Update on Draft Rural Residential Land Release Strategy

Published on 14 May 2026

Public exhibition of Nambucca Valley Council’s draft, reviewed Rural Residential Land Release Strategy will happen in the near future, after Council resolved at its 22 April meeting to add probable maximum flood mapping to the document and afterwards publicly exhibit it.

The review of the Rural Residential Land Release Strategy recommended an additional 651.45 hectares of land with the potential to yield 518 lots for rural residential purposes, be released.

Nambucca Valley Council General Manager Bede Spannagle said this was the first time in 17 years the Rural Residential Land Release Strategy had been updated and the revised version, should it be adopted by Council and endorsed by the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI) in the future, had the potential to provide for new residential housing subdivisions in new areas.

“Councils are responsible for ensuring its Local Government Area has enough land available to meet predicted population growth, balanced against the current infrastructure and environmental constraints,” he said.

“Our planning team undertook the review over past 12 months and identified 651.45 hectares of additional land from outside the current land release strategy areas could be rezoned for rural residential purposes.

“These areas are largely in Congarinni, Utungun and Newee Creek. While we are proposing to release land in these areas to allow opportunities to be more evenly spread across the shire, we are also looking to remove some land at Warrell Creek and Utungun which have been identified as having agricultural significance and to minimise the potential of land use conflict.

“In the near future, once flood mapping has been added to the strategy and a few other minor amendments are made, the document will be publicly exhibited and the community will be able to make comment on it.”

The intent for the draft Rural Residential Land Release Strategy is to provide a framework for the management of rural residential land in the Nambucca Valley.

Once the flood mapping is added to the strategy, it will be placed on public exhibition. Public exhibition will be broadly publicised and copies of the draft Rural Residential Land Release Strategy will be available to view online and in Council’s Macksville administration building and in Nambucca Valley libraries.

After this step, public submissions will be reported to Council with recommendations on how to proceed with the draft strategy. Once adopted by Council, the strategy will be sent to DPHI for endorsement. Once endorsed the strategy can be used to support future rezoning applications.

ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES TO:

Mr Bede Spannagle

GENERAL MANAGER

02 6568 2555

DATE: 14 May 2026