Development Control Plan Initial Survey Findings

Development Control Plan Review - Initial Survey

A review of Kempsey’s Development Control Plan (DCP) started at the beginning of this year and was announced community wide. In order to gain an idea of the level of interest and invite initial views on development planning within Kempsey, we also identified organisations that have some current or potential working relationship with development control matters. We gathered a list of local development sector professionals, businesses and building industry practitioners and stakeholders and notified them about the project to gauge their level of ongoing interest.

Following that we launched an initial survey in February which ran to end April to gather high level views on the DCP. Over this period we had 177 visits to the Have your Say Macleay page (Kempsey Development Control Plan Review Project). Of that sample number, 139 were classed as Aware, 68 Informed and 16 took part in the survey itself. Of those who took part, 93 per cent lived in the Shire, 93 per cent use Kempsey Council’s building, planning and development information, 87 per cent accessed the DCP online and 68 per cent said they use the document often. That indicates most respondents are individuals and businesses who are already actively involved with proposed development and building and interact with Kempsey Shire Council through DAs and related matters.

While many comments expressed a positive evaluation of the current DCP documentation, the main suggestions were to improve document navigation, keep things simple and where possible, to use graphics to make planning requirements clear.

Some more specific comments were made in relation to including rural zonings and aligning DCP planning controls with relevant SEPPs (NSW State Environmental Planning Policies) objectives to further streamline and simplify local development requirements. It is important to understand that all current land zonings across Kempsey Shire are defined within Kempsey’s Local Environmental Plan (LEP 2013) and not the DCP. The LEP is currently under a parallel and but separate housekeeping review exercise. This review of our DCP however will seek and highlight any anomalies or discrepancies between our DCP and the current consolidated SEPPs (for example: Exempt and Complying – the “Code SEPP”, Housing, Transport and Infrastructure, Resilience and Hazards and Biodiversity and Conservation) for updating.

There will be further opportunities to comment as the review progresses and some interactive sessions may be organised in June 2024. Please do reach out to us if you’d like further information or involvement.