25 acre minimum lot size: stifles growth; denies choice

Don't look to Sydney's outer northwest to escape the urban squeeze. While there's an abundance of suitable land, with most services in place, there's a dire shortage of building lots, thanks to 40-year-old planning controls prohibiting allotments smaller than 25 acres.

Located within an hour's drive from central Sydney, and close to the burgeoning western commercial & industrial heartland, the area has become a sought-after alternative to cramped, 15-dwellings-to-the-hectare housing in urban areas. But ill-founded planning controls first introduced in 1964, prohibiting owners from subdividing large blocks to 5 acres, have created a massive shortage of building lots, denying choice to prospective new residents, and stifling growth (see sidebar).

Vision: congestion

It's hard to understand why such planning controls exist. Few seem to benefit through maintaining it; many would benefit through removing it.

One theory is that it stems from the urban consolidation mantra popular with politicians and bureaucrats. This ill-founded ideology, expressed most recently as the "compact city" vision in Shaping our Cities and Shaping Western Sydney, can actually be traced back to the early 1950s, when the first attempts were made to restrict residential development on the city's outskirts.

Before then, no real planning controls covered non-urban land, but in 1951 a minimum lot size was declared – 5 acres.

While no doubt many were unhappy with this restriction, it wasn't half as bad as what was to come. In 1964, despite strong community opposition, the authorities of the day decreed that a 25 acre minimum lot size would apply to most of the remaining non-urban land in Baulkham Hills – some 80% of the shire; an area of approximately 30,000 hectares.

This was an urban consolidation king hit. Initially some exemptions were allowed, but by 1977 the minimum was firmly cemented into place through the Baulkham Hills council's Interim Development Order 118. Zoning history >>

Since then, the 25 acre minimum lot size has remained as the key clamp on growth in the urban fringe, and the key concern of communities affected by it.

Meanwhile, the mirage of benefits that were supposed to flow from urban consolidation is finally fading to reveal the inevitable result: congestion and overloaded infrastructure.

Gameplay: Rural Lands Studies

Shortly after the 25 acre minimum lot size zone was introduced, many in the community began making representations to the Baulkham Hills council and NSW state government, seeking to have the ban on 5 acre subdivision lifted. Community goal >>

The response was a series of Rural Lands Studies, commencing in 1983 and extending through to the present, ostensibly to investigate the potential for sustainable growth in the area. Rural Lands Study overview >>

The first 3 of these all concluded that there was justification for relaxing the ban on 5 acre subdivision to some degree, generally reflecting residents wishes. However, in each case the council found various reasons for rejecting the recommendations, except where they applied to council-owned land.

Now the focus is on the 2001 Rural Lands Study, prepared by a consultant known for his work on "preserving rural land". Not surprisingly, the outcome has been a series of reports firmly opposed to the wishes of the community. Drawing solely from these reports, and ignoring community submissions, the council has prepared a new planning strategy for the area – one that essentially says "no change".

After 20 years of Rural Lands Studies it has now become clear that there has never been any commitment to act according to the aspirations of the community. The studies turn out to be nothing more than 20 years of procrastination, a game played with the community, while all the time following an agenda set by the state government.

What is the problem?

Aside from the enormous waste of time and money that the Rural Lands Studies represent, one of the most incredible points about the issue is that permitting subdivision to 5 acres would – at the very most, even if 5 acre subdivision occurred on every single large lot where it was currently practicable – produce no more than a few hundred additional lots. Although this is important to those who wish to move to the area for the lifestyle, and those already resident, it is nothing more than a drop in the ocean compared to the massive developments, involving thousands and thousands of lots in adjacent suburbs, and the 50,000 annual population increase. It certainly wouldn't be enough to turn the urban consolidation policy around.

What is equally incredible is that the council, which is supposed to act in the interests of those who elect it, has chosen to ignore that responsibility, and instead bow to the whims of other politicians and bureaucrats over this issue.

Why is this? Why are politicians and bureaucrats so determined to exercise control over the community regarding this issue, when it is so insignificant compared to the overall growth occurring in Sydney?

• Is it because they find the local community and prospective new residents, small in numbers and votes, easy to ignore and control?
• Are there vested interests who stand to benefit by restricting housing choice?
• Is it simply a case of bureaucracy gone off the rails – urban-consolidation-at-all-costs?

It's unlikely that anyone will ever know if there is any single reason to explain the obstinacy of the politicians and bureaucrats. What is clear is that now is the time for this unreasonable policy – restricting minimum lot sizes to 25 acres – to be abandoned. It is out of line with federal taxation and benefits legislation, it's out of line with common sense and reason, and it's out of line with what the community affected by it wants.

5 acres is a reasonable minimum lot size for any non-urban area – 25 acres is simply ridiculous. Now is the time for reason to prevail, for the council to lift the prohibition, and permit subdivision of large holdings to 5 acres unless there are very compelling and widely accepted reasons not to.

Figures from the latest Rural Lands Study commissioned by the Baulkham Hills council show an annual growth rate of just 0.6% in the study area – less than 100 new residents per year – over the last few years, compared to a rate of over 3% in the remainder of the shire.

A direct effect of this is business closures due to the lack of population growth. Here are some  examples of what happens – examples you won't find in the Rural Lands Study:

Derelict Kiosk

Abandoned Service Station

Uncompleted building

Abandoned Service Station

Other effects

• Lack of housing choice for those seeking peace, privacy and views, due to the acute shortage of 5 acre lots;

• Elderly residents unable to provide for their retirement unless they sell their entire property and move away from the area, due to federal government legislation which prevents them from claiming a pension when their residential property is larger than 5 acres;

• Parents unable to pass on part of their land unless they own a block larger than 49 acres, forcing their children to settle away from the area, even though many would like to remain;

• Bitterness & cynicism towards the local council in a community that has been forced to accept a policy that is directly opposed to their wishes and their interests.