Camden Block Expanded with Affordable Infill Bonus

Developer PJM Group is taking advantage of affordable infill bonuses from the NSW Government and expanding its Leppington tower project. 

The original development application for the site was approved by Camden Council in December 2020, allowing PJM to develop a site at 28 Ingleburn Road. 

According to the amended plans from Think Planners submitted this month, the modifications provide “substantial public benefits through the additional supply of housing within an accessible location”.

As a result, 29 apartments across two floors have been added, 20 of which will be allocated as affordable out of the total 122 apartments. 

The amended DA for an eight-storey block “continues to provide a vibrant and imaginative building for the suburb”, the application said. 

And the additional two storeys provide “enhanced sculptural quality to the building and makes an important contribution to a more interesting streetscape with a discrete skyline quality,” it continued.

▲ PJM is planning apartments of one to four bedrooms, with 71 per cent two-bedroom. 

The 5572sq m vacant site is a corner lot with three frontages to Ingleburn Road, Ardill Road and Kean Way, and the broader area is undergoing “transition from semi-rural to residential land”, located as it is within the Leppington Precinct of the south-west growth centre.

The development contributed to the 30-minute city proposal ‘A Metropolis of Three Cities’ that aimed to provide work, accommodation, entertainment and education within reach of a major centre, the DA said. 

The affordable infill bonuses, introduced after an amendment to the Housing SEPP 2021, allow expanded building height and floor space ratio provisions, if a development delivers 15 per cent affordable housing, allocated for a minimum of 15 years. 

While no silver bullet to the housing crisis, developers have jumped on this ability to expand projects, and Deicop was one of the first to take advantage of the changes to expand its Crows Nest tower to 21 storeys, and it has been applied to good use in other projects, such as a Sutherland Shire pub shoptop development offering 168 apartments.