With the significant change that has occurred as a consequence of the council merger, there is both a need and an opportunity to examine and establish long-term policies for housing in the area. The Strategy also provides an implementation platform for the delivery of Council's long-term land use and social planning priorities for housing. In this context, there is a wide range of Local, Regional, State and Federal legislation and policy which influences the need and content of a Housing Strategy. These set the framework for how the Strategy then responds. Arguably the most notable of these are the State Government's Hunter
Council has recently completed its first Community Strategic Plan MidCoast 2030: Shared Vision, Shared Responsibility, as its primary guiding document for how Council will respond to the needs of its community. The document highlights a strategy to "Optimise land use to meet our environmental, social, economic and development needs", of which this Housing Strategy forms a key component. Perhaps more importantly, the Community Strategic Plan has a performance measure that "The community is satisfied with land use
Regional Plan and Council's Community Strategic Plan. The Housing
planning decisions" - decisions need to be made within a clear and
Strategy sits between these key higher-level local and regional plans,
consistent framework.
takes its regional directions as required by the State Government and combines these with the desires encapsulated in the Community
At the current time, there are significant differences between the three
Strategic Plan to form a common direction forward.
former Council areas. There are three Local Environmental Plans (LEPs) that provide the high-level land use planning regulation, three Development Control Plans (DCPs) that provide further guidance on the assessment of proposed developments, as well as a myriad of other strategies, controls and policies that differ between the three former Council areas. A key outcome of the Housing Strategy is to provide the high-level directions for residential housing that will enable a new consolidated LEP to be developed - the MidCoast LEP, as well as other supporting documents.
Figure 3: High level Housing Strategy relationships
MidCoast HOUSING STRATEGY
Page | 3
