Planning Playbook 2024 with Eli Gescheit from Navon Planning

[00:00:00] As investors and developers, we see the world differently. This podcast uncovers the untold truths of what it really takes to become a multi-million dollar residential developer. On Nathan Battishall, let's get to work. Welcome to our latest episode of The Residential Developer Podcast. My name is Nathan Battishall.

[00:00:24] I'm the host of the show and I'm really privileged to have someone who I've really just been following for quite a while and really admired from a distance is Eli Gescheit. So it's good to have you on here Eli. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:00:38] And look, just a little bit about Eli. I want to read it out because I really want to do justice just this introduction for Eli. So Eli Gescheit is an experienced urban planner with over 17 years experience working in various councils and consultants. He's including

[00:00:54] Waverly Council, Hersfield Council also now known as George's River Council at Leading Planning Consultancy's Urbis and newest to an urban. Eli knows the ins and outs of council while also understanding clients' requirements. He possesses negotiation skills and regularly

[00:01:12] appears as an expert witness before the New South Wales Land Environment Court. Eli also enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids and he does a lot of voluntary work with community organisations. That's quite a resume, Eli.

[00:01:26] Thank you. And look, I think just to kick off, I really, my thoughts are I really believe town planning and urban planning such a vital part of a developer's journey and I talk a

[00:01:41] lot about having a dream team and I think in order for developers and investors to be successful and to complete really skillful based projects, I think it's important to have a dream team and I think right at the front of that dream team, I believe needs to

[00:01:57] be a really competent town planner or a team of planners to work with. So I guess just a little bit of background just to get a bit of an idea about who is Eli, who you are

[00:02:08] and you want to just give us a little bit of a background about what led you to go down this pathway of urban planning? What brought you into this sort of career? Well yeah, it's not your standard profession I guess. Like as a kid, you know, you

[00:02:22] want to be a fireman, you want to be a policeman or a baker, all these fun things and I didn't really know what an urban planner was until basically I applied to become an urban planner like in the degree. So it turned out like I wasn't

[00:02:36] really an academic kid. I only really started learning properly at high school probably year 11, leading on to year 12 so probably halfway through year 12. We get a big book and all the universities say okay where do you want

[00:02:53] to go, what do you want to apply it? So I didn't want to be a brain surgeon or anything. But I thought let me look through it. So I paged through the book and I saw a Bachelor of Planning. Bachelor of Planning, what's that?

[00:03:07] So I saw kind of the nexus between property development, communication and I thought well this sounds interesting. So you know some people would say oh you know I used to play what was that game as a kid?

[00:03:24] What was the game? Anyway, I forgot the name of the game but Sim City, so Sim City. So people used to play Sim City, they never played Sim City but you could build towns and whatever. What's the one kid spotting? It's roadblocks now. Roadblocks. Yeah, Minecraft. Yeah, Minecraft.

[00:03:42] Minecraft, that's all fun. I never played any of the Sim City or anything else. I have no idea what planning was but I thought okay it's a five year degree which was like quite a long stretch. But for me one of the

[00:03:55] most enticing things about it was in the middle of it you've got a one-year work experience. I thought okay I don't like to sit in a classroom. Let me try it out for two and a half years or whatever it was and then

[00:04:07] straight into a job and I thought wow so let's go with that. So naturally I didn't enjoy the studying side of it but certainly enjoyed the work experience. I worked with Urbis for a full year which was an amazing

[00:04:21] experience and I did learn a lot about planning but you know we worked on a range of exciting projects and you know it had no experience but they threw me in the deep end and then I had to go back to the books, back

[00:04:35] to studying and before I left I had a meeting with my mentor and they were very supportive at that time and I said you know what should I do next? I said council you have to go into council so that's what I did. So once I

[00:04:50] graduated I moved to my first council job was at Waverley Council and they threw me in the deep end there that's for sure and you know you learned a lot so I guess that's kind of what attracted me to planning that

[00:05:02] you're communicating with all types of stakeholders, there's challenges that it involves design, property, architecture as well as you know navigating the legislation. Yeah and I'm guessing working on both sides of the fence so to speak within government then private I guess it's probably

[00:05:21] given you a really good ability to put your council hat on when you need to in terms of how to negotiate things and I'm sure you've got a lot of clients that like to go in gung-ho and really undo the potential

[00:05:34] work that you're trying to achieve by getting an outcome. It's funny you say that because almost every new client I meet I tell them especially if they've never been involved in DAs before I said I put my council hat on

[00:05:46] with every project you have to you can't go in with you know isolated saying these are these are these are the plans that's what I'm going to submit and that's what's going to get approved. Yeah yeah. Got to

[00:05:56] understand that even a design that fully complies and I'm now talking about DAs not CDCs obviously. Yes. From a DA context even if it fully complies there's actually no guarantee it'll get approved. Yeah. But yeah you've always yeah and having the ability to understand both what councils are

[00:06:13] kind of expecting as well as on the other side of the fence you know what what the clients expecting you've got to manage both of those expectations. Yeah and I guess as a planner I guess you've got to strip

[00:06:28] some of that emotion aside because obviously some developers investors clients can obviously get quite emotional when there is time involved investment involved and that sort of thing but very much quite often you're at the forefront aren't you as a planner because you do you do have to strip

[00:06:43] that emotion aside even if it's not in you if it's within your client you've got to really bring it back and say hey we're on your team but at the same time we're we're here to get an outcome. Yeah yeah you're right yeah I try

[00:06:56] yeah I try strip away the emotion from it as much as possible. Yes. Luckily for us though in a way we're a bit distant from or separate from the client compared to like the architects and building designers who we work

[00:07:09] with who meet with the clients regularly like you know we should put the wardrobe on this side of the bedroom instead of that side like frankly we don't really care where it goes. We're more interested in that you

[00:07:19] get the envelope approved and number one and number two that the clients are going to be happy either living there or if it's a developer that they've got the number of units that they need to make it stack up. Yeah

[00:07:29] that's brilliant and I guess the thing I do love about your the firm that you let you lead is that you you do seems like you do quite a bit of diversity in terms of the type of projects you do.

