The draft, which will be open for public comment next week after being rubber-stamped by this Tuesday's council meeting, has identified growth options for the city into the second half of this century.

"This strategy meets our growth needs for people seeking to share what locals already know; we live in a great city. It needs to support the diverse and changing needs of the Orange community," Orange City Council CEO David Waddell said.

"People often think about people relocating to Orange as driving our housing needs and this is a significant part of the story.

"But there are also those kids in primary school in Orange today that probably aren't thinking too much about where they might live and work in their 20s. We are looking ahead for them to make sure they have a choice to put down roots here."

The strategy considered the existing supply and demand, population growth, water security, changing demographics, environmental constraints, household sizes and how infrastructure can be connected to proposed housing sites.

"Housing strategies and getting the mix right are critical to how cities develop and how to ensure Orange continues to thrive," Mr Waddell said.

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Mr Waddell said it had been a lot of work to get to this point and the journey was far from over.

"With such transformative strategies there is bound to be a variety of views and we want to hear from the community between now and next February when the exhibition period ends," Mr Waddell said.

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The draft strategy targets concentrated sites rather than have development on all the urban fringes of the city. Council believes this ensures the growth is sustainable and can be serviced with roads, sewer and water and has good connections to employment, education, health and recreation opportunities.

It encourages in-fill development but also proposes growth on the urban fringe.

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Under the strategy, there is the potential of appropriately zoned land to yield 3841 lots, providing approximately 15.8 years of supply.

The draft strategy also identifies eight greenfield sites and potential to expand the villages of Spring Hill and Lucknow and some potential around Spring Terrace. The anticipated additional supply from these areas is approximately 4601 lots or almost 20 years of supply.

A key consideration of the draft strategy is water security and how it can meet the needs of a growing population.

Progress has been made on water security in recent years with raising the Suma Park Dam wall, stormwater harvesting and regional pipelines. As the Orange grows there will be more work to do.

The Orange Integrated Water Cycle Management study indicates a population of 60,000 can be sustained. Based on the lot yields contained in the draft Orange Housing Strategy a population of 52,000 people in 2041 is attainable.

The 2016 Census population for Orange was 40,344 and that has been the starting point form the analysis.

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