Development controls are a critical step in shaping future form and delivering the desired qualities of the place. They outline the type of development that is desired and coordinates development on different sites to ensure that the existing and the new work together to create effective and attractive places. Development controls help establish a built form that reflects the desired future character, ensuring that new buildings do not have an adverse impact on significant view corridors while improving the visual appearance and amenity of the area, encouraging passive environmental design, identifying opportunities for civic space and fine grain pedestrian connectivity, and is sympathetic to any surrounding heritage values.
Members of the Studio GL team have created development controls for over 30 years, working on behalf of both private and government organisations. Our team are specialists in writing, testing and refining development controls. Our process is iterative, exploring the impact of various options through workshops, diagrams, artist impressions, computer modelling and detailed technical documentation.
Relevant projects include working with the City of Canada Bay to refresh their development controls for town centres and developing detailed controls for the Five Dock Town Centre, where a key requirement of the Development Control Plan was to accommodate increased height and FSR without compromising the “village character” of the centre. We have also prepared development controls for the Nowra CBD via a series of workshops with Council staff, stakeholders and the local community to create development controls that were sensitive to the desired future character outlined in the Nowra CBD Master Plan. More recently we have developed DCP controls for the Kiama Town Centre which responded to community feedback, detailed heritage considerations and the influential landscape qualities of the place.
Projects: Nowra CBD Development Controls, Canada Bay Development Control Plan, Planning & Built-form Controls