Written by
05/02/2024
Imagine if Council incorrectly rezoned your commercial site for infrastructure purposes? 12 years ago, that’s what happened on a well-located site in Windsor.
Historically, under the former Hawkesbury LEP 1989, 7 and 9 Fitzgerald Street in Windsor were zoned MU – Multi Unit Housing. In September 2012, Hawkesbury Council adopted the Hawkesbury LEP 2012, replacing the 1989 LEP.
The adoption of the 2012 LEP involved the conversion to standardised zoning system under the Standard LEP Instrument 2006. In this process, an anomaly (error) occurred whereby 7 and 9 Fitzgerald Street were incorrectly rezoned to SP2 Infrastructure. SP2 Infrastructure zoning is to provide for infrastructure and related uses and is not valued nearly as much as residential or commercial zoning. Given the previous multi-unit housing zoning, the standard conversion into present zoning is R3 Medium Density.
Subject site and previous land use zoning map
The present land use of the site include Fitzgerald Motors on no. 9 – a lawn mower retail and service store that has been in operation for over 50 years. On no. 7 is a second-hand furniture store. Given the site’s existing commercial use, discussions with the owners of the property resulted in the agreement that the site should be rezoned to E2 Commercial Centre as a R3 zoning would create a spot zone in the Windsor Town Centre which is mostly zoned commercial.
E2 Commercial Centre zoning also introduces potential for residential development but this is probably not ideal given the flood affectation of the site.
Windsor Town Centre features a diverse range of commercial uses including retail, hospitality, office space and other business activities. Surrounding land uses include a Sydney Water owned water reservoir on the adjacent SP2 Infrastructure zoned land and residential land uses to the northwest. Several listed items of environmental heritage are located within the vicinity of the site, including ‘Sunny Brae’ – a Victoria era house.
Subscribe to
Find us
Australia Square
Level 44, 264 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Mon-Fri: 9am – 5pm | Sat-Sun: Closed
Subscribe to
Propertied Insider is a planning and development digital publication dedicated to the NSW Market.
