We, the undersigned residents of Kingsford and surrounding areas, call on Randwick City Council to act urgently to prevent overdevelopment that has not been properly consulted on, planned for, or assessed against local infrastructure capacity.

A proposed State Significant Development (SSD-97050208) at 118-124 Botany Street and 58-60 Wallace Street would see a 9-storey building rise in a street of 1-2 storey homes. This is being enabled because developers can combine two separate State Government bonus schemes, producing building heights and densities far beyond what the Randwick Local Environmental Plan allows and far beyond what the community was ever consulted on.

Council has the legal power to address this. We respectfully call on Randwick City Council to take the following actions as a matter of urgency.

What We Are Asking Council to Do

1. Amend the Randwick Local Environmental Plan 2012 so that any infill affordable housing bonus is calculated from the LEP’s maximum height and floor space ratio, not from the inflated standards introduced by the Low and Mid-Rise Housing provisions in the Housing SEPP.
   
   
2. Fast-track a Gateway determination to prevent further development applications exploiting the stacked provisions across R3-zoned land in Randwick.
   
   
3. Write to the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI) requesting that affected applications be paused pending the outcome of the planning amendment.
   
   
4. Commission a cumulative infrastructure assessment within the ongoing Development Control Plan (DCP) review, to test whether R3-zoned areas across Randwick can absorb the increased density that the stacked Low and Mid-Rise Housing and infill affordable housing provisions now theoretically permit.

Each of the above actions falls within Randwick City Council's existing legal powers under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. No new legislation is required to achieve this. We are simply asking the Council to protect the interests of local residents, communities and its own jurisdiction to decide on planning outcomes.

The Case for Urgent Action

When land across Randwick was rezoned to R3 Medium Density Residential in 2023, residents were consulted on specific height and density controls. What they were not consulted on was a later change to State planning rules that now allows developers on land within 800 metres of a train, metro or light rail station to exceed those controls by up to 80%.

Randwick City Council invested significant time and resources in determining the appropriate scale of development for these precincts. That process concluded that 5 storeys was the right maximum, reduced from an earlier proposal of 6. Now, these decisions and controls are being bypassed entirely by state-level provisions that were never assessed against Randwick's specific planning context.

In simple terms, buildings in R3 zones can now be nearly twice as large as what was originally planned for, without further consultation and without any reassessment or updating modelling on whether local infrastructure can absorb the increased density.

This will create precedent-setting development scale in areas that cannot absorb the increased capacity without intervention. It also removes decision-making authority from local councils on matters directly affecting their communities.

Technical and Legal Basis

The stacking problem is partly a product of ambiguous drafting in the Housing SEPP itself. The policy defines "maximum permissible building height" as:

• "maximum permissible building height means the maximum building height permitted on the land under Chapter 5 or 6, where relevant, an environmental planning instrument, other than this Policy, or a development control plan."

This definition is unclear because it provides multiple sources for the maximum permissible building height, including the LMR provisions in the Housing SEPP itself, or another planning instrument such as a Local Environmental Plan. That ambiguity is what developers are currently exploiting.

The fix is straightforward and lawful. Section 3.28(4) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 allows a Local Environmental Plan to specify how inconsistencies with State planning policies are resolved. Amending the Randwick LEP is not a new or untested process: the LEP was last updated in 2023 and the mechanism proposed here follows that same established pathway.

The current stacking arises from combining two provisions in the Housing SEPP 2021:

1. Low and Mid-Rise (LMR) Housing provisions that set new 'non-discretionary' maximum height and floor space ratios for developments within 800 metres of a train, metro or light rail station, inserted into the Housing SEPP in 2025; and
   
   
2. An additional 30% height and floor space bonus available where at least 15% of the development is delivered as affordable housing for a minimum of 15 years.

Combined, these produce development heights of up to 28.6 metres in areas where the Randwick LEP sets controls at FSR 1.6:1 and 16.5 metres. That is an increase of approximately 80% in building scale above what residents were consulted on.

The amendment we propose does not remove affordable housing incentives. It ensures those bonuses are applied relative to the controls that residents were actually consulted on, so that any increase remains proportionate and local infrastructure can absorb the impact of increased density.

Existing Council Commitment

Randwick City Council has a strong record of standing up for its community against poorly calibrated state housing mechanisms, while remaining open to sensible and proportionate new development. Council’s own strategic planning work across Randwick’s R3 zones, the Kensington and Kingsford town centres plan, the ongoing DCP review, and its 2026 Well-Located Housing Area (WLHA) reforms all reflect a considered, place-based approach to housing growth. The LMR stacking mechanism bypasses that work entirely.

At its Ordinary Meeting of 24 March 2026, Randwick City Council unanimously passed a motion submitted by Councillor Luxford (West Ward) resolving that Council support and assist residents in the vicinity of 118-124 Botany Street and 58-60 Wallace Street, Kingsford, to obtain better outcomes for their amenity regarding the proposed State Significant Development on that site (File Reference: F2026/00091).

We ask Council to translate that unanimous commitment into formal action through the planning proposal mechanism described in this petition. A planning proposal under section 3.28(4) of the EP&A Act is the most substantive and durable form of assistance Council can provide.