Auburn: Cumberland Council approves plans for taller buildings

A bustling western Sydney suburb will be home to taller buildings to support a thriving community but opponents worry infrastructure won’t sustain the building boom.

Auburn is a bustling suburb.

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Auburn’s buildings will soar higher but density will remain at existing levels after plans to update planning controls were passed at a Cumberland Council meeting.

The council supported height increases for buildings in the town centre but opponents said the suburb was already struggling to cope with insufficient infrastructure.

Auburn resident Tony Oldfield opposed changes for 18 precincts. This included a jump of 11m in building heights at the Auburn Rd, Queen St, Harrow Rd and Mary St zone where buildings can rise from a maximum of 49m to 60m.

Buildings are set to soar in Auburn. Picture: Angelo Velardo

“What improvements to infrastructure have we got to cope with this population increase?’’ he said.

“Extra school places? No. Improvements to traffic and parking? No. I think Infrastructure Australia says that a lot of school rooms across NSW at the moment are demountables and we can’t see any improvement in public transport.

“In fact, we have less trains stopping at Auburn and Lidcombe stations now.

Auburn is already home to high-density living.

“I think in light of all these issues that we should be putting a hold on any increase of heights.”

However, councillor Ned Attielabelled objectors whingers and argued the heights would increase but not density under floor to space ratios (FSR), besides the precinct at Station Rd, Hall St and Holiday Lane where 30 dwellings would be added.

“The only people that come to these consultation periods are the whingers, the ones that have always not wanted height, not wanted FSRs,’’ he said.

Doubts about how the suburb is coping with infrastruture have been raised. Picture: Angelo Velardo

He said the resisting height increases would stifle Auburn and decrease the value business owners’ properties by millions of dollars.

“We are actually crippling the business centres of Lidcombe and Auburn and … crippling the rest because if Auburn and Lidcombe come down to these heights then every other town centre in this LGA, with the exception of Merrylands, will have to be less than that and that is not the way to go,’’ he said.

“Where is our responsibility to an economic, vibrant hub where we’re actually going to demoralise the cost of units, the cost of buildings and the cost of commercial availability for the CBDs?

“Reducing the heights and FSRs in one of the largest town centres we have on an east-west rail line is absolutely ludicrous. This is not planning controls, this is absolute craziness.”

Cumberland Local Planning Panel endorsed the changes which will be included in the planning proposal for the new Cumberland Environmental Plan.

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