Requirements of the Plan
This District Plan has been prepared to give effect to A Metropolis of Three Cities, the Region Plan that applies to the five districts that make up the Greater Sydney Region. It is the role of the Greater Sydney Commission to prepare and finalise the district plans.
This District Plan has been prepared in accordance with section 3.4 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 which requires it to include or identify: the basis for strategic planning in the district, having regard to economic, social and environmental matters; Planning Priorities that are consistent with the relevant Objectives, Strategies and Actions in the Region Plan; Actions for achieving those Planning Priorities; and an outline of the basis on which the implementation of those Actions will be monitored and reported.
In finalising the Plan, the Greater Sydney Commission engaged with the community, businesses, councils, and State agencies throughout the process. This includes feedback from community and stakeholder engagement including submissions to the draft Greater Sydney Region Plan exhibited from 22 October 2017 to 15 December 2017 and the five revised draft District Plans exhibited from 26 October 2017 to 15 December 2017. Submission reports on the draft Region Plan and district plans are available on the Commission’s website at www.greater.sydney.
Giving effect to the Plan
‘Give effect to’ is the legislative term for delivering the region and district plans through local plans. Opportunities to coordinate and realise greater efficiencies in the implementation of plans have been made possible by the introduction of local strategic planning statements, which together with region and district plans strengthen the line of sight in strategic planning at regional, district and local levels.
The common requirement for all plans to identify the basis for their strategic planning having regard to economic, social and environmental matters and for monitoring and reporting creates the opportunity to improve the integration of data and analysis that informs transparent decision-making and evaluation across all three spatial levels of planning.
A key component of this framework is the local strategic planning statement which leads the local response to changes and trends. As set out in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, the local strategic planning statement must include or identify the Planning Priorities that are consistent with any strategic plan for the area and (subject to any such strategic plan) any applicable community strategic plan under section 402 of the Local Government Act 1993.
Local planning is supported by NSW Government funding for implementation and infrastructure. This includes funding that accelerates planning processes for a selection of councils and state infrastructure funding programs that align to growth (refer to Planning Priority C1).
The relationship between the plans and their implementation is discussed further in Chapter 6.