Plan for 3600-Home Rezoning at Blacktown Moves Ahead

A proposed zoning amendment that would add more than six times the number of homes and double permitted heights in a new Blacktown precinct has gone out for comment. 

The plans would allow 3600 homes and 5ha of employment land at the Riverstone town centre. It currently has 540 homes. 

The precinct is 11km north-west of the Blacktown CBD and 38km north-west of the Sydney CBD.

The proposals replace previous plans developed by the Blacktown City Council, which had prepared a masterplan in 2018. 

That was before disastrous 2021 and 2022 flooding across the Hawkesbury-Nepean River catchment, which led to the Minister for Planning scrapping the proposal in 2023. 

The new plans reviewed the location of the new precinct in light of flood assessments, and recommended that the low-lying Riverstone railway station should not be the “strategic anchor” for the centre.

Under the proposals, high and medium-density, mixed-use and general industrial will diversify the existing low density, local centre and recreation-zoned land at Riverstone.

Current, proposed buildings heights for Riverstone Town Centre

The current zoning allows for buildings of two storeys. Under the proposed amendments to the Blacktown Local Environmental Plan up to 15 storeys would be allowed near Riverstone Station. 

Built forms of up to 10 storeys would be allowed around the new town centre on George Street, although building heights would be reduced from eight to two storeys away from the station and new centre.

Apartment buildings and townhouses as well as dual and single homes would be welcomed under the plans, as would new retail, office and business development focused around George Street between Market and Mill streets.

A large consolidated site has already been identified to deliver a new community centre, library, supermarket and civic square at the southern end of George Street.

▲ The North West Growth Area, 53km north-west of the Sydney CBD.

Affordable housing components are also included, with contribution rates at a base rate of 1.5 to 3 per cent of gross floor area across the rezoning area.

Riverstone is in the North West Growth Area, a “significant” urban development initiative in Sydney projected to help absorb the city’s expanding population,

The proposals want to build Riverstone as a “core anchor” for the wider region of growth precincts, which include Riverstone East, Box Hill, Marsden Park and Schofields.  

Riverstone East’s rezoning, for instance, was finalised last month, with the third stage now under way to deliver more than 3000 homes. 

The NSW Government is also planning $276 million in upgrades to Garfield Road East and $520 million to widen nearby Richmond Road to six lanes, which, it says, will support traffic connections to Riverstone Town Centre.

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said the rezoning plans engaged with complex planning issues such as flooding. 

“This proposal allows us to connect to create more homes and jobs, connected to open space, while creating a flood-resilient town centre in Riverstone,” Scully said.

Rezoning proposals are up for consultation until July 2. 

Riverstone was established as a stock farm in 1805, before it was opened to non-rural development once the Sydney-to-Richmond link to the wider area was established in 1864.