James Oldknow On Whether NSW's Planning Reforms Are Delivering Housing

In this episode, we take a hard look at the New South Wales planning system and ask a question that many in the property world are thinking but rarely say out loud. Is the system actually helping deliver housing or quietly strangling supply? With approvals delays, stretching timelines, increasing costs and constraining supply,

We unpack where projects are getting stuck, why merit has become such a moving target and how uncertainty in planning decisions is reshaping risks for landowners and developers.

Guiding the conversation is James Oldknow, a planning and development lawyer who works daily at the sharp end of approvals, appeals and court processes across New South Wales, drawing on deep experience with councils, planning panels and the Land and Environment Court,

We want to know what James is seeing play out in real projects, where the system breaks down, how long delays are actually taking, and whether recent and proposed reforms are likely to unlock supply or simply add another layer of complexity. Welcome to the elephant in the room.

This is the podcast where we love to talk about the big things in property that never usually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent, buyer's agent and buyer's agent mentor, co-host of Foxtel's Location, Location, Location Australia, author of Auction Ready and co-host of Your First Home Buyer Guide.

Hi, I'm Chris Bates, ex-financial planner and mortgage broker, currently ranked number three in the annual MPA Top 100 Mortgage Broker Awards. Before we get started, everything we talk about today is not personal advice, and we recommend you engage the services of a licensed and experienced professional.

Our guest today is James Oldknow, Special Counsel in Mills Oakley's Planning and Environment Team, specializing in planning and development law across New South Wales.

He advises landowners and developers on projects of all sizes and regularly appears before councils, planning panels, and the New South Wales Land and Environment Court, which all gives him a deep, practical insight into how the approval system really works. Now, this is going to be interesting.

James, there's been so much happening in this space, so welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Thanks, Veronica. Glad to be here. The number one story I was obsessed with last year was the changes in New South Wales around Todd and watching approvals. Coming to this year, it's still probably my obsession to try to understand this. What's your take on the action from Chris Minns and

You know, obviously what's happening, just obviously explaining that would be really valuable, but also just really where you're seeing action from not just developers, but, you know, the whole industry sort of, where is it actually stacking up?

You're correct, Chris. There were a raft of changes over the last 24 months since MINS has been in government.

to put it simply the labor government the men's government is giving it a red hot crack and that is they are giving it a red hot crack to overlay state policies around new south wales to unlock supply to get housing supply going and getting housing delivery going So that's the hot take.

It's become a mainstream topic. It's in, as you say, you heard about it. Everyone's heard about it. It's in the papers. It's even in the Channel 7 news and the nightly news. From our perspective, it's somewhat difficult to keep up, but we're doing our best.

We've learned so many acronyms that I don't think I have the fingers and toes to count them on right. So let's just burn through a few we had towards the beginning of the Minsk government getting into play. We had

new affordable housing rules around infill affordable housing and the bonus incentives that developers and proponents receive in response. We then had the one you mentioned, Chris, which is the TODD acronym, Transport Oriented Development. We had that one introduced shortly after.

The big one, though, from my perspective and towards the middle to the end of last year and absolutely moving into 2026 is the one that's called LMR, low to mid-rise housing state policy, overlaid into 171 town centres, railways and metros across New South Wales.

So that one is huge.

I think I stumbled on your work because you do a few posts online. It talks about sort of the core battles, but also the feasibility of what actually it costs to build. Because I think that then means that it doesn't make sense.

Even though the state government can zone something, it doesn't mean that it's a free for all and there's going to be buildings rocking up all over the place. Developers aren't a charity, right? You know, where are you seeing action actually moving the needle, right?

You know, zoning is one thing, but where actually do you think supply is actually going to get built rather than just a potential?

That's a great question. And we're absolutely at the coalface of this question. I can tell you that the Todd state policy, we have really seen not a lot of action, full stop.

Let's clarify exactly what that means. So transport-oriented development means, just so people understand the difference...

That's it. So transport orientated development is the name and the TOD is the acronym given to a policy that has been inserted by the state government into the broad SEP. So that's, which is called the state environmental planning policy in relation to housing. Right.

And so all of these state policies seem to be introducing into this broader state policy. And so it's called, it's actually located in what's called chapter five of this particular policy. Now, The transport-orientated development had two stages.

The first stage was introduced in May 2024 and it applied to 37 stations across New South Wales.

So that is the 400-metre area outside of these 37 stations and it chucked over the top of that area a blanket uplift and that is to increase housing supply and ultimately, as we say, hopefully, housing affordability.

And so what you're saying, though, is that it's really made no difference.

