The CWWPA recently made a detailed submission on the Willoughby Council draft Local Environment Plan (LEP) and Development Control Plan (DCP). 

These Plans are particularly important as they set the rules about what can be built and where in our local government area. You can read more about our response to the plans here.

Reading the draft LEP and DCP focused our minds on many of the quandaries around the development of our urban cities and residential areas.  Currently, our Council is required to meet what seems to be constantly escalating State-level housing targets but there is little transparency about how these figures are arrived at and whether they are up to date.

The solution to housing ever more people in Chatswood West Ward seems to be the introduction of more and higher tower buildings in the extended CBD but are there alternative approaches we might take? At the very least, we need overarching planning to ensure that, in creating these cities in the sky, we are avoiding accumulated impacts that can result in serious traffic congestion and overstretched community infrastructure. As always, the first consideration in all of this should be the need to build healthy and connected communities.