Hi Everyone,
Many of you will be aware that Hunters Hill Council has commissioned a consultation initiative branded as “Future Gladesville”, in which participants are being asked to describe various aspects of the character that they would like to see Gladesville take. This initiative is limited to influencing some of the more subjective or ‘softer’ elements of the Development Control Plan (DCP), and the Local Environment Plan (LEP) controls over Height and Floor-Space-Ratio (which translates to bulk) are not up for discussion.
Separately, Council is actually exhibiting a proposed change to the setback of the Gladesville Shopping ‘Village’ (GSV) site on Flagstaff Street. We were really pleased to see THIS proposed amendment to the DCP, but it has not been promoted with anywhere near the same effort that has gone into the Future Gladesville initiative. The setbacks were a key issue identified by the Community in nearly 280 submissions in response to the GSV owner’s application to redevelop the site, submitted to Council in 2013.
Setbacks are controls which are contained within the DCP, and they are an opportunity to stipulate that a development on a particular site must allow for deep soil planting, and other features which soften the impact on the neighbourhood. In reality, this is one of the critical controls which is objective, not subjective, and can actually codify the requirement for a development to be sympathetic to the existing streetscape – instead of a sheer 14m wall built flush to the footpath (for example).
Please take a moment to visit http://gladesvillecommunity.
We actually think that responding to the exhibition of the proposed change to the setbacks is the best opportunity that the community has been given, since the prevailing DCP was adopted, to influence Hunters Hill Council’s planning controls for Gladesville.
Kind regards,
Team at Gladesville Community Group