Introduction

Bankstown City Centre is the principal Strategic Centre of the Canterbury Bankstown LGA. The Greater Sydney Commission’s, South District Plan identifies Bankstown as a Collaboration Area for a highly productive, economically vibrant and liveable centre. It provides job capacity target for Bankstown strategic centre 17,000 to 25,000 jobs by 2036. Infrastructure commitments (and potential projects) are underway to realise a health and education precinct, including the Sydney South West Metro and Western Sydney University Campus and potential public hospital.

The Greater Sydney Commission’s Collaboration Area Bankstown City Centre and Bankstown Airport Place Strategy (the Place Strategy) aims to guide the area’s transition from a suburban centre to a distinctive health, academic, research and training precinct by leveraging government and institutional investments and creating a place to innovate and test ideas. It reinforces the strategic objectives of the South District Plan in clustering health, knowledge and education uses in Bankstown, adopting a high performing ecologically sustainable city and creating well-designed built environment. The Local Strategic Planning Statement ‘Connective City 2036’ (LSPS) affirms Council’s commitment to delivering on the housing and upper jobs targets set out in the South District Plan. It also commits to supporting up to 25,000 students in the City Centre by 2036. Council’s Local Housing Strategy targets the delivery of an additional 12,500 dwellings in Bankstown by 2036. These dwellings will contribute to the City- wide target of 50,000 additional dwellings by 2036.

The Bankstown City Centre Master Plan (the Master Plan), adopted by Council in September 2021, is a growth strategy which seeks to take advantage of the opportunities provided by significant investment in infrastructure and services within the Bankstown City Centre. The Master Plan sets a 20-year vision for Bankstown and translates this vision into placed-based principles and actions. The Master Plan provides an evidence based approach to support the growth and change within the Bankstown City Centre envisaged by the South District Plan, Bankstown Collaboration Area Place Strategy and Council’s LSPS.

The Master Plan is underpinned by a long-term strategic vision. This vision has then been translated through a series of “spatial moves” and “intensification” approaches, which have been used to guide the 10 Directions, outlined in detail below.

The Vision for the Bankstown City Centre is:

• “Bankstown City Centre is the beating heart of Canterbury Bankstown and a destination for

Greater Sydney. • Walkable streets are framed by beautiful parks and great architecture. The city embraces environmentally sustainable living. • Anchored by a prominent university, health institutions and a world-class metro, Bankstown is a leading centre for innovative jobs, housing choice and green transport.

• People are drawn to the City for its delicious food and vibrant art, culture, entertainment and nightlife.”

The Master Plan is defined by the following 10 directions:

1. A centre stimulated and supported by infrastructure 2. A centre for people 3. A centre that attracts investment and jobs 4. A well-designed centre 5. A centre that embraces nature 6. The heart of Connective City 7. A resilient and carbon neutral centre by 2050 8. A centre proud of its heritage and culture 9. A centre with housing for all 10. A centre with collaborative governance.

These 10 directions ensure the approach to growth and change is holistic and considers the broader needs and aspirations of the city – from ensuring infrastructure aligns with growth, to building a strong night-time economy and ensuring adequate housing that is well designed and sustainable. This Bankstown City Centre Planning Proposal (Planning Proposal) will implement the Bankstown Master Plan and deliver a new planning framework through amendments to Council’s draft Consolidated Canterbury Bankstown Local Environmental Plan (draft CBLEP).

The draft CBLEP is the statutory planning framework that establishes land use zones and built form controls such as Floor Space Ratios (FSR) and building heights in the Canterbury Bankstown Local Government Area (LGA). This Planning Proposal proposes a range of amendments to the draft CBLEP to give effect to the objectives and actions of the Master Plan.

These LEP amendments expand and intensify commercial activities and support higher density mixed use and residential development. The amendments also increase the capacity for residential dwellings and affordable housing and incentivise community infrastructure. New controls are proposed to ensure certain types of new development achieve a high standard of environmentally sustainable performance.

The vision is for new buildings to define streets and public spaces to deliver a comfortable, functional and attractive public domain; while the towers above are tall and slender and are set back to allow daylight, views and circulation of air to the streets and public spaces below. The LEP amendments also increase the energy and water performance of buildings to contribute toward the Council’s targets of net zero carbon emissions, increased climate resilience and ecological sustainability outcomes. Supporting the delivery of these objectives will be a Development Control Plan that will be prepared by Council and exhibited concurrently with this Planning Proposal.

This Planning Proposal has been prepared in accordance with Section 3.31 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (the Act), the Standard Instrument – Principal Local Environmental Plan (Standard Instrument) and guidelines published by the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE), including the Local Environmental Plan Making Guideline (December 2021). This Planning Proposal explains the intent of, and justification for, the amendments to the draft CBLEP and is supported by a range of technical studies and documentation.

This planning proposal would enable the key moves and priority actions in the Master Plan, the Bankstown Complete Streets CBD Transport and Place Plan, Council’s LSPS and the Place Strategy and will:

• Support employment growth by maintaining a minimum required FSR for employment uses, or equivalent to the existing employment use on the site, whichever is greater • Establish building envelope controls that maintain adequate solar access to significant parks and public spaces in winter • Require a proportion of new residential developments above a certain yield to deliver affordable housing • Set controls which incentivise new developments to achieve energy and water efficiency performance over legislated targets • Provide incentive height and Floor Space Ratio (FSR) bonuses to deliver community facilities on certain sites, 3-4% affordable housing or more than 50% of employment generating uses • Require certain B4-Mixed Use sites to deliver a minimum of 50% employment generating uses • Provide an FSR bonus of 0.25-0.5:1 to deliver higher performance residential and commercial buildings in relation to water and energy use.

As per the Department’s publication ‘Local Environmental Plan Making Guideline (December 2021)’, this Planning Proposal is comprised of the following components:

Part 1 A statement of the intended outcomes of this Planning Proposal. It is a statement of what is planned to be achieved, not how it is to be achieved. Part 2 An explanation of the proposed changes to draft Consolidated CBLEP to achieve the intended outcomes. Part 3 The justification for making the proposed changes to draft Consolidated CBLEP. Part 4 Maps to identify the intended outcomes of this Planning Proposal. Part 5 Details of the community consultation that is to be undertaken on this Planning Proposal. Part 6 Outline the indicative project timeline.

Following the exhibition process, a review of community feedback and any additional information may see updates and amendments to this Planning Proposal.

In accordance with the Local Environmental Plan Making Guideline, this Planning Proposal is classified as ‘Complex’.

Figure 1: Planning Proposal Categories (Source: Local Environmental Plan Making Guideline, DPE 2021, p14)