The Northern Beaches is a place people love to live. But demand, limited land, and market pressures have pushed housing costs out of reach for many locals. Like much of Sydney, it's facing a housing crisis.

The state's new housing reforms aim to increase supply by allowing more low to mid-rise developments in areas where it wasn't previously allowed.

Here, that could mean almost 6,000 new homes that are built near of our town centres over the next 5 years. That's the equivalent to a new 5-storey building every two weeks.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to increase housing for people to be able to afford to live and work on the Northern Beaches. But growth must be planned carefully and respect the Northern Beaches' unique natural environment, the lifestyle and the ages and stages of our community.

Council is committed to managing growth strategically and with your input. This means also planning for future jobs, road upgrades, parks and stormwater improvements.

While we support more homes, they must be delivered responsibly. The State Government reforms fall short. They override the local planning rules, they bypass council, and they don't allow you to have your say, they also ignore essential infrastructure and don't address affordability for low-income households and essential workers.

These reforms could allow development without upgrades our community relies on, like roads, parks, and public facilities, and that's not acceptable.

So Council is taking action and advocating on your behalf. We're pushing for stronger, fairer planning, updating local controls to protect what makes our area unique, proposing an affordable housing contribution across the Northern Beaches, and reviewing additional infrastructure needed.

Explore Council's website pages to see what these changes mean for you.

The way housing is planned on the Northern Beaches is changing. Under the state's new low and mid-rise housing policy, areas within a 10-minute walk of 9 town centres can now include everything from duplexes and terraces to six-store apartments.

The 9 town centres include DY, Forestville, Manly, Manly Vale, Mona Vale, the Frenchs Forest Precinct, and our major shopping centres, Forest Way, Balgowlah Stockland, and Warringah Mall.

If you live within 800 metres of any of these, your suburb will likely see change, with up to 6,000 new homes over the next 5 years.

In areas already zoned for apartments, this could mean taller buildings. And in areas previously limited to single homes, you may see two homes on one block, like townhouses and terraces.

A development application will still be required for most new developments, but Council's ability to refuse proposals that meet the state-set standards is limited. The policy doesn't apply to bushfire prone land, environmentally sensitive areas, or heritage listed properties.

Council's role in all of this is to balance state reforms with community expectations for good design.

Low and mid-rise housing isn't new for the beaches, but if people want to stay local at every age and income level, we need more diverse housing.

Mayor: This missing middle policy is a one-size-fits-all approach. By fast-tracking approvals for this type of housing, yes, we'll get more housing, but it needs to in keeping with each area, and it needs adequate infrastructure to support it.

This policy will increase demand on transport, roads, health services, school, stormwater, and parks. So Council is calling on the state to match housing growth with infrastructure investment. The community needs all the services in place before new residents move in.

Mayor: We're doing everything in our power. We've long called for an East West rapid bus link and the Northern Beaches Tunnel, both critical but still undelivered.

Council has also updated its development control plans to set clearer requirements that protect unique aspects of our local areas and a plan for future needs with facilities like EV charging.

We'll keep you updated and continue advocating for the infrastructure and housing quality our area needs and ensure DAs reflect your expectations. 

As part of the State Government's housing reforms, the way large-scale housing developments are assessed and approved has changed.

If you live near a proposed State-significant development, such as the senior housing proposal on Ocean Street, Narrabeen or the proposed residential towers at Warringah Mall, up to 39 stories, it's important to understand what these changes mean.

Under the new rules, a housing project with more than 100 dwellings and a cost of more than around $60 million can apply to be assessed as a state significant development.

Before these reforms, these developments in New South Wales were generally reserved for major public and commercial infrastructure, not residential buildings.

Large residential developments were assessed by council using local planning controls shaped through community consultation. But under the new rules, developers now bypass Council entirely.

Instead, applications go straight to a state-level assessment team, the Housing Delivery Authority.

The state significant development process fast-tracks housing. But we believe this top-down approach lets down our community in 3 ways.

First, local rules don't apply. Height, design and density controls that residents must follow, simply don't apply to state significant developments.

Your voice is reduced; consultation periods are shorter, giving you and your neighbours less time and fewer opportunities to influence major developments.

And decisions are made remotely. The Department of Planning makes the call with no local assessment, no local panel, and no independent review.

We support more housing, but homes should be well-designed, respectful of their surroundings, and considerate of neighbours, not allowed to exceed height limits by more than double, as we are seeing in the seniors housing proposal in Narrabeen.

This is why advocacy matters. Council will keep pushing for better outcomes, not rush development approvals the rules and cut out the people who know the Northern Beaches the best - you the locals. 

At Northern Beaches Council, we've always been clear, affordable housing isn't optional it's essential. Our nurses, teachers, bus drivers, emergency workers, and carers deserve to live in the community they support every day.

Jasmine, Essential worker: It's really important to be close to work when you're working shift work because you're working crazy hours over time. If you live far away, it makes you really exhausted and you need to be on your A game when you're a nurse.

For years, we've tied rezone community benefit so that when developers gain extra height or density, essential workers aren't pushed out. Too many already can't afford market rate housing.

Nurses are essential workers. You need us, yet we're the ones who are suffering and not being able to afford to live in the Northern Beaches.

As our population ages, our demand for health care and personal services rises. But at the moment, the people who provide those services are being priced out.

Despite our advocacy, state planning reforms have delivered to developers major uplifts with no requirement for affordable housing. That's not good enough, and we're not backing down. 

Council proposes a mandatory 3% affordable housing contribution across all 9 low and mid-rise housing areas. A 2% levy would apply to medium density developments, including new apartments across the rest of the Northern Beaches. We're also improving feasibility in French as Forest with an adjusted levy down from 10% to 3% to deliver affordable homes near the hospital sooner.

These proposals must be approved by the New South Wales government before they can be implemented.

If approved, the contribution will be the first of its type across an LGA in the state. This could deliver hundreds of new affordable homes, and we'll partner with local community housing providers and ensure we'll deliver them to those who need them most.

Affordable housing is about more than buildings, it's about keeping our community strong, diverse, and supported.