What factors affects decision of planning authorities while rezoning an area.

Hi,

As you may have read in news/media housing authorities are planning to address housing crisis (Sydney context) by re-zoning existing lands in the pockets of western sydney suburbs.

I wonder what factors planning authorities consider while identifying an area to be re-zoned.

I know there is no silver bullet that can answer this question. There may be lots of factors and one can not be 100% sure which area/street will be re-zoned in a suburb. Even if all factors are positive, local resident can still oppose it.

I have listed few factors that affects the decision of planning authorities while up-zoning an area.

Few I can think of are:

- Distance from train station. 800m radius is the guideline for R3 (medium density).
- Distance from shopping centers (westfield, coles, aldi etc)
- Whether the lots are suitable for higher density housing. For example, on a street(current zone R2) 400m from train if the lots sizes are around 400-500 sqm then it's not as useful to convert it to R3. Medium density houses can not be built on 400-500sqm blocks unless they are joined together.
- Distance from school. (does ranking/size of school matter?)
- Population growth projection for that suburb. Suburb wise projections can be found here.

Please provide your valuable inputs.

Needless to say the purpose of this thread is to help aspiring risk-taking developers identify a low-zone land and capitalize on the value when it is up-zoned.

Cheers

 

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