1. Thankyou for preparing a video to explain background that leads to the changes. 2. The audio is terrible. There are various online FREE resources that can turn an echo, distorted, background noise into a clean professional audio. Part of the Adobe suite I think. Very unprofessional for 2023 from Govt. 3. There should be more of these discussion to explain broadly the rules. Good thing to hide the faces tho. No one should be putting their face to these changes. On the changes; You've increased site cover but also increased the required PGA. Garden areas decreased via the rules you set. Someone buys a bigger lot because they want a bigger house but you determine they must now have a bigger backyard. Is this serving community demands or planner ideology? I built 2 storey boxes on R40 and ended up with very large backyards. The same size lot with a single storey fills the site with no garden area. Same rules but very different outcomes. Perhaps there could have been some credit for double storey in lot sizes? ie increase in density for building double storey? for the same OLA/PGA area. Still have not addressed the situation of a wall at an angle to the boundary having it's setback determined by the closest point despite most of the wall being set well away from the boundary. Does not make any common sense. Many lots do not have square boundaries. I can get a double storey wall closer to the boundary than I can a single storey wall at an angle because it has a large opening 7m away from the boundary. That doesn't make any sense. I thought a rule that such a wall setback can be assessed by measuring the length of wall within a setback and any openings within that length, so a wall corner at 1m could be assessed until that wall passes through the 1.5m setback and any openings within that section used to determine (allow) the 1m setback. If it's 32m long but 95% of it is further away than 1m it is nonsense to determine the whole wall based on that closest corner. These kinds of blind spots cause irrational design decisions to get around irrational rules. The 1m min width requirement to count as soft landscaping deletes the 500 landscaping strip down every driveway for rear lot development despite it contributing significantly to overall landscaping outcome. Incomprehensible decision. Your example house design change shows a demonstrably much more expensive house. Hey lovely house but much more expensive. At a time that Govt actions have lead to a massive increase in the cost of building a house, at a time when housing availability is at an all time low and renting cost is sky rocketing, interest rates are climbing. All demonstrates that Govts destroy communities which undoes all your claims about improving the living environment. Perhaps you need to think about a new section on rules for car design as a living environment but they'd be living in older cars anyway. Your example does bring a lot more daylight to the dwelling - to the long long passageway that now inefficiently serves one room at a time instead of two. What's the point of bringing more daylight to a passageway? Ironically your preferred design is a lot less efficient with building materials leading to global warming and climate change and you'll use more resources and flood the planet. The reason why so many houses look like the house on the left is because that's what people could afford. It's an efficient build and an efficient use of resources. "You'll own nothing and be happy" WEF
Is front setback averaging gone? Again you haven't understood an angled setback. 4m hard setback would apply to the closest point. On an angled front boundary, 3m concession applies to the closest point only so one is penalised and loses setback where they have an angled from boundary, same as side setback. Just not flexible enough. Averaging allowed you to achieve a fair setback and get an exact 4m on the average. So wait, this only applies to higher density? Low density retains the same averaging?
I have an R40 site, 180m2 lots. It has an approved DA for 4 dwellings but two are two storey. I need to rejig for all single storey because the market won't buy the double storey. Currently the approved courtyard is 20m2. In Sept it would require 30m2. In Sept the site cover goes from 55% to 65%. 180 x 10% is an additional 18m2. But the larger courtyard negates any potential gain. An additional 10m2 is 5% of the site area. Has anyone modelled these outcomes? So for what is supposed to be higher density, smaller lots you are actually reducing the size of the home for what would expected to be a house with a small courtyard enough for outdoor dining a bit of garden. Conversely, for lower density R25 I require the same courtyard size on a 300m2 lot 30m2. with no change. Why would an R40 density lot require the same courtyard as an R25? A larger R40, 221m2 lot requires 40m2 courtyard???? Bigger than an R25 300m2 site which only requires 30m2? Maybe the 3.6m CP width can give something back to the lot area?