Yeah. And so that really goes to, I think, what Chris is really getting at.

The viability of this particular scheme, I can tell you it might not be as strong as what we might talk about in a second, which is the LMR, because in terms of volume of applications coming across our desk, very limited TOD applications, very high volume of LMR applications.

So what's holding back the TOD applications? Before we get to the LMR, I want to know what is making it unfeasible?

Yeah, look, I have heard whispers at industry events, ETC, that the acquisition cost is really holding back these guys. In addition to everything else that we've been hearing in the news since COVID, which is rising construction costs.

So you're expensive to get the land, you know, hold it, build it. They're also burnt all their buffers. Their risk tolerance, I imagine, with these developers, I mean, you know, it's got to be a lot lower than it was, say, three, four years ago, right?

You know, they've, you know, developed a lot of it, gone under, you know, they've burnt their buffers.

So is it, they also now are just very strategic and go, if we're going to build, we've got to make sure these projects stack up rather than run on really tight margins and make sure we keep all that stuff and buy work sort of thing.

Absolutely. How many times have we heard that story of rising construction costs? And so to some degree, the approval timeline, which is something that we might get into in a second, that is arguably eaten up into the construction costs. So yeah, absolutely.

We would have loved, it makes total complete sense, doesn't it, to have highly accessible and density around these transport hubs. So whether ultimately it unlocks sometime in the future and I see a few more of those applications, we'll have to wait and see.

But you're also relying on individual homeowners, you know, being ready to move on, banding up with like-minded neighbours to gather a site that's big enough. I know there's certain organisations running around knocking on doors, trying to sort of create these consortiums to sell and find buyers for them.

But all owners think their house is worth more than it's really worth, you know what I mean? And they all think this is a windfall. So I imagine that

That's a very tenuous arrangement at best, trying to get enough like-minded individual property owners to be equally motivated and equally ready to meet whatever the market's prepared to pay, right?

Absolutely. I mean, lucky I'm not the one door locking. I mean, that's all done by the time it comes to me, but I accept that. I think just the key marker off the top of my head is that the TOD set or TOD policy includes a 21 meter minimum frontage size.

So to your point, Veronica, 21 meters is probably a couple of sites, unless you have enough to live on something quite big.

Yeah. And so Todd's not happening, but there's definitely something happening with this low to medium rise, which I think why I'm so obsessed with this story. And I think it is such a pivot to what we all thought was a certainty prior, right?

The power of NIMBYism, the power of how many properties were built in, say, Rose Bay or Mossman over the last decade, right? Like the collective wealth within the city was...

protecting and limiting supply and pushing all supply to greenfield estates and pushing it to high density in certain postcodes and you know townhouses in the fringes and granny flats but nothing's going to change in these premium suburbs but that's flipped on its head right and that changes everything that changed so is that how you view it as well like the world like basically flipped completely to the way the city is built going to be built going forward

But can you also, before you answer that, explain what it is exactly? How does it differ from the TOD?

Absolutely. So it differs from the TOD in the sense that we were just talking about a range of railway stations. I think we said around 37 railway stations across New South Wales. This state policy applies to...

development areas within 800 meters of 171 town centers train stations and metropolitan city railways right so this is everywhere it's in my backyard and it's probably in a lot of other backyards right so it's way more broad than the tod in terms of the uplift it splits

400 meters away from let's just use the town center as the marker 400 meters away from the town center gets a greater uplift in between further away 400 to 800 gets a slightly less uplift right it's an interesting way of calculating what 400 meters walking distance and what 800 meters walking distance actually is topic for another day or perhaps a court decision

And then the affordable housing element of that, right? So like you can build this stuff, but hey, if you only build a fraction, like a tiny portion, I believe, you're going to get a huge uplift. So it's like a no brainer, but it doesn't, does it really build much more affordable?

You know, I mean, I'm guessing I'm putting your personal belief, you know, should that have been a much higher percentage? And just explain, I guess, what developers have to do to get that uplift? Because that uplift, you know, is a huge benefit of, and makes feasibility much better to stack up, right? Yeah.

I'll answer it like this first. I might blow your brain a little bit, which is that inside the 400 meters to the town center for the LMR policy, we can have in terms of controls up to six stories as of right. Affordable housing component required under that policy foot stop. right?

What some developers are do if it can stack up is adding in addition to the LMR policy, what we talked about before, which is called the affordable housing division one policy inside of the stack, the same step, delivering affordable housing, receiving an additional incentive and possibly going up to eight stories in these areas.

