After the Reforms: NSW Planning in 2026

The TOD SEPP and the Low and Mid-Rise Housing Pathway are reshaping development pipelines in NSW. A practical look at the controls, the carve-outs and the matters that are still going to merit appeal.

The 2024-2026 wave of NSW planning reform (the Transport Oriented Development SEPP, the Low and Mid-Rise Housing Pathway, and the parallel changes to the Housing SEPP) has materially shifted what's permissible across large parts of metropolitan Sydney. For developers and landowners, the practical question is no longer whether the site is uplifted, but how cleanly the new controls map onto the underlying LEP, and where the carve-outs sit.

The Pathway in plain terms

The Low and Mid-Rise Housing Pathway permits dual occupancies, terraces, manor houses and multi-dwelling housing in many R2 and R3 zones across Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong and Illawarra, subject to lot, frontage, setback and FSR controls embedded in the SEPP.

The intent is clear: increase the diversity of housing typologies in established suburbs without requiring case-by-case rezoning. The practical effect on individual sites is more nuanced, because the SEPP overlays the LEP rather than replacing it, and the LEP's height and FSR controls continue to bite where the SEPP is silent.

Where the Pathway helps

• R2 zones where the LEP previously prohibited dual occupancies or terraces: the SEPP now permits them with consent, subject to lot-size and frontage thresholds.
• R3 zones near transport, where manor houses (3-4 dwellings on a single lot) are now permissible with consent.
• Sites previously caught by minimum-lot-size controls that disqualified subdivision: the SEPP allows finer-grain typologies that don't require subdivision.

Where the Pathway doesn't help

• Heritage-listed sites and sites within a Heritage Conservation Area: the SEPP's controls are subject to local heritage provisions.
• Flood-prone, bushfire and biodiversity-affected sites: the SEPP yields to environmental SEPPs and council overlays.
• Sites where the underlying LEP height or FSR is binding and the typology requires a building envelope the LEP won't permit.

The TOD SEPP and station-precinct uplift

The TOD SEPP's tier-1 station precincts (initially eight stations, with more rolling out) operate on a different basis: granting blanket residential FSR uplift within a 400-metre radius. The DA pathway through the TOD SEPP is faster than the standard pathway, but the supporting documentation requirements are heavier, particularly around traffic, parking, and servicing.

What still goes to merit appeal

Refusal rates have fallen on Pathway-eligible matters, but the matters that are refused tend to share a profile: contested heritage curtilage, marginal flood mapping, or contributory landscape considerations. Where refusal is on contributory or character grounds, the merit case in the Land and Environment Court remains live. Where refusal is on a hard constraint (unfunded servicing capacity, evacuation routes), the appeal is harder to win, and we tend to recommend reworking the application.

The reform package has changed the average outcome more than the marginal one. Sites that were always going to be approved, are now approved faster. Sites that were always going to be contested, are still contested, just on different grounds.