1. Thankyou for preparing a video to explain background that leads to the changes.
2. The audio is terrible. There are various online FREE resources that can turn an echo, distorted, background noise into a clean professional audio. Part of the Adobe suite I think. Very unprofessional for 2023 from Govt.
3. There should be more of these discussion to explain broadly the rules. Good thing to hide the faces tho. No one should be putting their face to these changes.
On the changes;
You've increased site cover but also increased the required PGA. Garden areas decreased via the rules you set. Someone buys a bigger lot because they want a bigger house but you determine they must now have a bigger backyard. Is this serving community demands or planner ideology?
I built 2 storey boxes on R40 and ended up with very large backyards. The same size lot with a single storey fills the site with no garden area. Same rules but very different outcomes. Perhaps there could have been some credit for double storey in lot sizes? ie increase in density for building double storey? for the same OLA/PGA area.
Still have not addressed the situation of a wall at an angle to the boundary having it's setback determined by the closest point despite most of the wall being set well away from the boundary. Does not make any common sense. Many lots do not have square boundaries. I can get a double storey wall closer to the boundary than I can a single storey wall at an angle because it has a large opening 7m away from the boundary. That doesn't make any sense.
I thought a rule that such a wall setback can be assessed by measuring the length of wall within a setback and any openings within that length, so a wall corner at 1m could be assessed until that wall passes through the 1.5m setback and any openings within that section used to determine (allow) the 1m setback. If it's 32m long but 95% of it is further away than 1m it is nonsense to determine the whole wall based on that closest corner. These kinds of blind spots cause irrational design decisions to get around irrational rules.
The 1m min width requirement to count as soft landscaping deletes the 500 landscaping strip down every driveway for rear lot development despite it contributing significantly to overall landscaping outcome. Incomprehensible decision.
Your example house design change shows a demonstrably much more expensive house. Hey lovely house but much more expensive.
At a time that Govt actions have lead to a massive increase in the cost of building a house, at a time when housing availability is at an all time low and renting cost is sky rocketing, interest rates are climbing. All demonstrates that Govts destroy communities which undoes all your claims about improving the living environment.
Perhaps you need to think about a new section on rules for car design as a living environment but they'd be living in older cars anyway.
Your example does bring a lot more daylight to the dwelling - to the long long passageway that now inefficiently serves one room at a time instead of two. What's the point of bringing more daylight to a passageway?
Ironically your preferred design is a lot less efficient with building materials leading to global warming and climate change and you'll use more resources and flood the planet.
The reason why so many houses look like the house on the left is because that's what people could afford. It's an efficient build and an efficient use of resources.
"You'll own nothing and be happy"
WEF
Is front setback averaging gone?
Again you haven't understood an angled setback. 4m hard setback would apply to the closest point. On an angled front boundary, 3m concession applies to the closest point only so one is penalised and loses setback where they have an angled from boundary, same as side setback.
Just not flexible enough.
Averaging allowed you to achieve a fair setback and get an exact 4m on the average.
So wait, this only applies to higher density? Low density retains the same averaging?
I have an R40 site, 180m2 lots. It has an approved DA for 4 dwellings but two are two storey.
I need to rejig for all single storey because the market won't buy the double storey.
Currently the approved courtyard is 20m2. In Sept it would require 30m2.
In Sept the site cover goes from 55% to 65%. 180 x 10% is an additional 18m2.
But the larger courtyard negates any potential gain.
An additional 10m2 is 5% of the site area.
Has anyone modelled these outcomes?
So for what is supposed to be higher density, smaller lots you are actually reducing the size of the home for what would expected to be a house with a small courtyard enough for outdoor dining a bit of garden.
Conversely, for lower density R25 I require the same courtyard size on a 300m2 lot 30m2. with no change.
Why would an R40 density lot require the same courtyard as an R25?
A larger R40, 221m2 lot requires 40m2 courtyard???? Bigger than an R25 300m2 site which only requires 30m2?
Maybe the 3.6m CP width can give something back to the lot area?