That's what it looks like. In our view and essentially in the planning world, that is now the desired future character of these areas in 171 locations.

In terms of what the affordable housing policy and those incentives look like, we have to provide a minimum of 10% of the total gross floor area of the development as affordable housing. In response, if we provided 10%, we would receive an additional

20%, so double the amount of affordable housing in terms of additional height and additional FSR. We can go up to 15% affordable housing. And in response, do the easy math, up to 30% and 30% FSR.

You know, you put 10% of it and it doesn't determine which one's going to be affordable. Obviously, it's probably going to be the least desirable part of the building, right? But to get that, you get your extra two levels, right? And that, you know, that's your penthouse. That's your better views.

You know, that's your most highest cost. So, you know, let's just assume all the developers are going to pretty much do that. And then you're going to start to see eight levels.

And then that really does make the numbers stack up for a lot of developers in the premium suburbs where they can sell them for a lot of money. Like, and hence why I guess you're very busy.

Yeah, and I can say absolutely that affordable housing policy is being taken up across the board a lot of times. So it's a popular policy. It's not that the affordable housing units are terrible amenity.

That's not the case because have the affordable housing dwellings approved, they must have acceptable amenity. That's the test. So look, I would certainly live in any one of the affordable housing units approved on my desk for sure.

I think why it sort of blows my mind is when you start on looking at this, you start to look at, and particularly if it's over 60 million, right? There's a fast track part to this as well. And you can track this stuff online. It's very easy to get access to it, right?

The Mossmans, the Rosebays, the Doublebays, there's a lot going on. You know, if you're reading the local paper, you might be getting a taste of it, but these suburbs are massively going to change.

And, you know, that might affect some people in a good way and, you know, it might increase amenity, but it also affects some owners in there as well. And yeah, what are you seeing?

There is absolutely going to be change in these areas. The state government has decided that. It's not that, as we say, all of the area is going to look like that now. It's going to happen over a period of time. That's the future character in these areas. Chris, to your point, yes.

When we're talking about feasibility, yes, these more expensive suburbs in terms of sale prices are the ones that are receiving the high volume of development applications and state significant development applications at the moment. That makes sense purely on a commercial basis.

So if you hit the nail on the head, where we were seeing lots of activity, Mossman, which is North Sydney LGA. We are seeing lots of stuff down in Wallara LGA, Waverley LGA, even down Southern Shire LGA. So that kind of makes sense, up to six stories, possibly up to eight stories.

In relation to the second part of your question, Chris, about this fast-tracked new authority, right? That's called the Housing Delivery Authority. That's something that was introduced in November 2024 as a ministerial order. It wasn't embedded in part of the framework of the New South Wales planning system.

I guess to some degree, it was more of an idea. Let's see how we go. But that's changed. At the end of last year, we now have the Housing Delivery Authority formalized into the Environmental Planning Assessment Act. So it looks like it's going to be here for some time now.

In terms of what that is, yes, it has some key markers in respect of what your development application will need to achieve. Your development application will need a sea of a capital investment value of over $60 million to start with. It will need to have 100 plus dwellings.

So we do need to have... contribution to affordable housing. And we do need to essentially provide evidence and satisfy the Housing Liberal Authority that we can commence the construction within 12 months of the approval. So you can see that's exactly what you're saying, Chris, it's fast track to a lot of supply.

And so does it take away the complete agency of a council or neighbouring owners, you know, dwelling owners, to be able to object?

Not at all, Veronica. Absolutely there is exhibition of these types of applications. Essentially how it works is a proponent will fill out a form, summarize high level and expression of interest to the housing delivery authority.

If it ticks the key markers, you'll then opt out of the expression of interest process, go into what's called state, you'll be declared state significant development. In that process, the housing delivery authority itself is the consent authority.

but there will be public exhibition and there will be opportunities for everyone in the neighbourhood to put forward submissions in addition to the council putting forward submissions. Those submissions will be considered prior to a decision being made.

I don't like this because it's going to remind me of mascot towers, or I don't like this because, you know, it's going to affect wind tunnels or it's going to cut down a tree.

Like, you know, the typical reasons and the power of a community action group in the suburb that has put a lot of pressure on councils in the past to say no to a development that those things probably won't get listened to. Is that the big difference? Like it's,

They were able to sort of, you know, the action group to slow down any development in the past. But because of the state government jumping on, is the council find it really hard to deny these developments?

Two answers to your question. In respect of the housing delivery authority pathway and the state significant development pathway, local controls are completely switched off.

In terms of both that pathway and what we're talking about before in terms of LMR, Todd, local controls will only be switched off if they are inconsistent with the higher order state control, right?

