21 November 2025 (Friday)
If you want to comment on the draft DCP, see this link.
Issues you may want to address in your submission are:
- Is heritage listing by stealth a public good?
- For those proposed “contributory” homes, what is going to be the additional costs to already living in a Heritage Conservation Area (HCA)?
- Why is council increasing restrictions in HCAs when it isn’t already enforcing the existing heritage provisions consistently?
- How this will reduce the amenity of the area as those “contributory” properties are unlikely to invest more in their properties?
- Why has the council has excluded its own property from the Abbotsford Road HCA? (It would be classified as “intrusive” under the new classifications).
- Has the draft DCP been properly advertised, from legal and practical perspective?
- Why is the council is updating the DCP before updating the LEP?
Just broadly speaking, someone buys a property in a HCA knowing there are heritage listed buildings and non-heritage listed buildings. Even if not heritage listed, buying in a HCA has costs: maintenance costs are higher; regulatory costs are higher when asking to do work; and, there is a lack of development upside (unlike in non-HCA areas). However, these costs are offset by the heritage amenity of the area, that is until someone decides to break the HCA rules because they know council will not enforce strictly the rules OR your property is classified a defacto-heritage item.
Which residents are asking for this draft DCP and having their properties reclassified as contributory? This appears to be a keep-busy council project.
While HRG will probably put in a submission, there will be more weight if there are individual submissions which address the individual circumstances of each owner.
22 October 2025
Council starts to write to some residents, including 41 owners in Abbotsford Road, that their properties will be classified as “contributory” items under a new DCP. The differences between being heritage listed (there are 14 already in Abbotsford Road) and one of the 41 new “contributory” properties appear for all practical purposes trivial. A HRG member has asked council to summarise the differences, but their has been no response.
30 September 2025
Council officers prepared a report on the new DCP for a council meeting. No mention of the defect-heritage listing of 41 extra properties in Abbotsford Road in the summary given to the councillors, so they unanimously approve the draft DCP.
25 June 2024
Strathfield Council resolved to place on exhibition an amendment to Part P – Heritage of Strathfield Development Control Plan (DCP) 2005.