The NSW Minister for Planning has agreed on a review of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Housing) upon a request by the then Deputy Lord Mayor Chiang Lim.

This review by the Department of Planning is principally in response of the consequential effects of overriding local area's publicly agreed housing densities, thereby making it a backdoor upzoning without the appropriate considerations and safeguards against negative social impacts and outcomes.

With the NSW building industry still experiencing stunted growth, a number of developers have sought to capitalise on the NSW State Government's new State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) 2009. This SEPP, also known as the SEPP for boarding houses, was originally designed to increase the amount and diversity of affordable housing across NSW. Historically, boarding houses have too often attracted great notoriety. The public’s general experiences 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.

Unfortunately, the recent spate of proposals for affordable housing/boarding houses expose particular undesirable outcomes from the SEPP, including allowing boarding houses to be built side-by-side, not requiring an on-site manager for those up to 20 lodgers per boarding house, no reasonable formula to calculate the maximum number of boarders per boarding house, and effectively the backdoor upzoning and overriding of local councils’ zoning laws that were publicly consulted such that you can put boarding houses anywhere and exceed the already agreed maximum densities.

After requesting an urgent review of the SEPP for boarding houses in late May 2010, the NSW Planning Minister, the Hon Tony Kelly MLC agreed with Chiang Lim to a review of NSW’s boarding houses law. (Click here for a copy of the letter from the Hon Tony Kelly MLC.)

While I thank Minister Kelly for agreeing with me that an urgent review of the boarding houses SEPP was necessary, time is of the essence. There are already proposals for more boarding houses using this SEPP in the pipeline and local communities are at risk of having them approved well before the SEPP is reviewed and fixed.