So just like Apple for Apple, a height control in a state policy versus a height control in a local policy, the state policy will prevail.

obviously very concerning for communities, right? And there's a lot of arguments saying here that you're not building many, you know, how is this changing, you know, that housing affordability challenge? How is this helping us, right? That's some of the concerns, right? Because these are not going to be affordable apartments. But

How do you view that when, you know, we have got a lot of people, you know, rental crisis, housing affordability crisis, how do 500 apartments in Rose Bay, Double Bay, Bondi, how does that effect help us? You know, what's your view on that?

My personal view is that often we're seeing three to four bedroom apartments in these larger complexes and that permits families to get into their areas that are otherwise tightly held by freestanding homes. That's my view.

I'm curious about the affordable housing, so 10%, 15% affordable housing. What is the definition of affordable housing? Let's put some real dollars on that. Say in Rose Bay for argument's sake, how affordable would an affordable portion of this A development in that location be?

I know it's relative, I get that, but it's in the whole context being interesting.

It's going to be about 75% to 80% of the median price in the local area.

Right. Okay. So internet, which is affordable for that area and will give hopefully some essential workers an opportunity to get access to that, but it's still going to be expensive, isn't it? And typically you're talking about Sydney's eastern suburbs. And I mean, these are principles that as this type of development

you know, state involvement rolls out into other states. This is the sort of thing that can happen in other states as well.

We're talking about New South Wales here in Sydney, but the principle and really how the knock-on effect is of these sorts of initiatives and policies, it's how it impacts behaviour that we're talking about here, right?

Absolutely. My personal hope is that these affordable housing units that we are delivering through the development application process, through these state policies, are absolutely capturing the key workers that need to be in these local areas to provide all the facilities that those key workers need to provide. That's my personal hope.

And I really, really, really do hope that we see it through.

You know, cause it's very emotional.

Like I've got clients in these areas, we've got clients with parents in those areas, you know, who, who they grew up in that area and they sort of, you know, very nostalgic of what it was like to grow up in, you know, and it's also having a lot on the upper North shore along that train line, you know, the Calaras and Gordons and

And it's highly emotional, particularly if you're personally impacted by it. But as a broader city level, how do people feel a bit more calmer that it is the design quality and the build quality isn't going to be replicated what we build in the 2010s and the 2000s?

How are we much more confident that there's going to be something that's aesthetically pleasing, built to last, adding value to the streetscape. And it's not just going to be this, you know, a Zetland type experience within these suburbs.

The answer is that all of these applications will be going through the planning system in 2026, which is a very rigorous planning assessment in terms of merit.

to the extent that i'm a lawyer and i work out of the land environment court and lawyers are needing to argue the merit of a number of these types of applications to have them approved so from that perspective there is very very rigorous assessment going on it's not slapped together a couple of boxes get built it's very detailed documentation very rigorous assessment listening to pub like we said before listening to the public submissions and ultimately making a decision

So there's still some guardrails here then. Can we talk about what some of those most common merit issues are? Those that will help a development, those that might derail one?

Obviously, it was on Channel 7 News the other night that heritage is a really tricky merit issue that everyone runs into from time to time, us lawyers in particular. Heritage is tricky. It has a regime like we were saying before in respect of how to go about assessing heritage impact.

View loss is a very contentious merit issue. It's probably, you don't need to explain exactly why, but if you take someone's views out, then you're going to devalue their property. That's just the reality. Super contentious. Other ones are, I mean, we're talking about

implying development on some sites and in some circumstances, it may be appropriate from a planning and contextual perspective to seek variations to the development standards. That's a pretty one. That's a contentious one. And then we run into things like stormwater is always interesting. Biodiversity is always interesting.

So these are all topics keeping us lawyers busy.

I think the other thing, right, is that in these suburbs, the quality of product, the buyer and the developer to make a profit is going to cost a lot. So they need a really high end product that looks good. And people are spending $3, $4, $5 million on these places.

They're going to want something that's

you know really nice to live in and private and spacious and you know quality product you know and the setbacks and and all that sort of stuff yeah and and all they're engaging is like really top architects right and it's not just getting you know like just thrown together and just pushed through and let's just build for fun it's definitely not that right

100%. So every time that you do a residential apartment building in New South Wales, you need to consider the student to the same policy, previously SEP 65. Now it's a chapter in the housing SEP as well. You need to consider the apartment design guide as an additional layer of control.

That is very detailed in respect of making sure that the apartments that are getting delivered in New South Wales these days have excellent amenity. That's one.

