Lismore Council joins Byron and Ballina – No More Granny Flat Developer Contribution Fees!
Lismore Council has today decided to stop charging Section-94 Developer Contribution Fees, which is a positive result for Granny Flat developers in the region. You might recall two years ago when Byron Council charged an average of $32,000 on Granny Flats. They have since removed this horrendous fee after much public opposition. This has resulted in a significant uptake of granny flats in that region. The advantage of granny flats for growing families has certainly been recognised by the State Government and we applaud Lismore Council for allowing granny flats to be built without slugging developers with an additional fee.
This contrasts heavily with many Sydney Councils, who have seen fit to impose these fees on secondary dwellings and even studios in many cases. It’s difficult enough for mums and dads to budget for a new granny flat, with approval fees and other connection charges. Imposing another Local Government fee which can be up to 20% of the overall costs is just abhorrent in our view.
The ‘Affordable’ Housing SEPP was not designed to be abused and we feel that these fees are an unfair imposition, to say the least. We therefore ask that you lobby your Local Member to extinguish these fees as they are (in our view) an unfair and a totally unaffordable aspect of what is termed ‘Affordable Housing’ under the NSW Government Planning Policy.
Please feel free to drop us a line or check out our other thread where we name and shame Councils who charge these fees.
Regards,
Serge Panayi – Granny Flat Approvals.
