August 30, 2016
Sydney’s Future for Business and Residents
The City of Sydney released a draft of its central Sydney planning strategy report in July, aimed at guide development in the heart of the city’s commercial district and which anticipates major increases in building heights. The paper discusses the increase in residents into Sydney’s CBD and the impact to city’s commercial district.
In the City of Sydney draft report, the Lord Mayor Clover Moore states that Sydney is an amazing city to work, live in, visit and enjoy though there is a need for sensible and stategic planning to ensure that Sydney continues being world-renowned for its beauty and liveability and that this strategic direction will plan for growth and change.
In advocating the policy to a function organised by the development industry, the council’s director of city planning, development and transport, Graham Jahn, argued some form of management was needed to preserve a mix of uses and the economic vitality of the city centre.
Graham Jahn, the head of planning, development and transport at the City of Sydney. Photo: Peter Rae
Mr Jahn said there tended to be a “critical point” in cities where, if there was too great a concentration of residential development, premium commercial uses were no longer attracted to the area.
“It is a challenging reality for a city administration so successfully pro-residential to come to terms with these issues,” Mr Jahn said.
For the past two decades, the council has been encouraging people to move to the centre of the city, and has put in place planning policies aimed at making residential towers easier to build.
But in a change of tack, the city is now attempting to temper that residential mix. According to Mr Jahn, the area around Haymarket and the south of the city “is gone … as far as premium commercial space” goes, because of the large volume of residential structures in the area.
Read more HERE
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
