Chickens Come Home To Roost For Chris Minns As He Receives The 14-Day CDC Notice That Neighbour Is Going To Flatten The Federation Home Next Door, Build A Hideous Duplex And There's Fuck All He Can Do About It

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

The man leading the government that stripped every meaningful planning right from the suburban New South Welsh homeowner has received a piece of paper in his letterbox this week confirming that the federation cottage next door is going to be flattened.

It's gone. There's a duplex coming. There's fuck all he can do about it. He has fourteen days to think about what he's done.

The notice, which arrived in the standard written form required under the Premier's own Complying Development Certificate framework, advised Mr Minns that his neighbour has applied for approval to demolish the adjoining property and construct an ugly dual occupancy dwelling in its place.

Under the CDC system, which the Premier has championed as a bold and necessary strike against the forces of NIMBYism, choking off housing supply across the state, the certifier is not required to consult the Premier. His neighbour is not required to show him the plans. He can ask to see them. They can tell him to suck eggs. This is the system he built.

Mr Minns is understood to have read the notice carefully before placing it on the kitchen bench.

Should the Premier wish to formally object, he is welcome to do so on the strict condition that his objection relates solely to whether the development complies with the relevant building code. His views on glass balustrades and whether neighbours can look into his house and garden are not a valid ground for objection. His feelings about what a sheet of frameless glass does to a street of original clinker brick and timber are similarly not something the certifier has any power to consider. His general sense of loss is not a planning matter.

This is a man who in 2019 wrote to then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian raising concerns about overdevelopment near Kogarah train station. Kogarah was subsequently and quietly removed from the government's own housing density priority list in circumstances that have never been fully explained to the satisfaction of anyone paying attention.

The Premier will receive one further notification before construction begins. Seven days notice. Enough time to say goodbye to the federation cottage. Not enough time to do anything about it.

More to come.