Appointing a design review panel to ensure ‘‘ugly’’ developments are rejected is one proposal being floated by a committee tasked with reviewing Kiama’s primary planning document.
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Kiama Council’s LEP review committee is charged with reviewing Kiama’s local environmental plan, adopted in December 2011 after a lengthy process and 1337 public submissions.
When it first met in July, the committee listed Manning Street in Kiama as an area of concern, where older homes were making way for apartment buildings described as ‘‘oblong boxes’’.
Last month Kiama councillors declared they had ‘‘drawn a line in the sand’’ when it came to the design of unit blocks in Kiama.
At the August meeting the council unanimously rejected a proposal for 139 Manning Street, to demolish a house on a 784-square-metre site and replace it with a residential flat building comprising four units over three levels with basement parking.
Council planners had recommended the application be approved, but councillors unanimously rejected the application, with Cr Mark Honey saying he feared for the council’s legacy.
‘‘I fear in five or 10 years’ time we will be remembered as the council that built the shoeboxes up and down Manning Street and destroyed the aesthetics of that area,’’ Cr Honey said.
Chairman of the LEP review committee, Dennis Seage, said the idea of a design-review panel had been put to council staff for further investigation in the wake of changes the NSW government’s SEPP 65 (State Environmental Planning Policy No 65). SEPP 65 now allows councils to appoint design-review panels, which can advise on whether an apartment development meets the design principles and, if not, make recommendations on ways to comply.
‘‘Previously we couldn’t knock back a development that looked ugly,’’ Cr Seage said. ‘‘Now we can.’’
The LEP committee has delivered a list of 12 ‘‘possible areas of interest’’ for further investigation by Kiama Council staff, which will be reported to the full council at a later date.
The list includes reviewing and updating the town-centre plans for Kiama, Gerringong and Jamberoo; looking into the concept of using metres or storeys for height limits; and how the the LEP can encourage viable agricultural enterprise.