City of Sydney Height of Building & Floor Space Ratio Alignment Study

City of Sydney - Study Areas
Plan - George Street Sites
Site Study - Proposed
Site Study - Sun Eye

This study was prepared by OLSSON Architecture I Urban Projects & Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects.

The client brief set out the following key objectives for the study: 

“In some locations within the City’s LGA, the Floor Space Ratio (FSR) is too tight to fit within the Height of (HOB) controls. The result is that there are frequent occurrences of breaks to the height controls to enable the permissible FSR and / or the height controls limits the potential for FSR to be realised.”

The key objectives of this study were to: 

  1. Confirm the issues contributing to the misalignment between the HOB and FSR controls 
  2. Identify the number of sites likely to have a ‘mismatch’ of height in storeys and FSR. 
  3. Align height in storeys and height in metres controls 
  4. Establish the best approach to managing the planning controls to 
    address the mismatch between height and FSR.”

Urban design concepts include enhanced pedestrian permeability with through sites links; slender floorplates to maximise solar access and ventilation, non-residential ground floors to promote commercial, boutiques, restaurants and cafes in streets, lanes and publicly accessible courtyards.

The report chapters include :

  1. EXEMPLARS 
    A suite of 24 exemplary projects were showcased to demonstrate design integration of key values, report on the key site characteristics and the ability to incorporate Council’s proposed deep soil landscape controls.
  2. SITE STUDIES 
    33 site studies for 21 sites inform this Height and FSR Alignment Study. They tested built propositions for sites using the existing FSR, HOB and storey height controls and draft deep soil landscape controls.
  3. RECOMMENDATIONS & MAPS
    The rationale, commentary and recommendations were placed in Section 4 and maps in Section 5. Height and FSR for each site study was reported on, including changes to achieve alignment. New connections (in addition to those identified in the DCP) to improve appropriate local area walkability, were identified.
  4. APPENDIX
    The appendix included existing planning controls for all of the study areas. 

 

SUMMARY

  • Category: Urban Design
  • Client: City of Sydney
  • Status: Completed 2023
  • Study Areas: 6
  • Study Sites: 33
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