The second set of controls that we very often see in these areas are located in their local policy, the local environmental plan, and they are controls called design excellence controls.

The consent authority must be satisfied prior to granting a development consent that the proposal achieves or exhibits design excellence. And there are a number of considerations within that clause. So again, absolutely rigorous assessment going on here.

So when did that come in?

It's been around for some time now. I've been here at Mills Oakley for almost a decade, and I can tell you it's essentially been here for a while. The ADG itself is almost off the top of my head, a 2007 document.

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Because what we're talking about here is very expensive locations, right? So it makes sense that you've got to build to a certain aesthetic. You know, you've got to build to a certain standard, otherwise you're never going to sell your product.

It also makes sense they can sell these apartments at a price that makes it more viable. They can make these developments feasible. But how is it rolling out in less expensive areas where land is not as expensive, where the ultimate capacity to... spend money on apartments is less in the population.

Are we seeing an impact elsewhere in Sydney in particular and in the state, or is it still more concentrated around those more expensive areas?

At the moment, these controls, these state controls, I'm seeing around these more expensive areas, but That's not to say that we're only looking at development applications that rely on state controls. Every day of the week, we're looking at ordinary development applications right throughout New South Wales.

And I can absolutely tell you that, let's call it lesser expensive, they'll be offended by that, but that's the reality. There is equally a rigorous planning regime in place pursuant to the local controls. So we have the local environmental planning policies, like we said, design excellence clauses are everywhere.

Penrith has a famous court decision out in Penrith where the chief judge makes a comment on how that clause is to operate. So there's one for you. But otherwise, all of these LGAs also have, in addition to the local environmental plans, subordinate policies, which are called development control plans.

Again, they are refreshing a very strict regime, a number of considerations, character considerations, materials considerations. So I'd have to say it is everywhere, Veronica.

Are they seeing as great an uptake as you're talking about? That's what I'm interested in. So the process may be just as vigorous, but is the interest in terms of what's keeping you busy or your colleagues busy, is that spreading across all sort of demographics, if you like, across Sydney?

I guess the typology, the answer to your question is broadly no. Like we're not seeing six-story, eight-story apartment buildings everywhere across New South Wales. What actually happens as you sprawl is the development typology will change. So as you go more rural, you'll get more rural development typologies.

You'll start to run into industrial warehouses, data centers, storage, storage. I mean- go even further rural. We've worked on some fantastic function centers for wedding venues on stud farms, ETC. We've done boarding houses, student accommodation everywhere around every major New South Wales university.

From my understanding, this is just for me tracking, I'm not an expert at all, but it's like that you're definitely seeing an uplift of resi in the premium suburbs, but the stereotypical, the Parramatta is you know, in roads.

And I think, you know, Macquarie Park's got quite a bit going on and there's definitely some pockets that are starting to get, but they're obviously a lower price point.

And it still doesn't make sense for a lot of developers to build because it's actually quite cheap to build, you know, single story or double story. But to build like a high rise, it's the cost to build that's obviously, you know, per square meter is actually up a lot.

Is that kind of the cost to build upwards is actually quite expensive in today's world rather than it was, you know, say 10 years ago.

That's right. And I guess also, Chris, now that we're talking, we mentioned the housing delivery authority for those larger scale developments, like that's going to be the consent authority moving forward, I anticipate, for those types of developments.

So the ones that we see out at Liverpool, for example, out at Homebush, for example, all of that bigger stuff, doesn't really come across my desk because those bigger applications aren't necessarily going to find themselves inside of the court system.

There's an interesting technicality around that as well, which is that the housing delivery authority has a power not only to declare an application state significant development and then assess it and then be the consent authority,

It also has a concurrent power to rezone land so that it can uplift the property's development controls and it can change the zoning of land. It's got various broad powers.

I don't know. I'm a bit scared about having all of that authority under one roof. Like, is there potential for, I don't know, abuse of power here or misuse or bribery even? I mean, does having all of that under one jurisdiction, is that a dangerous thing?

I really hope we don't see any of that. And I hope, I expect you guys don't either.

When you put it like that, that's a little scary, but at the same time, let's hope these people who have made their way onto that know what they're doing, know the agenda, act between the bumpers and deliver what's best for New South Wales.

I think from my understanding, like just trying to dig around, it's like there's a lot of ex-architects on there. There's a lot of, you know, this design, excellent.

It's a lot of, and it's quite a big, broad panel and it's, I don't know if it's a ballot sort of system or something to keep some bit of a random sort of element to it, but not to say that would defeat corruption. I mean, I'm just trying to find holes with this.

