Community Needs Assessment - Hawkesbury City Council

1 Introduction
1.1 BACKGROUND
Urbis Public Policy has been commissioned by the North Richmond Joint Venture (NRJV), a consortium
of Buildev Group and Investment Management Australia (IMA), to undertake community need
assessment and a community net benefit assessment in relation to the preparation of a planning
proposal, and Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) for the development of 1,400 dwellings in North
Richmond.
This report presents the community need assessment for the planning proposal in North Richmond.
In May 2011, Hawkesbury Council adopted the Residential Land Strategy 1 , which triggers the opportunity
to prepare a planning proposal for the 180 hectare site in North Richmond.
The Strategy aims to accommodate new residential dwellings for a changing population, identify ongoing
development pressures to expand into natural and rural areas and ensure that appropriate infrastructure
is planned to cater for future development.
This report is intended to provide an evidence base for the development of a VPA which will aim to
provide the best outcome in terms of delivering the local infrastructure that will be required to support the
development and its future population.
This report is an update of our original March 2012 report and includes an updated zoning plan for the
site that achieved the same overall development yield of approximately 1,400 houses in addition to the
seniors living facility. We note that we have not updated census information contained within the report
which are based on 2006 Census data, also population projections and potential impacts and community
benefit have not been re-assessed as part of this update.
1.2 SITE LOCATION
The site is located in North Richmond, in the Hawkesbury Local Government Area (LGA), approximately
55km north west of the Sydney CBD, 6km west of Richmond and adjacent to the township of North
Richmond. North Richmond is one of the three major towns in the Hawkesbury LGA together with
Richmond and Windsor.
The site, known as 198 Grose Vale Road, is approximately 181 hectares (ha) in size, and is located
approximately 600 metres north of the Hawkesbury River. It adjoins existing residential housing of the
North Richmond township to its eastern boundary, Redbank Creek to the north, Grose Vale Road to the
south, and the recently developed rural residential community known as „Belmont Grove Estate‟ to the
west. Figure 1 below presents the sites location.
1 Hawkesbury City Council, 2011, Residential land strategy, accessed at
http://www.hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au/development/planning-policies/hawkesbury-residential-landstrategy2
URBIS
APPENDIX_O_COMMUNITY_NEEDS_ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION 1