. This phase of Council’s engagement with the community ends on September 25th so please get your submissions and survey answers submitted asap. The community feedback will be used to draft planning controls. Please share this information so that as many people as possible can express their views. Once the LEP and DCP are approved by the Department of Planning they will not be able to be reversed and the community will not be able to fight proposals based on height and FSR in rezoned areas.

The recommendations concern us. We know that things are changing and development is going to occur. However, we would like it to be equitable in the LGA. Our goals for Marrickville’s future development include:

- Keeping development in scale with the streetscape, therefore no higher than 5 storeys with 2 storeys at street front. Going to a height of 8 storeys is excessively high on narrow roads such as Illawarra Rd and Petersham Rd.

- Compelling developers to include true affordable housing, as well as providing permanent housing, not serviced apartments or build to rent units.

- A Heritage Conservation Area covering Marrickville Town Centre to protect heritage buildings and character on Marrickville and Illawarra and Rds.