According to the Green Paper, suburban character zones can be declared in areas that have a proven, significant urban character or established development patterns, such as low-rise, historic homes.

''Councils will have the capacity to apply a zone that will ensure the preservation of the character of the area by excluding medium- or high-density development,'' states the paper.

The new zone would give ''greater certainty about what can and cannot be developed in an area that has been designated for preservation''.

The creation of this type of zone comes in response to recent backlashes from communities, such as Ku-ring-gai, to past planning controls that allowed medium-rise and high-rise developments in established suburbs.

''We have some of the finest suburban landscapes anywhere in Australia,'' said the Planning Minister, Brad Hazzard, yesterday, ''we should preserve them.''

It is not yet clear what the criteria will be for establishing a character zone.

http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/new-zoning-to-protect-character-20120713-221c4.html

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One of the main ingredient of living spaces such as Sydney's "villages" is the "vista"... A vista is an archectural tool often overlooked by developers as they cram boxes upon boxes with pretty colours and balconies... 

Vistas were used by kings' architects and gardeners to design spaces that complemented buildings such as castles... In Sydney's vilages these vistas are often the long narrow meandering street with low level buildings that let the sky dome be the major vista point...

But as some ningnongs in the New South Wales Liberal (conservative) government are trying to stuff more stuff into the burbs, while "protecting some areas" from over zealous development, one suburb can be the target of mega rabbit-boxes towers, basically destroying the sense of space in the next to it "non-developed" protected suburb... We end up destroying the charming skyline created over one hundred years ago by clever planners — even if some houses were tiny— now replaced by rabbit-boxes container designers...

I'm weeping already...