I don't like this, to be honest. But it's in Maclay Street in Potts Point. And it got approved on the 18th of December, like, pre-Christmas. So that's a bit convenient. But it was like 60 affordable apartments. And I think it's going to be, I don't know, 12. Don't quote me on that.

Like, 8 or 12. full floor. And they're going to be amazing apartments. I'm not going to say they're not going to be desirable, but you did remove 60, not you, but there's 60 less apartments for rent in Post Point.

And there's a lot of key worker housing there and a lot of people who won't be able to live somewhere else. And is that one of the challenges, a reduction in supply rather than an increase?

That's a real tricky one, Chris. It's an additional layer of consideration needs to be given throughout the regime in the housing state policy that we're talking about if a development is removing existing affordable housing dwellings.

It has again, as I say, a regime, a number of considerations that must be considered by the consent authority prior to granting the development consent.

But what really does assist or what that policy really desires is that if it's appropriate, and most instances it is, is that a contribution is paid by the developer

into a affordable housing contribution fund for the removal of affordable dwellings. And now you can see where I'm going with that. That fund is supposed to go to delivering further affordable housing dwellings. So I can just say that slightly different scheme, but we're in the city of Sydney.

The city of Sydney also has, in addition to the state policy, a local affordable housing contribution scheme. And there's public documents on the internet that we can locate that can affirm that the city of Sydney has recouped approximately $500 million in affordable housing contributions over the last couple of years.

So it's one of those ones that, you know, we're going to get this situation. It's going to be much harder to get those approved. But if that happens too much, I think that's going to be, you know, a real frustrating thing for people, right?

The other thing is, you know, aren't we just going to see, like it's, I've lived in Rose Bay. I'm obviously in Bellevue Hill. Try getting four kilometers at 8 a.m. in the morning. It's going to take you 45 minutes.

I now live 40 k's from the city and I can get there in 45 minutes. So it's hard, right? It's peak hour traffic's tough. And if you start increasing supply in an area like that, there's no train station.

You know, yeah, you can go on a bus, but aren't we just going to, you know, increase and we're so addicted to cars. Isn't this going to be a major challenge coming in the next five, 10 years with just congestion and...

Yeah, we'll have to see, Chris, but I'm with you. No one likes traffic. We're all being encouraged or demanded to return to the office. So working from home's a little trickier than it was in COVID. That would have helped. But yeah, look, we're going to have to wait and see.

I'm for additional infrastructure. We'd have to dig into what the state policies are in terms of delivering additional infrastructure. I know, as you guys do, the metros are something that are appearing a lot more.

You'd hope, just as a creative idea, you'd hope to see the fast trains one day as well, I think.

But I mean, in Mossman, you can't really put a train station in Mossman. You can't really put a train station in... I mean, Double Bay's got access to Edgecliff, you know, depending on where you are, but Rose Bay doesn't, right?

And so, like, you kind of say, well, how are you going to get to where I can drive or I can get on the bus? And, you know, they're both on the road and, you know, you can cycle, but good luck cycling on that road if you're brave.

So it's a hard one to get your head around, right? I mean, obviously, they're talking about the Willara train station and... That's something with this scheme is that, you know, maybe the zones or the town centres that they have have to change.

If you haven't got, you know, trained or really good access without getting in a car, is that some of the things that you think are going to pop up?

Absolutely. I'm as interested to see how this plays out as you guys. Absolutely. It's in my backyard as well, so I will be affected. But the interesting part is, Chris, that these controls do not apply to the town centre itself.

So that's an interesting concept to think about, isn't it, in terms of you may have, if the town centre controls, let's just use height, lower than what's around it in the 400 meter area will essentially create what I've heard described as a bowl. Now, there's arguments for and against that, I understand.

What could the arguments for that be? I'm curious.

Yeah, I've heard that it's a more pleasant experience perhaps to walk around a low scale town center in contrast with a higher density, taller town center so that you can see more of the sky, more trees.

And where's the heritage overlays come into this? Like we all like our beautiful Federation homes and the beautiful frontages. And if we lost it across our whole city, yeah, absolutely right. And some heritage homes are more pretty than others, particularly if they're in a row and they're,

at one particular street, but that's another argument that a lot of people will say is that we're losing the fabric. How is that protected, you know? And also the established trees, like are we cutting down a 50, a hundred old sort of eucalyptus gum? Like you can't like, good luck.

Even if you plant 10 trees, you're not going to change.

That's a lot of green cover you're losing. Absolutely. So all of these things will be seriously assessed, Chris, and weighed up in ultimately the decision to approve or refuse the development application.