[00:07:42] I guess do you want to just give us a bit of a rundown in terms of what I guess the services you offer and and things you've developed within your planning firm to work directly with I guess you'd say developers. Now when I say developers I'm talking

[00:07:58] sort of smaller type developments like townhouse developments or duplexes or you know like smaller based developments have you I guess what what sort of things have you structured within your company of how you can help them anything from due diligence

[00:08:13] initial sort of planning involved in in purchasing a site or doing planning reports that sort of thing. Can you give us a bit of a rundown of yeah yeah good question. Yeah so we do everything pretty much

[00:08:27] whether it's a car space in Bondi to a block of apartments in Homebush yes we kind of do everything in between and they're probably about a third of our projects are in the eastern suburbs of Sydney the rest of the projects are all over

[00:08:40] not just in Sydney like we've got projects in northern be you know Central Coast, Wollongong, Blue Mountain so and we don't just do one thing so like you know you go to let's say like a project home company that'll do granny flats for

[00:08:55] example you know granny flats every day in and out they're in and out okay that's a good thing but it I think it'd get boring doing the same thing working in the same council for example. So naturally we're in a position where we can leverage off our experience

[00:09:12] on a variety of projects and I don't think there's probably a project that we haven't done yeah and we've covered off pretty much every Sydney metro council yeah in terms of work I think we've been involved with every council yes some things we haven't done

[00:09:27] yet you know in a particular council for example like I was talking to an architect yesterday who wants to send me a job to a particular council I think it's your Hornsby council a childcare centre yes and I said then well haven't done a child care centre yet

[00:09:42] in Hornsby council but you know it's you know you you apply the same strategy for every council no matter you know what the type of project it is yeah and I think I don't know if you've seen this stigma but over the years I've sometimes

[00:09:58] heard it where developers have just thought I'll engage a town planner to do the statement of environmental effects but it's so much more than that and I've always in my mind I feel that there's such a valuable input that you can get from a

[00:10:16] town planner before you've even purchased a site when you're like and when I say engaged a town planner I don't mean milking a planner for free advice either I mean there's something to be said about paying a planner what they're worth

[00:10:33] to ensure that you buy an appropriate site because I'm sure you've seen this where people have bought sites that you just can't achieve the mix or the the development type that they're looking to do on that property so by paying a planner early in the piece it's invaluable

[00:10:49] have you do you find it's good to be involved in certain certain projects especially if it's development based early in the piece before purchasing a site? Well yeah like for like a mum and dad buying a property is their biggest investment that they're going to make

[00:11:03] in their lifetime so it might be a million dollar property two billion dollars whatever it is or half a million it's a huge investment so they have to you know just like that they'll send in the the pest inspector to check the property or the building

[00:11:17] inspector to check the house isn't going to fall down and a surveyor you know you have all these basic things that you get when you're inquiring about whether to purchase a property a planner is essential especially if you want to improve the property

[00:11:31] or redevelop it for example too because had a lot of situations where people come to me say I bought this property what can I do well I want to do this and I'm like well you can't it's it's heritage list that I got whoops

[00:11:44] you know due diligence is really important so in those situations certainly we help clients understand what you could do possibly but there's always going to be issues so like if they want to do a rear extension there's a tree you have to knock down okay well

[00:12:00] we'll have to think about that or the site might slope to the rear so if you want to do a duplex you might need an easement through your neighbour which rear neighbor which you're actually never going to get yes or it's going to cost

[00:12:11] more than the house sometimes yeah that's right so yeah it's certainly important and I feel so for people that are not fully informed and they just you know trust like the real estate agent will say oh yeah you can do block of apartments here but it's

[00:12:25] owned R2 where you could only build really a house yeah that's it you have to you have to get that up front advice definitely and look I think even sometimes I've found obviously on this show we talk a lot about CDCs as well especially around

[00:12:39] duplexes not just CDCs but that's obviously a very common trend that a lot a lot of mum and dad investors especially or smaller investors or developers are going down that pathway off but I even feel that having a planner engaging a town planners to do a planning report

[00:12:57] prior to purchasing that site is invaluable because you might spend a little bit of you might spend some money on that report but it could it could help you avoid spending a million or two million or 2.5 on a site

[00:13:10] like you said that can't be developed you maybe it can't be drained due to stormwater it's got some native trees and it's got some heritage issues or some covenants or some various things that just can't you can't go down that CDC pathway if you sometimes found that

[00:13:25] that it's people haven't sometimes undervalued the the power of a good solid town planning report early in the process yeah like with CDCs they're they're off at the same time while they're as much smoother and easier system and obviously quicker system than a

[00:13:42] da there are a lot of things in there which people don't know about that are my sites this wide I can do this well no you can't the site's not wide enough for a CDC so you've got to go straight to the da route

[00:13:53] yeah it's it's hard like like people you know especially mums and dads they want to build a new home or dupe small type of doing like a duplex or a granny foot like CDC certainly the the option I would I recommend clients pursue yes but in the

[00:14:09] either if the site doesn't fit as a as a CDC site or if they want to do a bit more than what they want to achieve with a CDC then obviously da route is probably preferable but what I'm seeing now is

[00:14:21] especially you know with interest rates and the housing market and the housing crisis we're all in at the moment people that I think are trying to just to do the home renovation let's say all they want to build their brand new dream home so

[00:14:36] what people are trying to do is a bit of a hybrid of a CDC and a da yeah so it's so both options are complex by themselves but when you add both of them together it it adds a further complexity not just for the

[00:14:50] approval process but when you're down on site can building you know starting to construct whether it's a new house or or renovation it's hard to know like you know I've seen a few examples where that's happened CDC and a da and then builder comes on and

[00:15:09] mulches this wall oh so that was for the da or you know that we're still waiting for the da to get approved so yeah it's that's really interesting so in terms of that so can you run a CDC in a da currently

