The Inner West Council publicly exhibited a number of important strategic documents last year. Council is operating to a very tight deadline to produce a draft Local Environment Plan (LEP) this year. This means that their draft Housing Strategy, draft Employment and Retail Lands Strategy and draft Local Strategic Planning Statement were released in succession in the latter part of 2019. It is difficult for any community member to properly digest these documents and make a considered submission and we thank those who were able to make their voice heard by responding to Council. There will be more opportunities to contribute to Council’s strategic planning this year as we expect Council to publicly exhibit a draft LEP this year, which will set out Council’s future plans for our area’s zonings and building heights. It will be critical for the community to respond. We will publish dates of exhibition on our Facebook page and here on our website.

As a group we submitted submissions to many of their draft strategies which you can view in the links published below.

Local Strategic Planning Statement

As a key step in its planning for our area’s future, in September, Inner West Council released Our Place Inner West, its draft Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS) which includes Marrickville.

Save Marrickville provided a written response  and met with Council’s planning staff twice to discuss the draft plan. Some key areas covered were:

– In its retail centre hierarchy, Council has classified Marrickville’s retail area as a Town Centre, which is smaller scale than a Major Centre (Ashfield) but larger than a Local Centre (Dulwich Hill). In discussion with Council it appears the intention is that Marrickville Town Centre will have medium density development above shops and near the station, in the order of five storeys, rather than higher density.

– Marrickville is included as a Low Carbon, High Performance Precinct which are usually areas of greatest change and growth. These indicators usually give the green light to justify intense development. SM has therefore advocated strongly for Council to include a statement in that section of the LSPS, to make it clear that Marrickville is not an area of major growth and transformation.

– Council wants to retain industrial land in our area, and has not changed its position on this issue.

– We have argued for a tight definition of affordable housing in new developments, so that it is actually affordable (no more than 30% of income), for people on low incomes (lowest 40%), and managed by social housing agencies.

Council has revised the draft strategy taking into account the 117 survey responses and 65 separate submission from individuals/groups. The majority of respondents were from Dulwich Hill and Marrickville. The report on responses can be read here.

Council will determine whether to endorse the draft LSPS (with amendments recommended as a result of the public exhibition) for submission to the Greater Sydney Commission at the next Council meeting on 25 February 2020.

Housing Strategy and Employment and Retail Lands Strategy

Save Marrickville also provided a written response to Council regarding both the Housing Strategy  and the Employment and Retails Lands Strategy which you are welcome to read. Some key areas covered were:

– We indicated our support for Council’s goal to protect industrial land.

– We requested detailed heritage studies to be conducted for all of Marrickville with the aim of providing invaluable information about the current state of heritage that may be used to create Heritage Conservation areas.

– We were pleased to note that the IWC will meet housing targets without the need to re-zone land.

– We expressed our concern that Marrickville will be asked to take more of the share of future density to meet increasing population and housing targets imposed by the NSW State Government.

– We support the Council to assertively work towards closing the significant supply gap of affordable housing in our local government area. 

Council has released their response documents to community engagement which you can read here and here.

Council will determine whether to adopt the draft housing strategy (with amendments recommended as a result of the public exhibition) and seek endorsement from the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment for the strategies at the 25 February 2020 Council Meeting. 

Council also released other strategy documents during 2019 such as the Integrated Transport Strategy  and the Economic Development Strategic Plan which we were unable to comment on due to limited time and resources. Please get in touch if you would like to help out.

NSW Department of Planning has announced a new planning approach for the Sydenham to Bankstown Corridor. The information from Planning says that they will work with Councils to develop a high level strategy, which will inform Council’s future changes to planning controls. See Planning’s information here.

Save Marrickville is not yet clear what this means for our area and will request a meeting with the Minister for Planning’s office to get more detail. Last year the government agreed to return planning along the corridor to Councils. We need to know how this new approach affects Council’s control of planning and its current work with the community to produce a new Local Environment Plan (LEP), and implications for the level of future development in Marrickville.

We have also received a media release on this announcement from our local MP Jo Haylen and the Mayor of Inner West Council. Read it here.

We will be at Marrickville Festival this Sunday 20th October. Come and visit our stall on Marrickville Road (towards the Marrickville Town Hall end) and say hello.

Some other important October news

The Inner West Council has recently released a suite of critical planning documents. They are currently on public exhibition.

