Councillor Amelia Parkins has asked for clarity on key points of the newly adopted housing plans presented by WWCC to ensure the best outcomes for Wagga’s housing future. Photo: Chris Roe.
Wagga Wagga City Council has officially adopted its new long-term Local Housing Strategy (LHS) and the Interim Affordable Housing Paper.
While all councillors endorsed the LHS, Cr Amelia Parkins questioned whether the document clarified the required quality of any new developments.
The strategy will focus on delivering 5000 new dwellings to cater for a projected 9000 new residents by 2041. The plans will look to create a 70/30 split between greenfield (new, expanding suburbs and zones) and infield (existing, developed) areas.
While Cr Parkins applauded the council for delivering the plans, which have been researched for nearly three years, she was sceptical about the lack of clarification on the quality required for the future dwellings.
She said that while the documents attached to the LHS did outline the various factors involved in new-dwelling construction, such as housing diversity, affordability and environmental stability for certain areas, the clarity for each of these factors in the plans, which are set to go on public exhibition, was not clear.
“Almost all of those objectives and strategies are already in the document, but they’re not spelled out clearly enough,” Cr Parkins said.
“The document itself has the potential to guide the type of housing that we want to see in Wagga, and provide a framework for updating other policy documents, such as the development control plan.
“We’re not going to achieve those objectives if the document itself is hard to navigate. There’s no point having a strategy if people can’t easily use it.
“We can very easily have strategies such as ensuring new housing can be properly serviced and balanced to guide applicants through the planning pathways available to them, and enhance opportunity for growth in villages.
“I would really like to see a greater emphasis on good design. Council has the ability, through explaining policy documents, to encourage, if not mandate, best-practice, universal design principles.
“This is not just about making the built environment look good, but would also have added benefit, properly-oriented houses with windows in the right locations to support cross-ventilation, sunlight in winter, and shading in summer.
“It can also improve the health of residents and, importantly, reduce the cost of heating and cooling houses, which is important in this cost-of-living crisis, by including resilience and affordability as objectives, with strategies that include promoting good design in the rest of our policy documents and reflect this.”
Following the endorsement of the LHS, the council will put the plans on public display for 28 days, starting on 30 June. Public submissions can be lodged until 1 August.
“After the public exhibition period, a further report will be presented addressing any submissions made in respect of the Draft Local Housing Strategy and Draft Interim Affordable Housing Paper,” a council spokesperson said.
