What the City is Doing
The City of Sydney seeks to achieve sustainable use of land within its area through land use planning, management of contaminated land, sustainable buildings and partnerships.
Council uses planning controls to help ensure that development is socially equitable and environmentally sensitive.
Land Use Planning
The City has a series of plans to address environmental issues such as contaminated land, signage, heritage, open space, site specific plans of management, cycle ways, pedestrian access, onsite parking and access to transport and services.
The City has also developed a proposed Environmentally Sustainable Development Control Plan (DCP). The DCP provisions aim to deliver leading edge environmental outcomes for multi-unit residential development and all forms of non-residential development including commercial, retail, industrial and mixed uses.
We engaged the services of Lincolne Scott Australia to help with this task, particularly for developing appropriate green building performance standards. The Green Star rating tool developed by the Green Building Council of Australia forms the basis for some of the performance criteria.
In an effort to reduce confusion in the development sector, the City has chosen to develop performance criteria through the established and well regarded Green Star tool rather than developing different objectives and performance criteria.
The DCP will include a specific multi-unit residential component, however, it can not mandate beyond water and greenhouse performance targets set by the NSW Building and Sustainability Index (BASIX) scheme. The intellectual property developed will be shared with the Green Building Council for later adaptation into a residential Green Star tool.
It is envisaged that the controls will:
- integrate assessment of environmental impacts with development
- improve environmental performance of buildings
- reduce resource use, waste and pollution
- improve the quality of city life
- promote use of renewable energy and materials
Last Updated: Wednesday 16 January, 2008
