Coffs Harbour's draft rules for two homes on one block are on exhibition. What they would change, and how to comment

If you own a block in Coffs Harbour

Two changes are on exhibition together, and they do different jobs.

• The planning proposal would delete clause 4.1B of the Coffs Harbour Local Environmental Plan 2013, the clause that limits dual occupancies in Zone R2 Low Density Residential to lots of 800 square metres or more. That is the whole of the legal change: the proposal has no maps and does not rezone anything.
• Draft Development Control Plan 2015 Amendment No. 53 would add the rules a dual occupancy would then have to meet. They are set out below.

If your land is zoned R2 and a dual occupancy is something you have wanted to build, the 800 square metre floor is the rule that would go. Whether your block then qualifies would depend on its area, its frontage and the density shown for it on the council's Density Map. If you live next to R2 land, these are the rules that would decide what can be built beside you. Nothing changes until the exhibition is over and the amendments are made.

The draft controls, as written

From the draft DCP amendment:

• Density. In Zone R2, outside five named localities, the maximum density becomes one dwelling per 350 square metres of site area for a dual occupancy, while other dwellings stay at one per 400. The Density Map's category B would change from ‘B-400’ to ‘B-400, B-350’.
• Frontage. At least 15 metres in most cases. At least 12 metres on both frontages of a corner lot where each dwelling has its own street for vehicle access. At least 15 metres on the access frontage of a corner lot where both dwellings use the same street. At least 12 metres where one dwelling sits behind the other and the rear one is reached from a rear lane or a parallel secondary street. The frontage rule does not apply to battle-axe or rear lots, or lots on the turning head of a cul-de-sac.
• Garages. The total width of garage doors and openings facing any road, street or lane is not to exceed 40% of the lot frontage.
• Driveways. A driveway or manoeuvring area beside a side or rear boundary must be set back at least 900 millimetres, with soft landscaping in the gap.
• Two homes that look like two. Where both dwellings face the same street they must differ in some of: facade articulation or setbacks, roof form, materials and colours, and the position or look of windows, doors, balconies and parking. This replaces the current rule that the two must not be mirror-reversed.

The four frontage cases and the garage cap in draft DCP Amendment No. 53, drawn by The Headland from the draft text. The 6 m and 4.8 m figures are our arithmetic on the 40 per cent rule.

What “one dwelling per 350 square metres” means for your lot

Two dwellings at one per 350 square metres needs 700 square metres of site. The council does that sum itself in the frequently asked questions on its project page: a lot that is at least 700 square metres in area is required. So for a development application the effective floor would fall from 800 square metres to 700, and the frontage test would apply on top of it. A long, narrow block over 700 square metres could still fail at 15 metres.

Two things about where the 350 figure applies:

• Five localities keep their old density. The draft table leaves R2 land in Red Rock, Nana Glen, Coramba, Lowanna and Ulong at one dwelling per 1,300 square metres, with no separate rate for dual occupancies.
• The map can override the table. The DCP's density control says that where the Density Map shows a different density, development is not to exceed it. The council has put the existing and proposed maps online as an interactive map; search your address and check which category your lot sits in.

The DCP rules also reach beyond R2. The draft's own notes say section D3.7, where the frontage, garage and design controls sit, also applies to the R3 Medium Density zone, and it writes the same controls into section D5.7, which covers R1 General Residential land. The 23 July council report describes the DCP controls as applying to R2 and R1.

Why the council says it is doing this

The planning proposal gives three reasons. It implements Action 5c of the council's Affordable Housing Strategy, adopted in June 2024, which names this exact change. It implements the Local Growth Management Strategy 2020, whose Direction 23 seeks 40 per cent of new housing as dual occupancies, townhouses, villas, apartments and small-lot housing by 2036. And it puts housing on land that already has roads, water and sewer, rather than on new release areas.

Its estimate of the effect, in its net community benefit appendix, is that the number of R2 lots permitted to have a dual occupancy would increase by about 5,000, to about 11,000.

The proposal also says the change opens a second approval route. With clause 4.1B gone, eligible dual occupancies in R2 could use the state's Low Rise Housing Diversity Code, a form of complying development certified against fixed state standards rather than assessed on merit. The proposal says the 800 square metre minimum is what constrains the use of that route now.

The gateway determination and its conditions

The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure's gateway determination, signed on 31 August 2026 by its Director, Hunter and Northern Region, as the Minister's delegate, decided the amendment should proceed subject to the following:

• exhibition for at least 20 working days, the proposal being categorised as ‘standard’;
• consultation with two state advisory bodies, the Development Coordination Authority's biodiversity and bushfire advisers, each given at least 30 working days;
• the LEP amendment to be completed within nine months of the determination, which is by 31 May 2027;
• the council may act as the local plan-making authority, provided it has met the conditions, the proposal is consistent with the Ministerial directions or the Secretary has agreed any inconsistency is justified, and no public authority has an outstanding written objection.

The covering letter agrees that the proposal's inconsistency with four directions, airport safeguarding, conservation, acid sulfate soils and flooding, is justified. It says the council must still get the Secretary's agreement on two more, threatened species and planning for bushfire protection, before the LEP is made. The planning proposal records that some R2 land is flood prone and some is mapped bushfire prone, and that the existing flood and bushfire controls would still apply to any application.

Why your submission matters more than usual

On 23 July the council dealt with the item by exception and resolved, unanimously, to exhibit the proposal and the DCP. The same resolution, R-8-7/2026, says a further report comes back to councillors only if submissions by way of objection are received. If none are, the General Manager finalises the planning proposal under delegation and the DCP amendment takes effect once public notice of the decision is given.

Read plainly, one objection puts this back in front of the elected council. No objections, and it is settled by staff. The exhibited planning proposal puts it more broadly, saying issues raised by submissions will be reported to the council for a final decision; the resolution is the narrower, operative text.

Our read

This section is opinion, built on the documents cited above.

The design controls are good. They are measurable: 15 metres, 40 per cent, 900 millimetres. A rule that says a garage may take 6 metres of a 15 metre frontage is one an owner, a designer and a neighbour can all check before anything is lodged, which is more than can be said for the “character” language most DCPs lean on. The new rule on making two dwellings look distinct, a menu of ways to differ, is a better instrument than the mirror-reversal ban it replaces, which two identical copies of one floor plan, side by side, would pass.

The change is smaller than “no minimum lot size” sounds, on one path. For a development application, the LEP floor of 800 square metres would be replaced by a DCP density that works out at 700, plus a frontage test. That is a real loosening, and a careful one.

The other path is the question worth asking. The council's FAQ answers “what is the smallest lot” with 700 square metres, from the DCP. But the planning proposal's own case is that deleting clause 4.1B opens the state's complying development code to dual occupancies. That code sets its own lot floor, in clause 3B.8 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008: the greater of 400 square metres and the minimum lot area specified for dual occupancies in the environmental planning instrument that applies. The LEP is such an instrument, and clause 4.1B is the minimum it would lose. The clause does not mention a development control plan. On our reading, a dual occupancy certified under the code would need 400 square metres and a 15 metre width (12 metres where parking is reached only from a secondary road, parallel road or lane), not 700. We may be wrong on how a certifier would apply it, and that is the point: the exhibition material does not say, and an owner or a neighbour deciding whether to object deserves to know which floor applies on which path.

The same gap sits under the headline number. The planning proposal's estimate of about 5,000 more eligible lots is framed around removing clause 4.1B. None of the documents says whether it counts the 700 square metre density or the 15 metre frontage. If you make a submission, those two questions are where we would start.