Mr PACKARD (The Hills) [5.36]: I want to touch on a fairly thorny issue which is still causing a large degree of discomfort in the electorate of The Hills, probably in Baulkham Hills and - I found out last night, to my excitement - in Badgerys Creek. It is the continued approval of dual occupancies on quarter acre and half-quarter acre blocks of land. The Act has been amended to permit dual occupancy on very small building blocks. The difficulty is that the interests of people who had already purchased blocks of land, who have large houses on quarter acre blocks, are not being taken into account. There does not appear to be any provision in the Act to take their situation into account. I have asked the Premier to take the matter up with Cabinet, and I know he has done so. I encourage Cabinet to think through a reasonable change to the planning Act to deliver what I suspect is what was originally intended - that is, to have smaller building blocks in areas where they could be used properly. I know that I am up against formidable opposition because the Leader of the Opposition, former Premier Greiner, and the Minister for Planning and Minister for Housing all think that urban consolidation is the answer. The people of The Hills do not believe it is the answer.

I cite as an example the situation of Mr and Mrs Hayes and touch on a couple of issues they have raised, though I acknowledge that I am facing formidable opposition in my attempts to have the planning Act amended. Folkestone Place, Dural, is a new development area in my electorate. It is not an area of the old type. Everybody understood that there was to be a number of dual occupancies. The difficulty is that in the cul-de-sac known as Folkestone Place there are 17 building blocks. Nine have been allocated for single occupancy dwellings. Three dual occupancies have been completed and the council has approved an application for dual occupancy on lot 1521, giving a total of four complexes. The 12 dwellings within the neck of the cul-de-sac add a potential traffic flow of 24 vehicles. Lots 1514 and 1513 have already been sold - one with plans already approved and another with an application pending for dual occupancy development. An additional four vehicles raised the usage to a total of 32, and the purpose of lot 1517 is unknown at this time. The approval of DA1527 will bring the total minimum number of cars using the cul-de-sac to 48 instead of 34, provided each household has only two cars.

I ask that the planning instrument be changed to allow a council to say, "In this area we will go half and half" or, "We will have a third full-size block". But before people move there they should know what the situation will be. I understand that the Act had already been amended before these people had built their houses. The residents have spoken to Mr Mutton, from the Minister's office. He said that the Government position is to allow market forces to rule, that wherever dual occupancy dwellings were built the market would decide, and that the Government had no intention of introducing controls. This would mean that on every building block in New South Wales - be it Baulkham Hills, Castle Hill, Mosman, or anywhere - four houses can be built on what was originally a one-house building block.

I ask the Leader of the Opposition, the Premier and the Minister for Planning and Minister for Housing to consider whether any modification can be made to existing laws to prevent, in an area that has already been developed, the demolition of a house built on a quarter-acre block and the building of four houses on that block, between two quarter-acre blocks. The council must have returned to it the right to say that such a development is not compatible with existing residential development in the area, and to
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refuse such a dual occupancy development. I ask that the council be given the right to contest the matter and, if necessary, allow the Land and Environment Court to decide the issue, based on whether the building would be compatible with the rest of the houses in the area. When five-acre sites return to residential sites, some of the problems will worsen. [Time expired.]

Mr MERTON (Baulkham Hills - Minister for Justice, and Minister for Emergency Services) [5.41]: I commend the honourable member for The Hills for his contribution this afternoon. He has raised some very important issues. The honourable member for The Hills has worked very hard to preserve and protect the interests of his constituents, and I will pursue this matter with the relevant Minister.