[00:15:22] well you'd need the cdc you could well you need the cdc approved first yes so that's what people do so at least you've got the all of this you know maybe three quarters of the build you can do as a cdc let's say and

[00:15:33] then they tack on the the element for the da so you can certainly do that again you need to have really qualified and expert building designers or architects yes because the plans have to be superb

[00:15:48] and crystal clear what what stuff has been approved as cdc what stuff has been yeah he's going to go through da for example so it's obviously a lot of complexity isn't there so yeah so you really want to have a

[00:15:59] competent team yeah 100% and and I guess you want to make sure that your builder is not cutting corners too on the cdc and creating issues yeah during your da process yeah yeah that's right I must admit like that we as a planner

[00:16:16] where we benefit from not having too much pretty much any exposure to our builders yeah as well as certifies that you know keep that relationship separate because if I recommend a builder to someone they're gonna I don't know spend a million bucks building a

[00:16:31] house yeah and the builder is crap like it's on me like I recommended the don't do that as well as certifies to keep a bit of a hands reach with certifiers that usually the projects like if it's a cdc the architect or building designer will come to us

[00:16:46] to say here's the plans can we check so we do the the planning report send it through send it to the certifier certifier says yes or no you know so there's a bit of a yeah separation and I guess we've seen

[00:16:59] often we've seen where things have come undone from an ethical point of view I guess haven't we where builders can build potentially a conflicting relationship with a certifier yeah or a certifier's been able to somehow build a conflicting relationship

[00:17:15] with a planner or which can just I guess it can just really bring a project done can't it yeah we could probably designate a whole another podcast just to this topic yeah it's a very messy topic but at the same time it's the reality and you know

[00:17:31] when clients come to us you also they say oh my neighbour got disapproved and we're like okay well the controls maybe have changed so you can't do that number one number two well maybe your neighbour's done something a bit needed approval yes maybe the builder or the

[00:17:48] certifier you know turned a blind eye to yeah so yeah it's very yeah it's tricky and look I think you touched on something at the start of the podcast just around putting on your council hat putting on your planners hat

[00:18:06] and one of the tricky relationships you do have to juggle and I thought it might be good just to touch on that a little bit is when you're working with an investor or developer how are you able to navigate the challenges of let's

[00:18:22] let's talk council just for a moment so obviously that's where I find it can be a frustrating realm for a developer to be developer to be in because essentially all they're looking at is their plan their project their end goal but obviously you're able to look at both

[00:18:38] angles you're dealing with obviously you're getting an outcome from the developer but you're also having to deal with the planners within council but not just the planners you're having to deal with obviously the public as well who may have may have objected or may have some concerns how

[00:18:56] is there anything you insights you can share just with investors and developers on how to actually get better because I do believe people doing projects have if they want to go down that da pathway they do have to look at ways to improve as a developer

[00:19:12] to do this side of things well um have you got any insights or any thoughts or any comments just around what you've seen works well or things that you think ways we can do it better in terms of our dealings with council to get good

[00:19:28] outcomes yeah I tell my clients councils are in the business of approving da's they're not there to refuse your da if you look at the statistics you'll probably find a very few percentage of da's actually refused yeah whereas the majority of them are approved so that

[00:19:44] that's kind of step number one councils are there to help you to get an approval not just to increase the number of houses or you know speed up the process there that's their job and I guess you've got to start with that

[00:19:57] secondly um there are rules and you try comply with them as much as possible uh you know if a client when clients come to me to say oh I need we can't comply with the floor space

[00:20:10] we've got to go more or we can't computer you know it might be a two-story height limit and we have to go for three stories like but that mindset is very challenging especially when

[00:20:22] you're there to represent the client I say I tell people too an urban plan is an advocate for the client yes so you're not on the client's team they might be paying you obviously as a consultant or as a profession but

[00:20:34] you're there to also also be impartial in that these are the controls because you because if something gets approved it's on your head so like you've got to be proud of that design that that's been approved by council so you so you're managing that that the

[00:20:49] client wants this the rules say something else and and you know when I used to work at what we were talking about Waverly Council my first job when I when I used to work there um

[00:21:00] I was often at the front counter so people would ask me questions and they can I do this can I do that more often than not I'll say no so my wife uh used to call me the dream crusher

[00:21:11] you know I even had a woman once uh cried at the you know because I gave her some advice she didn't like she cried it's a bit embarrassing yeah but you know you've got to come to that reality that the controls are there

[00:21:23] they're not there to be broken right it's very hard for the challenging thing for councils is if if you put something to them that doesn't comply they need to they need to argue why they're approving something that doesn't comply yes

[00:21:39] like a classic example is a clause 4.6 variation so that applies so for example in the context let's say we're building a new house and you're and you're going over the floor space ratio so with your da application you have to submit this extra report

[00:21:53] yeah it's called a clause 4.6 variation so just for listeners just before you jump into the next part so do you want to just let you know what that clause 4.6 involves a very yeah variation yeah so it's basically whenever you breach the

[00:22:08] council's floor space ratio controls or their building height controls or if there's a minimum lot size for example that you're a bit under that so it's an ability for you to kind of get an approval beyond the council controls

[00:22:24] yeah now what are we right to say that generally that would come out of the LEP the local environment right rather than the DCP the development control place yeah so it's a legal document yes also and it's

[00:22:36] heavily scrutinized by councils yeah to the point that lawyers especially in court are always fighting over these reports that you know we don't agree with it and has to be written this way instead of that way

[00:22:48] so so in other words oh yeah like in the context of my example of a house where you're going over the floor space ratio and council has to really critique not just you this report but the design so if

[00:23:01] you're going over the floor space are you you're creating any extra shadowing or are you blocking someone's view of the opera house yes it's a very so there's a real there's more scrutiny involved in such a proposal where council might actually want to approve your proposal but

[00:23:17] they can't because there's not enough reasons that you're giving them to to to support that variation yeah so again it goes back to that same principle the kind ones more than what they're allowed wouldn't they

