FAQs

The Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan was developed to revitalise the town. The proposed new planning controls are designed to promote a better mix of housing types (including affordable housing) and job opportunities. The controls encourage better design outcomes to help maintain the village atmosphere for a growing Woolgoolga. These proposed planning controls are a high priority action coming out of the Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan.

This package is the latest stage of the implementation of the Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan and the Coffs Harbour Local Growth Management Strategy 2020.

Changes to the planning controls are proposed within the Woolgoolga Town Centre Area, and the Woolgoolga North West Release Area and the Woolgoolga West Release Area. These three areas are mapped:

Town Centre Area and Woolgoolga North West and Woolgoolga West Release Areas 

These are plans that determine payments made by developers to the City for the provision of public infrastructure such as road intersection improvements, footpaths and bike paths. The contributions allow the City to provide public amenities and services to meet the increased demands created by the new development.

The height limit for the Woolgoolga Town Centre was reasonably recently (26 November 2020) reduced from 15.5m to 11m (except for 4 key corner sites) based on community aspirations. At that time, the Floor Space Ratio (FSR) controls were retained to allow further investigation of built form implications if they were to be removed. This work has now been completed.

FSR controls are used as one mechanism to control building height and size. However, this is a coarse (less certain and more complex) way of controlling built form, compared to using a combination of boundary setbacks, building height and other built form controls. Where comprehensive site and building design criteria or controls exist, FSR controls may conflict with these controls or inhibit the achievement of good built form outcomes. FSR does not deal well with locations where a significant variation in lot sizes and shapes exists (i.e. Woolgoolga). In such a scenario, buildings on small lots may end up taller than buildings on larger sites, which is not a desirable built form outcome.  

The Woolgoolga community clearly told us during the preparation of the Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan (WTCMP) that they have a vision for the locality. The masterplan exercise and associated detailed studies, have provided Council staff with detailed guidance on the best planning mechanism to achieve built form outcomes that have been endorsed by the community through the WTCMP.

It should be noted that the current FSRs in the business zones in Woolgoolga are 1:1 and 0.5:1. This individual development standard currently limits built form in these business areas to 1-2 storeys, totally inconsistent with the vision in the WTCMP and the statutory building heights.

The current proposal is to remove FSR controls from Coffs Harbour Local Environmental Plan 2013 where they relate to the WTCMP, and to therefore allow building heights, setbacks and other built form outcomes set the development standards in this locality.

Minimum parking requirements are regulations that require new developments to provide a minimum number of on-site car parking spaces. The minimum requirements are identified in Development Control Plans and typically relate to the size and type of land use of the development. Current thinking is that the methodology underlying minimum parking requirements is considered to lack accuracy and efficiency.

The draft controls propose relaxing minimum parking requirements within Woolgoolga town centre for certain developments to help promote local businesses and more diverse and affordable housing. 

Any development that does not have a minimum parking requirement is required to demonstrate that the proposal is unlikely to create significant additional demand for on-street car parking in surrounding streets. This is called merit-based assessment at the development application stage.

The proposed changes to minimum parking requirements relate to:

• the Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan area - refer to pages 34 to 38 in the document “Draft Development Control Plan amendments for Woolgoolga Town Centre and New Release Areas”;
• the Woolgoolga North West release area - refer to pages 14 and 15 in the document “Draft Development Control Plan amendments for Woolgoolga Town Centre and New Release Areas”.

The City intends to implement the following key priority projects from the plan over the next 5-10 years - subject to funding through the Woolgoolga Town Centre Contributions Plan: 

• Streetscape improvements to Beach Street and Nightingale Street

• Upgrading and completion of the ‘Northern Entry’ bike path link from Wiigulga Sports Complex to the beach reserve via Melaleuca Avenue and Lakes Road

• New path connection and crossing of Solitary Islands Way for safer walking and cycling between West Woolgoolga and the River Street precinct.

These projects are explained and mapped in the Extract of Key Priority Projects

• a plan for future parking supply to cater for growth;
• adjustments to parking time restrictions;
• trialling convenient parking for people with mobility challenges;
• ongoing monitoring of parking availability;
• adjustments to parking requirements for new developments.

• A plan that identifies future parking supply to cater for a growing Woolgoolga 

• Planning future parking infrastructure requirements (e.g. building additional parking, modifying parking designs, opportunities with cycleways, shared paths and footpaths associated with parking etc.) and implementing parking management approaches for time limits, enforcement, and monitoring 

• A lot of the future parking supply will be created by upgrading streets without kerb and gutter near the town centre. This will consider the future desired state of each street. Converting to parallel parking or angled parking where appropriate.  

• Adjusting existing time restrictions so that there is regular turnover of cars in parking spaces in the middle of town.  

• Supply all-day parking, within a short walking distance from the town centre and walking will be made easier with improved footpaths and street crossings.  

• Avoiding loss of parking with town centre upgrades - when changes to existing spaces are required for better outcomes (eg. street trees or bike paths), we will compensate losses in parking supply by formalising additional parking spaces near the changes.