Trees, exactly what you're saying, biodiversity, like higher order vegetation demands a greater expectation that it will be retained as part of the balancing aspect to these approvals or refusals. Heritage itself is super, super strict regime.

Every single local environmental planning policy has a clause in it called Clause 510, which tells you how to go about assessing an application in respect of the impact to heritage significance. As you guys may know, there's a lot of different categorizations of what heritage is.

There's world heritage, there's state heritage, there's local heritage, then there's heritage conservation areas. And then within the heritage conservation areas, there are contributory items, neutral items, detracting items. All of these things are fleshed out in policies. There are ways forward. There are things that you put more weight on

And there are things that you put less weight on. So I'd describe it as sometimes a hurdle to approvals, but perhaps rightly so in your view, Chris.

I don't know if you're aware of the, there's an application in Mossman, I think it's 65 Mossman Street. And when I sort of looked at this, it was basically, I thought it was a house, but I think it is actually a block of units, but it's a very low rise block of units.

And it's like an, I think it's eight stories apartment block. And it's a few streets back from the main street. And that street just has houses everywhere. So, you know, it's a state significant development as well. And, you know, it's quite hard for the locals to sort of digest that, right?

When, you know, you've got a house probably worth 10 mil plus, and now around you, you've got an eight story building. Like, is this sort of what we're going to start to see? And I think people need to be aware of it, that it's coming.

Like, is this, you know, you can't fight change because if it's changing, it's coming, right? But these are the things we're going to start to see.

I think absolutely we're going to see change. That's where we're at. The Minsk government, democratically elected by the people of New South Wales, have introduced state policies on what essentially they'll vote it into parliament for. That's where we're at.

And there are 171 areas in respect of the low to mid-rise that are going to see change. And so what I said before, in terms of planning, the controls are a component of what sets the future character of these areas.

And that changes, right? Like that changes the value of every single property there, right? So some people will be empathetic to that. Some people will be like, well, you know, you've got a $10 million house in Mossman, that's okay. But it does change.

And it also changes like, do you want to live in Mossman anymore? You know, like if you were always wanting to live here because it was calm and it was quiet and it was private and it was... But now do I want that anymore? And like, yeah, okay.

It's because there's more cars on the road. And so I think it really affects the livability of the suburb. Like it could still be great design, lots of stuff. And do you really want to be in a construction site? Because this is like, they're not fun.

I mean, your house, your neighbor renovating is not fun. But if you're getting a six, eight story apartments are happening all around you, do you really want to live in that? So do you think these are some of the things that it's going to happen?

It's going to really revalue properties because, you know, in and out of zones.

Because it affects livability, right? Absolutely.

And I think I'll have a plug here, but if you are one of those landowners and you are a little unsure about what's happening around you, I mean, that's the point in time where you should be probably seeking professional advice from consultants to understand exactly how things may look around you in the near term and to inform some of the decisions.

Like you say, Chris, am I staying here to be a part of this change or do I have other options? It's nice to have options. Some people don't, that's really unfair.

So are you suggesting that it's legal advice that these people need at this point of time because someone who is a planning specialist will actually be able to give them ideas about what is coming? Because that is something that, you know, I've talked about on other episodes.

I've got a huge empathy for people who are caught in this limbo land. You know, they've bought, established themselves and set up their families. And sure, someone who can't afford a $10 million home in Muslim might be, you know, have zero empathy for them. But they're human beings who...

happen to have done well in life, and that's where they've chosen to put down their roots. I find that really, really harsh. And it's not just in those expensive areas. This is across the board. Like you say, over 100 town centers where this applies, it's going to disrupt a lot of people's lives.

Someone who lives in Moscow can afford to get legal advice. Someone who lives in, I don't know, Blacktown or somewhere like that may not be able to afford that. So how do people, I guess, go through that process of working out what's coming? What do I fight? What do I not fight?

And, you know, avoid making crazy, silly decisions that really will affect them long term.

I might answer that question saying not everyone will require legal advice at that very start of that questioning process. Obviously, the department itself has extensive parts of its website, which hopefully are able to be read by these types of people and so that an initial digestion can occur.

Otherwise, town planners are really probably the first I think town planners we're working with every day of the week. They are super resourceful. They've got boots on the ground. Some specialize in certain areas and I expect that they would be readily be able to be located by this.

But I think, yeah, if you're buying in these areas or you already own or your parents are in there or your family or your friends, I think it's one of those times where you've got to be making decisions.

