Council moves to protect housing character
Mosman Council is preparing a long-term strategic masterplan to refine and replace the state imposed low- and mid-rise housing (LMR) planning controls.
The council is acting in response to concerns that the government’s LMR controls will detrimentally affect the ‘character and heritage’ of Mosman. This is particularly in relation to high-rise apartment towers which are currently not as common in the Mosman local government area compared with other suburbs with established high density like St Leonards.
“We want to refine parts of (the LMR),” Mosman Mayor Ann Marie Kimber told NL. “Growth needs to align with infrastructure, but also with character and heritage. (It’s) not just a plan for the next five years, but a masterplan that’s going to be strategically thoughtful around planning needs for the next 20 years.”
Creating a masterplan would usually take two years, but council wants to prepare one in eight months with a budget of $300,000. Council has already begun an infrastructure audit and work on an affordable housing policy.
“We can’t slow down – we’ve got to accelerate,” Mayor Kimber said. “We have put on extra resources to expedite it to eight months. It will come down to community consultation and getting to a plan that’s as acceptable as possible.”
Mayor Kimber warned not everyone will be happy with the masterplan, which would likely include increased density around the ridgeline – the roads encompassing Spit and Military roads.
“There are going to be people already living there that don’t want that increased density,” Mayor Kimber said. “It’s not going to be an easy process. I know I’m not going to be able to please everyone, but I hope we can get to something that the community accepts is helping our character and heritage, and that improves the liveability of our community more than the LMR would.”
Lack of infrastructure remained a major concern for council with the Spit Bridge and Military Road causing commuter chaos. Wakehurst MP Michael Regan has long advocated for a solution to the Spit Road ‘bottleneck.’ He told NL that more housing would bring more traffic to the area, and it might warrant resurrecting the Beaches tunnel plans which were buried in September 2023.
“It’s the most congested road in the country,” Mr Regan said. “The tunnel was probably the smartest solution. But for whatever reason Infrastructure NSW can’t get it to stack up financially, but the population increases are going to be such that we need to actually rethink it now.”
Mosman resident Mark Longhurst’s parliamentary e-petition, Spit Bridge Gridlock Needs a Solution, calling for an urgent review of the Spit Bridge/Military Road corridor’s capacity to absorb extra traffic, had collected close to 800 signatures at the time of print.
Council will undertake ‘in depth community consultation’ as part of the masterplan.