[00:23:31] and do you think sometimes one of the pressures that develop a developer can be under is that they've they potentially haven't been realistic on what they can achieve when they're purchased the site for example we talk

[00:23:44] a lot about contingency in building like having contingency in your in your budget but sometimes I like to talk about having contingency in your time in how long something's going to take for example in council but also do you think maybe it's important for an investor or developer

[00:24:03] to buy something based on a fully making it the numbers stack up from a fully compliant mindset rather than getting pressured into buying something where they've paid too much for it so that they've got no choice but to try and like you said do a 4.6 LEP variation

[00:24:22] with no guarantee that it's going to come through do you think that's that comes into play sometimes or do you think maybe some of it can be greed too and just trying to get more and more and more

[00:24:32] yeah like they've got to go in with their eyes wide open and get their due diligence first like even before they buy a site get a designer an architect just to sketch something up what you know how many bedrooms could they achieve how many units could they

[00:24:45] achieve on the site for example yeah and always you have to have a contingency plans yeah like even with a house you know you want to get build up you want to get a your dream home approved for five

[00:24:56] bedrooms and a study and the study is like oh really need that study but in essence you might actually not get it approved because it breaches the height or means it pushes the building back a little

[00:25:08] bit further than you're allowed to go so for sure you have to have that you know plan B even for even on the scale of a new house or a duplex whatever is it so you know sometimes you know we

[00:25:21] we would lodge an application of design which was like a this is what ideally we'd like to get better at the back you know you have up your sliver okay this is another design which is a more compliant design which

[00:25:33] might offer to council after they send you back a list of you know issues with the design well no just a live project i had where a client they came to us and said look how many

[00:25:46] townhouses can we fit and i just said look conservatively you'll get five you may get six you possibly could get seven but um you know my thoughts are you want to you want to look to buy a site

[00:25:58] um based on a conservative number if the numbers stack up at that conservative number that's where you go ahead because the problem is if they if they get it on the best case scenario with everything

[00:26:09] going to plan you're the worst person in the world aren't you as a planner if if you are over overcompensate or and i just don't think it's good advice would that be your thoughts just 100 right yeah like i know it's not the

[00:26:24] focus of this podcast which is mainly residential like on the flip side like a childcare center we're getting a lot of childcare centers where developers say oh we need 150 kids for it to stack up otherwise we can't do it yeah so you lodge a da for 150 kids

[00:26:39] you might only get a da for 120 kids approved yeah so you apply that same strategy for like a house or duplex or townhouses that you go for seven townhouses on the in the anticipation that you get

[00:26:52] five or six approved yeah if you're lucky like again it's a strategy you've got to discuss with your you know you're talking about your dream team before you lodge a da so it involves a lot of thinking

[00:27:03] it's not just writing reports and preparing plans you've got to think about clearly what what what the actual end game is with the projects yeah no no you're spot on and i think um and i think it's some of it probably comes down to

[00:27:20] being impatient too because i think someone could be very they've seen the site they've said look it works it works if we can squeeze all of these things um but yeah i've i've seen a number of investors and builders crash

[00:27:36] the last couple of years as we all have just with the how volatile the industry has been we're seeing obviously a lot of builders and various people going bust and but one thing i have seen and it's a common trend is the people who

[00:27:53] are quite conservative in how they they look at a site tend to be able to stand the test of time because they make sure that they they're buying sites where they can they can be conservative that anything else is a bonus

[00:28:07] um and i i just think that's smart business for any even any listeners that are looking to do projects or are doing projects i think it's it's nothing wrong with saying no to nine

[00:28:19] okay sites to say yes to one that's a really good site like it's a lot of it comes down to patience do you see that's quite often and he does it does take time to to find the right site

[00:28:32] like a client came to me recently he wants to buy a site uh in kirawe so down south willingone council show is at the show i kill you show i maybe the show sorry yeah and it's down

[00:28:45] spot yeah and uh for us he wants to build a service station there as you do yeah except it's an old like it's a commercial area commercial building and uh when i look at it on google maps

[00:28:59] there's like something wrong with the building and the roof is off and i said to the client like what's wrong he said it was a fire on the property a few years ago okay so you know buy

[00:29:11] a beware you know what else what else is you know lurking behind you know in that site and it's not been on the market for probably a long time too so there's reason yeah you got a

[00:29:22] dgg religion it's very very probably you'll you'll end up with a lemon yeah that's it and it's uh you know you can't some some people can't come back from that the average person can't come back

[00:29:33] from some people can wear a couple of bad projects but the average smaller mid-spec type or or the smaller investor or developer sometimes you can't come back from a bad a bad decision so you'd rather maybe take six months more or three months more and

[00:29:50] and wait for the right site play the patient game that's that's my thoughts anyway yeah yeah but yeah i had a client recently sign up for us to help them with her her property and she said

[00:30:04] to me she and she's she's been through you know the gauntlet of a cdc and and all these issues she's trying to manage the whole thing herself which i feel you know she's done most of her renovation to

[00:30:16] wants to do more with her property and she said to me it's a good analogy she said it reminds me of childbirth that you go through a while you know we don't have that that pleasure

[00:30:27] of childbirth but she reminds me of childbirth where you know you do once and then years later he's always have another kid and like you forget about yeah like it's the same type of

[00:30:37] thing that you forget for like oh we're doing a you know doing another home renovation or going to lodge another da again or cdc it's like forget yeah it was a great analogy that's really good

[00:30:49] and look just to shift it up again we're obviously in our space there's a lot of talk about some changes coming in the low rise in New South Wales obviously state governments implementing some changes we've seen it we've seen it come out now in the mid-rise

[00:31:08] and i guess one of my when i was thinking about who we can get to come on and talk about some of this you were the first person that came to my mind because i really respect your import

[00:31:19] and what you speak about especially on linkedin but i obviously know we can't give a lot of firm answers around different things today but i thought it might just be a great space because i'm

[00:31:30] getting a lot of people talking about it and maybe even off the back of once one summer once we do get some of these announcements we might be able to do like a part two episode where we can actually

