Have your say: draft plan for the Central Coast’s urban growth and environment

The Central Coast Strategic Conservation Plan (the Plan) is a 30-year draft plan covering 3,069 hectares of land that will support the Central Coast’s urban growth and environment. The Plan will enable development on certified urban capable land (certified land) while protecting the region’s unique native plants and animals. It identifies proposed areas that can be developed without further biodiversity approvals and land that is not suitable for more intensive development.  

Currently open for public consultation, the Plan will directly support around 14,000 new homes and 30,000 new jobs over the next 30 years, while protecting the Central Coast’s unique environment. 

It will provide State and Federal biodiversity approvals for development in the Greater Warnervale, Greater Lake Munmorah, and Somersby precincts. 

The Plan takes a strategic approach to locating new homes and infrastructure in areas where development can be maximised, while including a comprehensive conservation package to balance the impact on biodiversity.

The Plan will secure vital habitat corridors and protect key biodiversity sites across the Central Coast through public and private land conservation and help reduce the impact of development on the environment.  

It focuses on protecting habitat for locally important species including critically endangered orchids, the Swift Parrot, Regent Honeyeater, and unique local plants like the Somersby Mintbush and Charmhaven Apple. 

Accredited, independent ecologists have completed extensive surveys across 1,820 hectares (approximately 60%) of land that could be developed under the Plan, to understand its biodiversity values and assess the impacts of development.  

The surveys involved completing 327 Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) plots to determine the vegetation present. Surveys for detecting threatened species were completed over multiple survey seasons. They met NSW and Commonwealth survey and assessment guidelines, including the NSW Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) 2020. 

The survey data and existing biodiversity information was used to prepare maps of native vegetation, threatened ecological communities and species habitat, for land with development potential and the broader Central Coast local government area.  

The Department used this information about biodiversity values, along with socio-economic values like development potential and regional planning objectives, to define the Plan’s proposed land categories: certified urban capable land, and non-certified land. The criteria applied is described further in Appendix C: Avoidance planning criteria of the draft Plan.  

Further surveys are underway in areas of potential habitat for four critically endangered plant species that were not included in the previous round of surveys. If these current surveys apply to your land, you would have already received a letter from the Department offering to undertake them for you, free of charge.

The Department is proposing planning controls to put the Plan into action under the NSW planning system. These changes will mainly come into effect through amendments to Chapter 13 (Strategic Conservation Planning) of State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021 (BC SEPP). Additional controls are proposed through a new direction for any rezoning of non-certified land under s 9.1 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and the development of guidelines to manage indirect and prescribe impacts from development.  

The proposed amendments aim to support the delivery of development in the Central Coast in a way that continues to ensure adverse impacts to important biodiversity are avoided, minimised and mitigated, consistent with State and Federal biodiversity approvals. These include to: 

If you have an existing DA or planning proposal lodged and therefore have secured or are securing an alternative pathway for biodiversity approvals, you can request that the Department consider removing this site from the Plan’s final mapping after public exhibition. 

The draft Plan is on public exhibition for 6 weeks from Tuesday 30 September to 5pm on Tuesday 11 November 2025. The Department invites the public to submit their feedback on the draft Plan and its supporting documents.  

The supporting documents to the Plan include:  

• Central Coast Assessment Report - which has been prepared to meet state and federal biodiversity legislative requirements and includes information on the biodiversity impact assessment.
• Explanation of Intended Effect - which explains the proposed planning controls that help to put the Plan into action under the NSW planning system.  

Your feedback on the draft documents is important. All feedback will be considered before the final Plan is submitted to the State and Federal Environment Ministers for consideration and approval, and before the planning controls are finalised and come into effect. 

A report explaining how the Department considered public feedback on the draft Plan, and its supporting documents, will be released with the final Plan. 

The Department continues to work with State and Federal environment departments to finalise the Plan and Central Coast Assessment Report and ensure they meet the requirements of a strategic biodiversity certification and a strategic assessment approval. 

An Explanation of Intended Effect is part of the package. This document explains the proposed planning controls that help to put the Plan into action under the NSW planning system. This includes amendments to Chapter 13 (Strategic Conservation Planning) of the Biodiversity and Conservation SEPP, directions for any rezoning of non-certified land under s 9.1 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and the development of guidelines to manage impacts to development.