Mosman Council calls an extraordinary meeting for Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know.
Mosman Council chambers on Military Road, where Wednesday night’s extraordinary meeting will be held. Picture: Mosman Council
By ANNA USHER
Mosman Council will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday night to vote on the Mosman Masterplan, the 30-year proposal that decides where thousands of new homes go and how tall they can be.
The meeting starts at 7 pm on 26 August at the Civic Centre and any resident can attend, register to speak or watch it live online.
Two items are on the agenda, and neither is a final decision.
The first is the Masterplan itself, which is Council’s alternative to the State Government’s Low and Mid-Rise Housing Policy.
How the Military Road and Spit Road junction could look under the Masterplan. Picture: SJB, from the Mosman Masterplan documents
That policy allows apartment blocks on suitably zoned land within 800 metres of the Spit Junction and Cremorne town centres, including the Balmoral and Mosman Bay slopes.
Council has to deliver the same number of homes either way, so the Masterplan concentrates them along Military Road and Spit Road and leaves the quieter streets alone.
The tallest buildings cluster at Spit Junction, where Bridgepoint would take the tallest building at 22 storeys, cut from 25 in June.
Ten key sites around the junction only reach those heights if they hand something back, from walkways and community rooms to a pedestrian bridge over Military Road and 267 public car spaces at Bridgepoint.
The expanded Village Green and a new Barry O’Keefe Library, as envisaged in the plan. Picture: SJB, from the Mosman Masterplan documents
Council is also promising a new library and community hub, an expanded Village Green, and a regional cycle route to North Sydney, as part of $307 million in infrastructure over 30 years, funded in part by levies on larger developments.
In the fine print, parts of the Lang Street and Military Road heritage conservation areas would be cut back.
Council’s own transport study also warns that the extra traffic cannot be addressed without State funding and improved bus services.
The second item is an affordable housing scheme that covers the entire municipality.
Consultants found about 1,160 Mosman households in housing stress against a supply of roughly 120 subsidised homes.
It would charge developers 2 per cent across Mosman, 3 per cent on Low and Mid-Rise projects and up to 10 per cent on key sites, with the homes kept affordable permanently rather than for 15 years.
The public plaza proposed for the Bridgepoint site, where the plan’s tallest building would go. Picture: SJB, from the Mosman Masterplan documents
The Masterplan, in plain English.
What is it?
A plan for where Mosman’s new homes go over the next 30 years, and how tall they can be.
Why now?
The State Government has told every council to take more homes. Its rules would let apartment blocks go up across a wide slice of Mosman, including the streets running down to Balmoral and Mosman Bay. Council asked to write its own version instead.
What is the choice?
The number of homes does not change. About 4,700 either way. The only question is where they go. The state spreads them widely. Council packs them onto Military Road and Spit Road and leaves most other streets alone. Packing them in means building higher.
Is anything approved on Wednesday?
No. Not one building. Councillors are only deciding whether to send the plan to the State Government, which then decides if it can go any further.
So when can I object?
Not Wednesday. The plan goes to the Government around October. If it gets through, it comes back on public display in November or December. That is when anyone can write in and have it counted.
Can I still turn up on Wednesday?
Anyone can sit in and listen. To speak you have to register first, through Council’s online form or by emailing governance@mosman.nsw.gov.au with your name, the item number and your email. To watch from home, go to webcast.mosman.nsw.gov.au.
You can read next week’s Council Agenda HERE.
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