[00:31:40] talk about what's actually happening but you know i guess do you want to give us a little bit of an insight into what you in your research what you what you're seeing that's happening around this

[00:31:51] space of the low rise changes that are coming probably more talking in regards to duplexes like we can talk about terraces and that sort of thing but i'm thinking more like duplexes because i'm seeing a lot more people that are doing duplexes now mum and dads builder

[00:32:06] developers or people just wanting to do maybe like a side hustle like a like a development on the side of a lot of our a lot of people i see quite successful in their day today but they want to

[00:32:17] they want to start to get into the property game just by doing a duplex have you what are some of your thoughts around these changes coming in yeah like the government labor government here in new south wiles has been very ambitious i must admit

[00:32:31] in their planning reforms it takes it takes a lot of guts to put up these types of proposals because you never know how the community is going to respond community i'm talking about nimbies

[00:32:44] as well as is this something that's going to be in incentivized developers or mums and dads to like split their high bit building into two their property to two where they can do something

[00:32:56] as simple as a duplex um yeah the policy i would say is very ambitious yeah uh essentially from my read i haven't read all the all the the whole document but essentially um because there's lots

[00:33:11] in it and the devil is in the detail yes and basically like a bit of a disclaimer is whatever has been exhibited to the public is not always what's going to be adopted yeah for example

[00:33:22] the government has rolled out a a tod policies that's transport orientated development policy yes around 30 or so train stations in the city metro area where they said they were going to

[00:33:35] offer this like for example you'd be able to get a three to one fsr this is like you know reasonably sized developments like up to six stories high so they they exhibited

[00:33:47] three to one fsr and now it's a 2.5 to one fsr yeah so something a small change like that obviously restricts how much you can build and then might kill a development yeah for example

[00:33:59] so there's a lot of these unknowns things so we can really talk about understandings what's kind of been presented to us um and that that you know this happens all the time where my a

[00:34:10] local council might make proposed some changes to their controls and the actual in the actual um final result is something maybe more or less than than than what what they expected so

[00:34:23] in the context of this it's as obviously it's not the first time the government is trying to roll out these these types of changes yes um duplexes are for sure in a really interesting type

[00:34:34] of project and in a way it's it's more obviously it's more appropriate as you were saying irrelevant to your mums and dads wanting to try get some passive income or or for their kids to live in

[00:34:47] one and they can live in one themselves that's very it's exciting yeah um so for sure people should look look into it if they haven't already yeah but one of the the main bonuses of this

[00:34:59] this um this policy is in some councils you they actually prohibit uh dual occupancies yes for example where we live my local council's keringo council yes and very you know duplex as dual occupancies are prohibited in the r2 zone yeah so what essentially what this would do

[00:35:18] for example the keringo council and as well as others that it would switch it on it would switch on that control yeah where okay previously you couldn't build a duplex or dual occupancy now

[00:35:29] you can yeah and these are the controls which you would have to abide by number one and number two i believe too uh you could potentially do it as either as a da or a cdc for example so it

[00:35:43] it opens you up to a lot more potential yeah perform not you actually just nailed something that i was going to to mention that we've had some people ring in different areas like there's

[00:35:52] parts of the northern beaches they even had someone from keringio uh epping some of those areas where you haven't been able to do a duplex saying oh should i go and buy a site no i've

[00:36:03] been telling people just hold on now look it's looking promising isn't it but yeah at the same time i'm one of those people and until i see it until i can physically touch and see the

[00:36:15] legislation rolled out in each council i'm telling people just yep you're running your own risk which we spoke about risk earlier like you are running your own risk though aren't you 100% it's like there's a lot of planning policies that the government has introduced which they

[00:36:31] haven't actually adopted for example one that comes to mind is the sydenham to bankstown corridor yes which was also a whole strip of properties near the train stations that you know you could

[00:36:43] get extra fsr and hide like fantastic yeah it never went through yeah it was going on for years and years and like what's happening you know people would put a lot of invest a lot of

[00:36:54] money into these sites and well can't really they can do something but not as much as what the government originally uh anticipated that's it and even we're talking i think correct me if i'm

[00:37:07] wrong yeah you'd probably know this policy a lot better than i would but from what i've been reading it looks like with the duplex they're talking about 60 fsr yep um now that would

[00:37:17] obviously be if you went a da pathway now with that 60% do you read that that they're looking to roll that out across all the councils for example if you're in the shy we spoke about kira where earlier

[00:37:30] most are two areas of in the shy are like 55 0.55 to one fsr so so essentially what they're saying is that they're looking to bump that up to 60 is that how you read that part of well i would say so

[00:37:47] yeah yeah it should do just like what you have with the sep the the code sep where it's the same controls applied to all councils and depending on the size of the site for example uh that's the

[00:38:00] approach i see that they're taking too so it would it would allow you to do more um but at the same time they've introduced or they're proposing to introduce a canopy controls to tree canopy

[00:38:11] controls yes so what as well as i know for example well Lara council i think maybe randor council have adopted recently in their dcp yeah where to kind of control the size of buildings

[00:38:25] they're contra trying to push in canopy controls so you need trees this size as well and you add that to your landscaping requirements it basically squishes the size of the buildings because you have to tick these are the boxes too so just because you can get 60 100 may not

[00:38:43] necessarily mean that you can it's like it's like the cdc isn't it like some people say oh look 25 of the site plus 300 square meters i've got 440 square meters to work with but it's not

[00:38:55] always yeah that's achievable yeah well what you said is 100 percent sure i actually last night i read a judgment of a land environment court case um which involved a large project um in bonda beach

[00:39:09] it was actually refused by the by the court very rare to get a refusal from the court usually you can come to an agreement but on this occasion the the commission has said it was there was

[00:39:22] discussion about fsr so the fsr was whatever it was three to one and the height was this whatever it was the project actually actually complied with fsr but it didn't comply with height