One of those documents is the Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS). All Council areas are required to prepare a LSPS by the State government. It will be a pivotal tool for local strategic planning in the inner west and it identifies where further strategic planning effort is needed which includes Marrickville. In practice, the statements will shape how the local environmental plan (LEP) and development control plans (DCP) evolve over time.

This is our chance to help shape the future of the inner west. The statement sets out the vision for our area under 6 themes including transport, sustainability, economy, culture and character. We urge everyone to take the time to look at the statement and submit their feedback to Council (or give feedback face-to-face at Council's stall at the festival this weekend). 

https://yoursay.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/our-place-inner-west

The second document to note is the Employment And Retail Lands strategy! This strategy prioritises the long-term supply of industrial land, more commercial space and identifies distinct areas of business and employment lands. It provides clear controls for productive commercial and industrial land uses to facilitate job growth and thriving economies. Again we urge you to spend a little time reviewing this document and sending your thoughts to Council. You can make a written submission to Council OR you can fill in the guided online survey.

https://yoursay.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/employment-and-retail-lands-strategy

Both of these draft documents are open for submission until Sunday 27th October. This opportunity will not come around for many, many, many years to come!!

Recent changes to planning legislation in NSW means that the Inner West Council is required to develop a local housing strategy in consultation with the community. This strategy needs to be consistent with the Greater Sydney Commission's Greater Sydney Region Plan A Metropolis of Three Cities and the Eastern City District Plan. The Council currently has a draft housing strategy on public exhibition. We are encouraging everyone interested in housing to take a look at the documentation and submit their feedback to Council. The deadline is the 28th July.

This is an unique opportunity to be involved in the strategic direction of housing in our community. If you want to make a real impact to the types of housing development and the identification of parts of the Inner West more or less suitable for housing development, this is your chance. Please take the time to let Council know what you think of their Local Housing Strategy. This strategy will feed into the Inner West LEP that is being created right now. 

Find out more the Local Housing Strategy

If you want to talk to someone about the strategy you can turn up to one of the information sessions. Dates, venues and times are listed here.

A draft transport strategy is also on public submission so you might like to take a look at that one too.

Find out more about the Integrated Transport Strategy

As part of a day-long field trip taking in a series of urban renewal projects and sites along the Sydenham to Bankstown Corridor, Associate Professor Simon Pinnegar and thirty-five UNSW Faculty of Built Environment students visited Marrickville’s large Carrington Road industry precinct to hear from the Save Marrickville resident group. Save Marrickville were able to share the organisation’s interest and involvement in this important site and discuss the crucial value of the area for producing things that are needed in the Inner Sydney region.

Our initial call to the community for feedback, May 2019:

https://eastcarringtonroad.com.au/community-announcements.php

Please email us any comments or concerns to [email protected] by 5pm, Saturday 11th May. Save Marrickville will be meeting with Mirvac and the landowners to provide community feedback. 

Save Marrickville invites you to meet the candidates in the NSW election and hear their thoughts on planning and development in our local area. In attendance will be our sitting member, Jo Haylen (Labor), Tom Raue, the candidate for the Greens and Teresa Romanovsky, the candidate for the Animal Justice Party. We have also invited the candidate for the Liberal Party, Leo Wei, but he is yet to confirm whether he will attend.

DATE: Wednesday 13th March

TIME: 7pm to 8pm

VENUE: Marrickville Golf Club, Wharf Rd, Marrickville

We hope to see you on the night.

It's no surprise that most people (99 out of 100) who completed our survey are opposed to high rise development.

But which new developments are liked, makes interesting reading.

Read our full analysis of the survey results.

We had heaps of visitors to our stall at Marrickville Festival on 21 October 2018! Thank you to the people who filled in the survey about what they want for Marrickville, and to those that dropped by to thank Save Marrickville for our work so far.

Visiting politicians were Linda Burney MP, Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Jenny Leong MP and Matt from Jo Haylen's office. Thanks to Inner West Council for hosting us and to the councillors who stopped for a chat.

Report from Mirvac's open day 

If you were unable to attend Mirvac's information session on Saturday 22 September at Carrington Road, listen to our spokesperson, Kelsie Dadd discuss the experience here.

Kelsie was interviewed on Radio Skid Row by Colin Hesse, Greens councillor Marrickville Ward.

At the open day, Save Marrickville member Paul Mortimer handed Dominic Hunt from Mirvac a copy of our community survey summary on the Carrington Road Development. Check it out yourself here.