Liveability

Liveability is about people's quality of life. Maintaining and improving liveability requires housing, infrastructure and services that meet people's needs, and the provision of a range of housing types in the right locations with measures to improve affordability. This enables people to stay in their neighbourhoods and communities as they transition through life.

Improving liveability is about creating and renewing great places, neighbourhoods and centres. This requires place-based planning and design excellence that builds on local strengths and focuses on public places and open spaces.

The Eastern City District is a place of distinctive and lively centres, villages, neighbourhoods and suburbs that house diverse and culturally rich communities. This diversity is strongly valued by residents and a key to the dynamism and energy of the District's many great places.

As Greater Sydney's global gateway, the District offers residents many work, housing, health and education choices. The District's residents and visitors also enjoy access to plentiful cultural and creative assets and opportunities for participation in sporting, creative, cultural and artistic pursuits.

The Eastern City District is home to a range of places with lively street life and a night-time economy that contribute to the District's attractiveness as a place to live, work and visit. The Eastern City District will continue to be home to the highest proportion of people aged 25 to 64 in Greater Sydney, including the highest number of knowledge workers and tertiary educated workers in the region who add to the vibrancy and productivity of the District¹.

As the District's 2016 population of more than 1 million people increases, it is also ageing. By 2036, the number of residents over 65 is expected to grow by 70 per cent. Single-person households are expected to remain the dominant household type, with the largest growth in this group projected to occur in Strathfield (75 per cent), Burwood (62 per cent) and Sydney (60 per cent) (refer to Planning Priority E6).

Together with overall population growth of around 325,000 (2016-2036), these demographic changes mean that an additional 157,500 homes will be required in the District by 2036. Many new homes will be in the Sydenham-Bankstown, Parramatta Road and Redfern to Eveleigh urban renewal corridors. New housing will also be concentrated in the Bayside West Precincts and The Bays.

Great places are walkable - this means they are designed, built and managed to encourage people of all ages and abilities to walk or cycle for leisure, transport or exercise. This requires fine grain urban form and land use mix at the heart of neighbourhoods. Places that demonstrate these characteristics promote healthy, active lifestyles and social interaction and can better support the arts, creativity, cultural expression and innovation.

The 30-minute city aspiration will guide decisionmaking on locations for new jobs and housing and the prioritisation of transport, health, schools and social infrastructure investments. This will facilitate the co-location of infrastructure in metropolitan and strategic centres and more direct and convenient public transport to these places, so that people can access services and jobs.

A place-based and collaborative approach is required to maintain and enhance the liveability of the Eastern City District. This can be achieved by the following Planning Priorities:

E3. Providing services and social infrastructure to meet people's changing needs

E4. Fostering healthy, creative, culturally rich and socially connected communities

E5. Providing housing supply, choice and affordability, with access to jobs, services and public transport

E6. Creating and renewing great places and local centres, and respecting the District's heritage