[00:39:33] they were going up a level above what was allowed and the commissioners said which is something you know it's pretty common sense fsr is not a right does not give you a right to go up to that maximum

[00:39:45] yeah so the developer was arguing well we're complying with fsr but we're not complying with height so you know that was you know that's the very basic argument that they gave the

[00:39:56] basic summary of what the argument they put forward to the court but it's true in the context of any development fsr is a maximum it doesn't mean you're going to achieve that on the site especially like

[00:40:09] if if you're dealing with a site that's bound or has it's a heritage in a heritage conservation area well there might be a huge tree in the middle of the site you're never going to get the

[00:40:20] that fsr it's important for people to know especially your listeners that fsr for sure you can try work your numbers on the fsr you might be able to achieve a house or dualock that you can achieve this

[00:40:33] this floor space but ultimately um it's not a it's not a given right yeah yeah that's it and i'll find sometimes even like townhouses for example you might have a 70 fsr in an R3 zoning

[00:40:46] but by the time you have all your private open spaces your garage in your visitor parking set backs set backs overshadowing all those things come into play don't they so you really sometimes we've seen sometimes you might only get 50 or 60 to be fully compliant so then

[00:41:04] but in terms of the set i'm getting a lot of different people just looking at various opportunities that could arise so essentially what we're looking at at the moment what like you said all we can really talk about is what they're looking to propose you've already

[00:41:19] seen it with the mid medium rise they changed the fsr so 60 might end up at 55 or 50 we don't know do we but in terms of the zonings so we're talking uh there's obviously a lot of

[00:41:33] a lot of areas across uh sydney where you can't currently do duplexes so they're proposing um we're talking what r2 zoning all r2 zoning zoned areas within sydney and also includes

[00:41:47] some other out of lying areas doesn't it so we'll look what have we got woollen gong i believe so yeah uh shell harbour shell haven i think central coast new castle maybe blue mountains

[00:41:59] yeah so so essentially you have to check where it applies yeah because there could be some year fine pre that's oh maybe blue mountains is not on the list yeah that's right so it's

[00:42:08] important for listeners to really dig into that so for those areas so essentially what they're saying is that areas that we're not currently you can't currently do duplexes they're saying they're going

[00:42:20] to open that up yeah that's just one of the many things this policy is going to introduce the other thing is areas or sites within let's say 400 meters yes to again a train station not

[00:42:32] not so much like a commercial zone like a town center yes you can get more there's there's going to be more generous floor space and height controls there with obviously restrictions yes as well

[00:42:44] at so certain and then if you push it out further that sites between 400 and 800 meters from these town centers and commercial zones you can also achieve certain you know high density yeah essentially so so essentially if it's an r2 zoning that doesn't allow for multi-dwelling

[00:43:04] if it achieves some of these new correct theoretically they're saying that they're going to look to open up potential yeah to do for example multi-dwelling in areas that are close within that distance of a

[00:43:17] um like a like a town center town center yeah something station correct yeah it's and i think it's ambitious trying to roll out all of these different things under the one policy

[00:43:30] but essentially like you look at the sep exempt and complying yeah there's so many things in there in that one document that you can do starting off with granny flats you know i think it started

[00:43:40] 2006 or whatever it was when the sep was first introduced you can do granny flats and it's just evolved but what they're trying to do is do all these things at once which is very

[00:43:50] admirable of the government you know kudos to them to try you know streamline the process but in essence maybe some of these things might not be actually adopted yeah because of community

[00:44:02] feedback or feedback from the councils yes but but to kind of take the lead and throw it in all at once i think that that's yeah i've got guts yeah i wouldn't want to be in government right now

[00:44:14] yes yeah especially the planning minister yeah yeah that's right and look there's is obviously a lot of unknowns i another question i'm getting a lot of is with they're looking to change the um the lot width at the building lines they're talking um 12 meters yeah obviously

[00:44:34] some councils already allow unless 15 seems to be a very common number we see across yep New South Wales not every council some you can go to 14 some are lower on a new castle you can do

[00:44:48] often you've been up we've been able to do less than the 15 but is that what you're reading that they're talking like a 12 meter so at the moment we're reading a 12 meter frontage now is that 12

[00:45:00] meters the width of the block 12 meters or 12 meters at the building line yeah it depends i don't know have to read through it yeah you're right yeah so they're talking 12 meters and they're

[00:45:11] talking 450 so if we use the shire as a case study at the moment let's say the shire 650 they're talking 450 so essentially people that just fall that fall within that 450 to 650 that what they're saying is if this goes through there's going to be potential opening opening up

[00:45:36] for people with those smaller lots for sure yeah yeah yeah there's certainly merits in having like a minimum width or you know of a property too um minimum lot size also helps you know to have

[00:45:51] both controls makes things a lot harder to stick you know for properties are you know to be redeveloped into duplexes yeah whereas if they switch one of them off like you there's no minimum

[00:46:03] lot size there's just a minimum width that makes it be more flexible yeah so yeah again the devil's in the detail i can't really tell you what what's actually going to be adopted in the end but i

[00:46:13] presume they've done their homework they've done some modeling saying okay these are the controls these these they can apply to most sites around Sydney yeah i think i've seen somewhere where they have given some statistics about what you know what's kind of the development trends in

[00:46:31] in the areas and this is how we've come to this decision yes to adopt these controls because yeah the 450 650 that minimum lot size those are pretty much they're not standard across council and

[00:46:42] also 15 minute 15 meter widths you see that a lot in councils yeah yeah it's very common but but not every council as you know not not every council has the same type of um typology of subdivisions

[00:46:55] and housing for example to so you're like you go to inner west you're not going to have a block that's 450 you know like a small terrace might be 150 square meters you know so it really depends on

[00:47:07] the area yeah definitely and look i guess some of the i guess some of the questions i've heard coming through is is are these changes are they going to are they going to change the low rise

[00:47:22] diversity code for compliant development for example at the moment under the low rise code you the minimum lot size points to the lep so for example in the shire if it's 650 or woollengon could be 450 shell haven could be 500 like every council's obviously every every council's got

