It's time to rethink how we design our homes, buildings and other developments.
We know that climate friendly design for developments can have a big impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions for our city. It's also one of the main ways we can make our community resilient in the face of extreme weather events such as bushfires, flooding and droughts.
Climate friendly development is an important way we can ensure our homes, buildings and other infrastructure meet the needs of our community now and into the future.
One of the ways we can encourage sustainable development is through local planning assessment framework – a group of documents and tools that guide Council and our community on what can be built, where it can be built and how it can be built. Some of these key documents include the Local Wollongong Local Environmental Plan 2009 (LEP) and Wollongong Development Control Plan 2009 (DCP).
We're reviewing our local planning assessment framework, so that it aligns with our vision for a sustainable Wollongong. The purpose of this framework is to explore ideas that promote further investment in sustainability beyond the current requirements set out in NSW Government legislation.
What we're looking for are ideas that benefit our community by decreasing our reliance on vehicles, improving waste reduction and supporting our community's resilience in a changing climate.
Before we get started, we want to hear from our community on what they think these changes could look like and focus on.
"We're starting this project by speaking with our community to get a sense of what changes they'd like to see in the local planning assessment framework. For instance, what ideas does our community have to make future developments more sustainable?" Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.
"We have some thoughts on where we could start but it's important to us to get a feel for what our community thinks and see what great ideas they have to encourage climate-friendly design in future developments.
"Our local planning assessment framework is something that should interest all of our residents as it provides a guide for planning decisions across the Wollongong Local Government Area. This is where we make planning decisions to shape future developments and provide guidelines on what the future of our city looks and functions like.
"It's not just about emissions reductions, but also the cost of energy and how we can make our city more energy efficient by design and planning. There's a lot of talk about a sustainable energy future, and now we need to apply strategies to make it happen, so please give us your ideas!"
Climate action is a big focus of Council and that's why we've set a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 for our city and net-zero emissions by 2030 for Council operations.
"We see this as a big opportunity for sustainability and reduction of emissions in our homes and infrastructure. Seventy-eight percent of emissions produced in our city come from the stationary energy sector which includes the energy we use in our homes, shops, schools, office buildings and industrial district," Cr Bradbery said.
"There's a lot of room for us all to improve as a city. That said, we know that Council is a leader in this space, and we need to set clear guidelines on sustainable development that encourages climate friendly design."
