‘Long overdue’: Seniors housing developments off the table in Hills, Hornsby rural areas
Hills residents have welcomed a decision to prohibit senior housing developments in rural areas. But some say it doesn’t go far enough.
Hills Shire
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A decision by the State Government to prohibit senior housing developments in metropolitan rural areas has been broadly welcomed by Hills residents, but some say it doesn’t go far enough.
Planning Minister Rob Stokes has closed a loophole which allows for Site Compatibility Certificates to be issued for seniors living developments in rural areas. They would otherwise be prohibited under the council’s local planning controls.
Hills Mayor Michelle Byrne said the council has campaigned “long and hard for these changes to ensure our rural lands remain valued and protected from urban sprawl”.
“Site Compatibility Certificates essentially overrule the council’s local controls and objectives, and allows for seniors development to be approved without any regard to the local character of the area and without any essential infrastructure in place to support a development of this kind, like roads, parks and public transport,” she said.
“Council is not opposed to seniors living, it is opposed to them in our rural areas, which cannot support seniors housing developments of the size and nature currently occurring.”
Spokesperson, Protecting Your Suburban Environment Inc. Jan Primrose, who had fought against numerous seniors developments in Dural, was also supportive of the change.
“Sydney‘s foodbowl, its environmentally sensitive areas, the very areas that Sydneysiders come for a breath of fresh rural air, are now protected from these totally inappropriate medium density developments that were swamping the rural areas,” she said.
Dural resident Ben Seale, who has been fighting a seniors development lodged at 3 Quarry Rd and 3 Viney’s Rd for more than two years, described the changes as “long overdue”.
“The rural fringes have been under pressure from seniors housing for many years,” Mr Seale said.
But he says the change won’t help him because the legislation is not retrospective.
“Our fight however isn’t over because the department of planning issued a new SCC in June, meaning the developer has 2 more years to obtain a DA,” he said