Who would have thought that you could put 12 lodgers in a single dwelling two storey family home in the suburbs? According to the State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Accommodation) 2009, the NSW State Government allows this, by way of a boarding house. Using a little commonsense, it was rejected by a small majority. This refusal was on the basis that it was the wrong location for a boarding house, the number of lodgers was too large, it was not close enough to public transport, and it was never envisaged by Council’s own regulations.

But why did the NSW State Government introduce this legal instrument which overrides local rules in the first place?

After experiencing the actual proposal on-site, I immediately wrote to Parramatta’s local Member of Parliament, the Hon Tanya Gadiel MP, for assistance to urgently review the possibly unintended consequences of their own State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Accommodation) 2009. This SEPP was originally initiated in order to facilitate the provision of more affordable housing for very short term residences by way of boarding houses. In practice, however, this Affordable Rental Accommodation SEPP has become a backdoor for effectively upzoning.

Historically, boarding houses have too often attracted great notoriety. The public’s general experience of boarding houses are usually connected with individuals who bring criminal elements into the local neighbourhoods as well as their disregard for the local environment. That said, this SEPP may have been revised in order to avoid such negative consequences and to improve the living conditions for the local community.

Recently, proposals to introduce new boarding houses in Parramatta have identified particular weaknesses in the SEPP. While not exhaustive, they include:

(a) the SEPP allows boarding houses to be built on allotments side-by-side of each other, thereby multiplying the housing density beyond the immediate neighbourhood’s expectations, especially in zoned low density residential areas.

(b) the SEPP does not require on-site operational management unless there are at least 20 lodgers. For those up to 20 registered lodgers, without an on-site manager, there would not be timely attention nor responsibility over any negative conduct of any of their lodgers. Instead, their absence can encourage anti-social behaviour in and around such boarding houses.

(c) the SEPP does not have a have a reasonable formula to calculate the maximum number of boarders in a proposed boarding house, especially when it is a change of use from a single dwelling family home to a boarding house.

(d) the SEPP effectively overrides the local Council’s zoning laws, allowing  boarding houses to be proposed and legally built in low density residential zones, thereby opposing the objectives of the neighbourhoods and environment which were publicly agreed to through the local Councils’ respective Local Environmental Plans and Development Control Plans.

As you will appreciate, development applications have been submitted to Parramatta City Council under this SEPP have given rise to these concerns. Discussion within Parramatta City Council has already begun, with the intention of providing technical planning advice about the problems associated with the State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) 2009.

My letter to Ms Gadiel has been acknowledged as being received. However, I have not yet received any other response from the NSW State Government in the form of any possible remedies. In the meantime, Parramatta City Council will now be reviewing our own regulations in light of this new problem, and to submit it for consideration by other Councils in order to have a larger number of Councils present to the NSW State Government their opposition to the problems introduced by the State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) 2009.

Click here to download a copy of the letter sent to the Hon Tanya Gadiel MP, Member for Parramatta.