[00:47:40] their different minimum lot size but 15's obviously the magic number in terms of the block width do you have you have you read anything in term in terms of i think are they looking to update the low rise

[00:47:52] diversity housing code or is it looking to stay i'm not sure about that but it seems to be an ability to override the council controls so yeah so in essence so well what we're talking

[00:48:04] about too we probably mentioned it's a state policy so you've got the state environmental planning policies yeah so in the legal hierarchy you've got the seps the state state controls and you've got the lep's the local environmental controls and then you've got the dcp's that's

[00:48:19] really good so maybe we should have talked about that at first so essentially these policies that the government is trying to introduce plus again they've adopted many other state policies before yes so they can't because in the hierarchy the legal hierarchy they

[00:48:34] kind of over they override the council controls yes in so instead of them having each council to individually update their controls yeah it's an automatic thing that applies to all councils

[00:48:46] across the board yeah so for example one council might you know feel like a granny flat or secondary dwelling some some councils lep's and their zones don't say secondary dwelling yeah so you think

[00:49:01] oh well that's prohibited you can't do but in actuality the state policy applicable for granny flats overrides that so you can do so that's really good yeah so so it kind of leads on to that that

[00:49:14] question that will it override councils controls I think that's the intention yeah yeah so so the intention at the moment the way we're reading it could be that a 12-meter wide block

[00:49:27] could be done under a CDC through the low rise diversity yeah yeah and I guess that's where a part two could be good to 100% say what yeah it might be 12 meters or my turn out to be 15 meters

[00:49:39] or 20 meters you don't know like all I can really go off for example what's been adopted recently again with this transport orientated development policy so for those sites near near train stations there's no minimum lot size yes but they've imposed the minimum width of 21 meters yeah

[00:50:00] you can be talking again six up to six story developments a big prop big projects yeah and and properties near train stations they're not all 21 meters so that means the developer has to

[00:50:12] move in and buy two sites and they might need to buy three sites for them to make it work so in a way it's it's quite restrictive having just that minimum width yeah requirement and I guess a lot

[00:50:24] of it does very much come back to what we spoke about for before around really being patient if you've got the means in the ability to go and buy up sites in parts of the northern beaches

[00:50:36] that's on you but my thoughts are very much to be patient wait wait for what what we are what's going to happen because as we know things what's what's proposed now could look

[00:50:48] very much very much different in july or august or whenever we do we do get the final news about this introduction yeah and and also something else that we haven't covered yet and hasn't been

[00:51:00] really spoken about in the in the industry or on media or in linkedin is people are forgetting there's something called local councils and there's local council elections in september so you know we've had federal elections okay we have state government elections okay but

[00:51:17] coming close to home where all of us rely on councils to pick up the rubbish the garbage and all those essential services this so whether it's good timing or not I don't know you can try

[00:51:28] to read between the lines about why all of a sudden they're introducing all these trying to boil out all of these major planning reforms but reality is the there's council elections coming up in september so you'll probably you'll probably see the local council is saying oh we want

[00:51:44] this or we don't want this because they've obviously they want another term of being elected yes yeah that's also something to keep in the back of their minds that's it they can create more

[00:51:53] uncertainty for people really yeah but one of the beauties I must admit about at least five years ago was the the government removed the planning decision from councillors yes you know the

[00:52:07] good old days of attending a council meeting and lobbing on about a I don't know first full renovation to a semi somewhere like talking about it for an hour like that's that's out of

[00:52:17] that's gone which is the best probably the best one of the best planning reforms that ever happened but still they the councils do have an influential decision in like strategic planning for councils

[00:52:31] yes so that's also something to bear in mind that's brilliant yeah well look we might finish park it park the the rest of the set changes from there and it'd be great if you to get you back

[00:52:43] on at some stage we can maybe talk about um what what has been implemented and what that means in different different areas in different parts but look at these it isn't there are some potential exciting opportunities there's always there's always something changing in our

[00:52:58] industries and they're in the planning and development industry there's always something updating and I think it is important for investors and developers to be at the precipice of it or to have their dream team good planners good advice who are at the

[00:53:15] coalface really really getting on top of where things sit for sure look it'd be great to um I don't know if you've got any case studies or just just any projects that just talking through where town planning advice where good town planning enabled a great outcome

[00:53:37] because for me I know I've said it already but good town planning is invaluable for a project so have you got any projects you can maybe share with us a little bit about just some outcomes that you're really proud of or you're able to achieve some really excellent

[00:53:53] outcomes on sure well almost every approval especially da approval is a mini miracle yes you know right being there for one month you know if or if you're lucky you might be in there

[00:54:05] for six months or 12 months like a few like I'm so glad that's over it's a really grueling task getting an approval so almost every day is certainly a victory in the sum

[00:54:16] which maybe should never have been approved you know if it was done a few years ago for example or or if you fast forward in five years time maybe never get that approved yeah um but yeah there's

[00:54:28] a lot of great stories there's certainly you know council uh horror stories there I'm not going to go go there with we've all got those don't we will be there all day but but essentially there's

[00:54:38] one there's one nice project that comes to mind so as I said before we get involved in the range of projects so this particular project was in Newcastle so it's for an approved eight-story hotel

[00:54:51] in Warf Road so right by the water and beautiful location and um what happened was uh because of COVID every da approval prior to 2020 got an automatic two-year approval yeah so da's usually

[00:55:10] had five years expiry date so bumped all these da's up to seven years yes which was great for people that you know couldn't start building or whatever but it created a lot of complications uh and this

[00:55:24] particular project because it was approved seven years almost seven years before I got involved there were changes to the BCA the NCC so the application itself was quite straightforward in that we weren't adding more more hotel rooms we weren't adding height or FSR um we were we we

[00:55:45] I think reduced a bit of car parking because it was a project which was approved and um for example the car park was approved without without columns or they had some columns but not many so from a structural point of view whatever was approved would never be built

