Griffith City Council took further steps to address the City's housing shortage last week.
At the Ordinary Meeting of Council held on Tuesday 22 February 2022, Council endorsed the Large Lot Residential Supply and Demand Analysis and Strategy.
The purpose of this Strategy is to examine the supply and demand of R5 – Large Lot Residential zoned land and lifestyle lots in the Griffith Local Government area (LGA) and provide recommendations regarding candidate sites identified as part of the drafting of the Griffith Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS). The Strategy is a State Government requirement to rezone land to R5, which is large lot rural residential.
Council's Consultant Planner, Kelly McNicol said the Strategy was the latest development in the ongoing push to improve housing availability in Griffith.
"As part of the Griffith Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS), which provides the land use planning vision for Griffith over the next 25 years, extensive consultation was carried out to determine how the community wants lands zoned and how they would like to see Griffith grow into the future," he said.
"The Strategy looks at candidate sites based on submissions received during our public consultation exercise.
"All of those were analysed and those with merit, which was around 80 percent of them, were included as sites in the Strategy."
Griffith Mayor, Councillor Doug Curran said this approval would allow for more rural residential lots to be developed within the community.
"This is something we've been talking about for some time so this progress is really exciting," Councillor Curran said.
"A few of the benefits include, increasing housing stock elsewhere for sale or rent and providing housing diversity and choice with large lot residential as a popular alternative to urban living."
R5 zoned lands are predominantly located at the fringes of urban and village areas and support large single detached dwellings with area for large outbuildings and pools.
Based on a comprehensive supply and demand analysis, the Strategy concludes there is a need for additional lands in Griffith to be zoned to R5 – Large Lot Residential. The Strategy also recommends some land zoned R5 be rezoned to RU5 - Village to allow additional residential growth around Yoogali and makes further recommendations regarding lands along Rose Road and Harward Road at the urban-rural fringe of Griffith.
The Planning Proposal will now be submitted to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment to facilitate the recommendations. This Planning Proposal also includes other amendments as identified in the Griffith Local Strategic Planning Statement and the Griffith Housing Strategy.
