Current at: 04 July 2008
Central Coast Regional Strategy
The NSW Government released the Central Coast Regional Strategy on 26 June 2008. The regional strategy provides a long term land use plan for the region, which covers the Gosford City and Wyong Shire local government areas. The regional strategy contains policies and actions designed to cater for the region's projected housing and employment growth over the period to 2031.
The Draft Central Coast Strategy initially indicated that population in the region would increase by 64,250 but the implementation of future water supply initiatives has increased the population target to 100,000 over the period to 2031. This indicates that the region is expected to reach a population target of 405,000 by 2031. HIA’s submission focused primarily on the need to address the water supply issue in the region to facilitate the dwelling potential of 100,000 as indicated in Sydney Metropolitan Strategy released in 2005. Evidently, the NSW Government has considered our submission and addressed our concern accordingly.
Population increase is the fundamental driver of the housing industry. The planned population growth in the region will require the construction of an extra 56,000 dwellings. The new dwellings will be distributed between centres (33,000), infill of existing urban areas (7,000) and greenfield sites (16,000). Construction of the predicted 56,000 dwellings will take place east of the F3 Freeway. The regional strategy does not indicate any new urban residential or rural residential zones on land west of the F3 Freeway.
A comprehensive review of the Central Coast Regional Strategy will take place every five years, or before if required by the NSW Government. An assessment of the capacity of the Region’s water supply, road and rail infrastructure to cater for forecast growth will occur as part of the review process.
As part of the Government’s State-wide planning reforms, Gosford and Wyong councils will also be required to prepare a new principal Local Environmental Plan (LEP) within the next three and five years respectively which will need to be consistent with the Central Coast Regional Strategy. The LEPs will be required to provide sufficient zoned residential land to meet the combined dwelling target of 56,000 over the period to 2031.
Visit the Department of Planning website to download a copy of the Central Coast Regional Strategy www.planning.nsw.gov.au
For further information HIA members can contact HIA’s Planning Services Adviser on 1300 650 620