Our community's planning rules are being bypassed.

No. The coalition fully supports well-planned, appropriately-scaled housing in Randwick LGA, including affordable housing. Many of us actively support increasing housing supply near transport.

Our objection is specific: to applications that do not comply with the statutory thresholds that activate State-level planning powers, and that exploit legal uncertainty to produce outcomes no planning instrument was designed to allow. We are asking that the rules be followed and that the process be transparent. Good housing policy cannot be built on non-compliant applications or opaque processes.

A State Significant Development (SSD) is assessed by the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure rather than local council. To qualify as an SSD, an infill affordable housing development in Greater Sydney must have a Capital Investment Value of at least $75 million. Certain Housing SEPP provisions then allow developments near transit corridors to rely on "non-discretionary standards," meaning the consent authority cannot refuse them on height or floor space ratio grounds if those standards are met. Importantly, this restriction applies to the consent authority itself (whether that is the Minister, the Department, or the Independent Planning Commission), not just to Council.

Our position is that those standards are not met in these applications, and that the legal basis for the bonus stacking used is not established in law.

Under Housing SEPP Chapter 6, s.163, a site must be within 400 metres walking distance of a Light Rail platform to qualify for the most intensive "inner area" non-discretionary standards. Where a Light Rail platform has no public entrance, the walking distance must be measured to the platform itself. Juniors Kingsford has no public entrance, so the platform is the correct statutory endpoint.

The applicant's surveyor incorrectly claimed 360.83 metres. Independent measurements using the Department's own LMR Viewer (434.04m) and Google Earth (432.15m) both exceed the 400-metre threshold when measured correctly to the platform. If this is upheld, the site falls into the LMR outer area, where the maximum non-discretionary height is 17.5 metres. Even with the 30% infill affordable housing bonus added on top of that, the resulting height remains well below the nine storeys proposed. At that reduced scale, the development would also likely fall below the $75 million Capital Investment Value required to use the SSD pathway at all.

The Housing SEPP contains the LMR regime (Chapter 6) and a separate in-fill affordable housing bonus. These applications calculate the affordable housing bonus on top of already-elevated LMR non-discretionary heights, rather than on the base controls in Randwick's LEP. The legal uncertainty turns on how the Housing SEPP defines "maximum permissible building height" for the purpose of the bonus calculation:

"maximum permissible building height means the maximum building height permitted on the land under Chapter 5 or 6, where relevant, an environmental planning instrument, other than this Policy, or a development control plan."

The inclusion of "Chapter 6" (the LMR chapter) in that definition means the bonus can arguably be stacked on top of LMR non-discretionary heights, producing outcomes far beyond what Randwick's LEP was designed to allow. A 2025 Housing SEPP amendment gave some legal effect to this reading, but the provision remains genuinely uncertain in how it should be applied.

The coalition is petitioning Randwick City Council to close this gap. Section 3.28(4) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 allows a Local Environmental Plan to specify how inconsistencies with State planning policies are to be resolved, giving Council a direct mechanism to anchor bonus calculations to LEP base controls across all R3-zoned land in the LGA.

On 24 March 2026, Randwick City Council unanimously passed a motion moved by Councillor Luxford (File Reference F2026/00091) resolving that Council support and assist residents opposing SSD-97050208. Councillors from across the political spectrum agreed that the application raises serious concerns. The Kingsford East Precinct Committee has also passed a motion to support local residents in opposing the development.

SSD-97050208 is currently in the "Prepare EIS" stage. The public exhibition period has not yet opened. When the Environmental Impact Statement is placed on exhibition, a formal community consultation period will begin and residents will be able to lodge submissions directly with the Department. Sign the petition and join our mailing list to be notified when that period opens.

For SSD-97050208, the consent authority is the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, currently Paul Scully. In practice, the Minister may delegate the decision to a senior planning officer within the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.

However, if Randwick City Council lodges a formal objection during the exhibition period, or if 50 or more independent objections are received from local residents, the consent authority automatically moves to the Independent Planning Commission (IPC). The IPC is an independent body that holds public hearings and makes its own determination. This is one reason why resident submissions during the exhibition period matter so much.