TAMWORTH council is getting the ball rolling on a new residential precinct on the south side of town, which could be home to up to 5000 residents.
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On Tuesday night, council voted to in favour of a report seeking support to start the process of rezoning the land identified as the “Arcadia and Bylong Road precinct” in South Tamworth.
The 320 hectare area of land identified as “Arcadia”, coupled with some land on Bylong Road would provide future residential housing development on a range of lot sizes from 600 to 4000 metres squared.
Mayor Col Murray anticipated it could be 15 to 20 years before the area is built out with houses.
“There’s potential for 1600 homes, and I think in Tamworth we average about 3.2 people per home, so we could be looking at over four-and-a-half thousand or five thousand people,” Cr Murray said.
The mayor said it was a “significant land release”, but would not describe the new residential area as a new suburb of Tamworth and said it would be “a couple of years” before the first house is seen in the Arcadia precinct.
Council will forward their proposal to the Department of Planning and Environment requesting a ‘gateway determination’.
They are also seeking the Department’s approval for council to amend it’s Local Environmental Plan to allow for future residential developments in the area.
The planning proposal will rezone the area from RU4 primary produce small lots and R5 large lot residential to R1 general residential and R2 low density residential.
The area would be supported by a B1 neighbourhood centre zone which was likened to the small shopping facilities offered at Calala.
Once the gateway determination is received, council will publicly exhibit the proposal to obtain community feedback.
The precinct proposal is an outcome from the South Tamworth Rural Lands Master Plan, which provides an overarching framework development of land on the south outreaches of town.
Deputy mayor Russell Webb the area would become an exciting precinct and said expanding the town to the south would help ease some congestion along main roads.
“We have some peak hours developing, particularly on Manilla Rd,” Cr Webb said.
Cr Juanita Wilson said the “significant proposal” acknowledged sustained growth in the region’s population.
“There was a time when Tamworth was growing like a teardrop, the development of Moore Creek rectified that,” she said.
“This proposal will see the CBD become more centralised. This will be a great benefit for Tamworth.”