[00:56:03] for example yes so there's some elements in the original approval that we went in we lodged the application and and again from a planning point of view wasn't such a complicated project except what happened was we got um around 35 objections from the neighbors yeah some of them

[00:56:22] had moved in before it was approved so they were barking at counseling how could you approve this this is a terrible project except it had already been approved we were just making modifications

[00:56:34] so so it in essence it was a it was a straightforward project but then we had the objection so that that uh that delayed the process so overall it was about a 12 or 18 month pro it took

[00:56:48] 12 to 18 months to get approved finally but what happened uh towards the beginning of the project was quite interesting so remember that the the DA was going to lapse so we had to lodge

[00:56:59] the application at a certain time by a certain time frame as well as there were NCC changes you know so there's some there was some logistics behind the decision to lodge so we'd lodge the

[00:57:12] application and uh there was questions over um have we started work is the DA active yet and you know no not really and but and for your listeners what what happens is if your DA X lapses

[00:57:26] it's gone it's as if it never existed so no way should you lodge your your construction certificate the day before it expires you know never gonna happen so what happened was um council kind of

[00:57:41] when I spoke to council who she was she was the council officer she was very helpful and she made a passing comment like um the building is still there like the existing building is okay have you

[00:57:52] done the CC yet and I thought oh hang on the DA is going to expire very soon like within a month or two yes and so I called the architects and I said I thought you put in the the CC for demolition

[00:58:05] and he said yeah he did but they didn't actually do the work they didn't start actually knocking down the building because for for your listeners um to activate a DA you have to get a

[00:58:17] construction certificate and you have to start doing some work so the extent of work you have to do depends on the project and so at that point I said okay let's this is a real issue we have

[00:58:30] to get moving quickly yeah so thanks to the the great architects that got me involved in the project he was very quick with organizing everything as well as we involved a solicitor

[00:58:42] to kind of help us through that legal you know framework of what do we need to do to tick a box with substantial commencement yeah so we got that level advice and demolish everything but we we got

[00:58:55] everything all the wheels in motion we were able to tick that box yeah and it was important too because like it was going up to a council meeting with the councillors because there

[00:59:05] were 35 objections yeah yeah and we were worried that the councillors would say well the DA has lapsed and why are we looking at this modification if it's lapsed that was a real risk we were able to

[00:59:17] get over that that huge stumbling block because the the client he is one of the he owns a he owns about 15 hotels in Australia so this is just one of them but you know

[00:59:30] it's a very sensitive project to him that if you and he knew that if he lost if this deal was to lapse he would never get it approved again that might be seven stories instead of eight

[00:59:41] for example so we so we say so we've done a lot of money well yeah you're right so we were able so so through so we thought as a straightforward project just doing a modification to a hotel

[00:59:55] in actuality the the challenge and the most important thing was to actually activate the DA so that they wouldn't he wouldn't lose the DA approval so that was a nice little win

[01:00:05] that's a massive win yeah yeah that's because especially too like now like now there's a lot more apartments around this site yeah a lot more neighbors are interested before I don't think

[01:00:17] half of those buildings were there yeah so if he was to lodge a DA for a new hotel like you have to go to the land of home and court to get it approved yeah that's massive yeah that's

[01:00:27] massive and look in terms of Ellie I've just enjoyed this this conversation so much it's so invaluable I think we could do 10 episodes and we probably haven't even scratched the surface of just valuable insights and information but look how can how can our listeners contact you

[01:00:44] maybe maybe your name of your company website and LinkedIn your LinkedIn name or something obviously we'll put that information in the show notes but how can people connect with you and if

[01:00:55] they're if they're netting pre pre-advice and buying a property or or they're needing a town planner for their projects I think I think it's inevitable off the back of this conversation that it is

[01:01:07] one of the key people you need within your dream team so how can people connect with you so people could just google nav on planning or they can go google my name they'll be able to

[01:01:17] get my details there or just find me on LinkedIn great excellent that's how you found me that's yeah I found you that's how we connected that's right it's a great platform definitely and we'll make

[01:01:26] sure we put the website in the show notes thank you it's been invaluable and I guess if you just want to finish this off just by giving us a I guess just one little lasting piece of advice

[01:01:37] for investors and developers when it comes to working with a town planner just I guess if you're talking to someone who is looking for a planner and is looking for

[01:01:50] I guess someone that can really help them on their journey of doing projects not as a one off but that's the beauty I love of developers you get to build that long-term relationship what

[01:02:02] I guess what's some advice you could give them yes an architect who runs an architecture firm with about 50 staff he once told me that there's two types of town planners out there there's ones that write reports for you like the statement of environmental effects which

[01:02:19] which I think is easy to write reports and then there's the other type of planners that give you advice and the reports and he said early you're one you're you're that type of town planner

[01:02:30] that gives advice and the report so it's imperative to to get the advice up front from from your urban planner or your town planner because there's a lot of hurdles you have

[01:02:42] to jump through with council and as I said before councils are in the business of approving projects so you've got to you've got to find that the right balance and an urban planner that that tells you

[01:02:55] how it is rather than an urban planner he says yes okay let's lodge that and see how it goes running to hurdles later exactly yes they have yeah and it's not just the urban planner

[01:03:06] you need your dream team as you were saying too like you need your survey you need your designer yes it's a whole even for a duplex you need half a dozen consultants on your team

[01:03:15] it's important to get the right consultants what a way to finish it that's that's that's absolutely brilliant advice I couldn't agree more I've used planners before they just tick a box or write a report and you get problems so I'm so appreciative early for coming onto our podcast

[01:03:33] um thank you for really me I've gone away with so much more knowledge and uh even for my own journey off the back of this so thank you for coming on and uh and just thank

[01:03:45] you to our listeners if if if you've enjoyed this I want to encourage you to reach out to ellie he's all these details will be in our show notes having a town planner is one of

[01:03:54] the most key parts of your journey so I want to encourage you to reach out to ellie um thanks thanks for listening be sure to subscribe and uh and be sure to share this information with our friends and people you know that are in the industry thank you