You've got to be considering options rather than your head in the sand and just hoping it just sort of goes away. I feel like it's You've got to be factoring this in to your decisions because it does, you know, have a huge impact on your prices. And it's not all over Sydney, right?

Like, obviously I'm on the beaches, right? You know, we've only got the bus, no train. And so they've sort of got away with it a little bit, you know. But I think it's just important to understand like where your pocket is.

It's hugely widespread. My house is in one of those zones, you know, like I live in a conservation area. The house across the lane from me is heritage listed. So it's a heritage item.

So, but that doesn't mean that it won't necessarily happen to my door might get knocked on or the neighbors or whatever. So it's certainly widespread and it's something that we do need to be

pointing people to okay and that look that's a great tip around town planners as well as as a resource and perhaps you know you've got a bunch of neighbors together and contact one and have a session i mean that could be a cost-effective way of getting some advice too james have you got a property dumbo for us because i'm sure you've come across many in your career

I thought I'd be a bit more broader, maybe giving a couple of tips to maybe some of your clients potentially, guys, which I thought I have two. The first is when buying a site, I think, and if you have aspirations for development on the site,

Something that's regularly overlooked or often overlooked that I need to fix is the slope of the site is super important in respect of how your stormwater design is going to work.

Okay, so in simple terms, if your site slopes to the street, it should be somewhat simple for your stormwater to drain to the council asset in your street. If your site slopes away from the street, gravity will take the water away from

You got to pump it back up.

And funny you say that, Veronica, local councils generally do not like pump out system. That's something that we are stuck with at the moment. There might be a shift as we move forward over a couple of years, but local councils have a hard time relying on these pumps, which often break.

often result in flooding ETCs. From my perspective, maybe when you're buying a house, as I said, you've got to be able to have perspiration, have a good hard think about the slope of the land.

But if you are on those properties that slope away from the land, then we need to have a think about how we're going to get stormwater off that site.

And I'll be thinking, if I've got one sloping to the street, that my stormwater is not a problem, but the house behind me, which might be higher than my house, what if their pump breaks and there's a flood and I'll get overland flow over my property?

So these are all very, very important things to consider when buying a home, that's for sure.

100%. The next one is if you are buying a property with a development consent attached to it, and then your aspirations are ultimately to deliver that approved development. A couple of things to remember, please be careful that a development consent is timed. It must be

physically commenced within the time specified in that development consent. If you do not physically commence that development consent within that time, by one day, the development consent will lapse, full stop. So that's important. Please keep an eye on that.

What constitutes a significant commencement?

I tell you what, Marinka, I've written that advice many, many, many times. But another thing, just one more thing to be aware of is if you buy the house, it's got a development consent on it. You want to deliver the house, but you want to make some modifications to the approved development.

Often that's the case. If you have a modification application approved, achieving those modifications. My point is the modification, the date that the modification application was approved will not reset or extend by way of right the period in which you must commence the development consent. So be careful.

That's a good one. So a section 96 you're talking about, which is a modification that it still, if it was five years from the day it was approved, its deadline for commencement remains the same.

You know, the idea that definitely, you know, they paid more because they had the approval and talking in these more premium suburbs and life has just not let them build or they thought, and then that clock's ticking and then it gets to a point where someone else can't probably start.

And so basically they just lose the value, right? Like it's gone.

like that's lapsed and they have to reapply and councils and it just because it was approved doesn't mean that it's going to get re-approved right or just because your navy did something doesn't mean you're going to get approved like there's a lot of sort of myths i guess that people just naturally assume and yeah it can catch you out correct well we'll go we'll go straight back through the rigorous planning regime once again if that's where we're headed

James, it's a very good topic, this one. You know, some people might be like, oh, why talk so much about it? You know, but I do think it's, you know, a big topic in this year. And I do think it's a canary in the coal mine thing.

You know, I do think it's like, it's an example that could happen in Brisbane, in Melbourne, you know, and while it's only happening in 2026 in these suburbs, Like over time, prices and costs are all changing and feasibilities are shifting.

And who's to say it doesn't start to become much more widespread across the city. And I think you can start to plan for that, particularly if you think it might affect you.

And also, I think you made a good point around stormwater there, because I think if you start to get some advice on it, you might say, look, my block's really not at advertising for a developer. It's just one of the last blocks they're going to want or it's super desirable.

It's really a key part of it. And I need to potentially take advantage of this because I could get a lot more multiple of my sale price if I sold it to a developer because it's the missing piece they really need.

And so, yeah, I think getting that understanding and just accepting what it is because sometimes you don't want to hear the truth is the hard part.

Thank you so much. That was great.

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