b'APRIL 2025CASE STUDY 3 -LOW AND MID-RISE PLANNING REFORMSThe conservatism of NSW planning policy makers was evident in the development of the NSW Low and Mid-Rise planning reforms. When initially announced in draft, they sought to relax development controls by allowing greater floor space ratios and building heights, and allowing for residential apartment buildings to be built on land zoned for commercial or employment purposes around transport nodes and town centres.The initial policy announcement was a response to the housing supply crisis in an effort to stimulate missing middle housing development to drive NSW housing completion numbers upward. By the time this policy was finalised (amazingly, it took 15 months), the policy was limited to only land zoned for residential development, apartment buildings were prohibited from the low-rise areas even within the height limits, the floor space ratio uplift was reduced and the number of areas where the policy applied shrank (considerably). Curiously, despite all these changes, the forecast yield from the policy change announced by the Minister remained the same. What started as a policy reform designed to increase residential development around town centres, rail, and metro stations, and ended up excluding this development from many of those town centres and transport nodes because of planners obsession maintaining zoning controls.20'