City of Sydney exhibits changes to Heritage Floor Space Scheme

City of Sydney Council is considering the issue of Heritage Floor Space (HFS) supply and demand in the short term through amendments to the Sydney Local Environment Plan 2012 which aim to improve the operation of the HFS scheme in Central Sydney.

Under the scheme a building’s owner must complete agreed conservation works, or commit to maintaining an already conserved building, in return for additional floor space. The owner can then on-sell or use the acquired HFS in a new development elsewhere.

The Property Council has provided advice to the City of Sydney, broadly in support of the proposed amendments, notably:  

• the introduction of a mechanism for developers to enter into alternative agreements if  HFS cannot be secured
• allowing previously liquidated HFS to be reallocated after 25 years
• excluding buildings that are not more than 55m in height from the requirement to allocate HFS.

We have also requested further information on the operation of the Bank Guarantee within the Draft Alternate Heritage Floor Space Allocation Scheme.

Additionally, we have made a number of recommendations on the operation of the scheme, including:

• shorter time frames and reapplication for HFS after 10 to 15 years
• better incentives for non-rateable buildings
• consolidation of fragmented HFS holdings
• additional measure to address the long term issue of supply of heritage floor space.