All recent comments on applications from Lane Cove Council, NSW

The site in question is situated opposite R2 zoning to the south and west of it (Penrose and Wood St). The height and scale of this development of the development is too big, and not consistent with the feel and environmental heritage and residential character of the R2 neighbourhood (a reserve nearby which adjoins Blackman Park). The density proposed of 44 rooms for that zone, is too big from allowed density of boarding houses in R2 zones (R2 zones are neighboring) at 12 rooms. Project is not in keeping with the environmental heritage and residential character of the area and offers virtually no green areas (trees, shrubs, lawn). I object to this development.

This is a suburban residential area and not suited to a development this large.

We object to the proposed 44 room boarding house to rezone what is commercial property into a large scale residential development. The proposal is over scale and out of character for Lane Cove West which is predominantly single dwelling residential. Any boarding houses in residential zones should be kept to a maximum of 12 rooms and Lane Cove West is a residential suburb.

There is already a significant bank up of traffic in the area in the evenings. It takes me and my son 40 minutes to get from one side of lane cove from his daycare to the other in lane cove west and adding another high rise which seems particularly high for the area would increase this concern.

Dear Lane Cove Council,

We have been living at the apartments in 41-45 Mindarie Street since it had passed its Certificate of Occupancy. In the 4 years our family have lived in this pocket, we have seen its transformation from a community in isolation and trouble to a family friendly and social area with a greater mix of skilled professionals.

This has also lifted Lane Cove North as a suburb with the addition of the new all inclusive park, a benchmark for the council and enforcing the family friendly environment.

Given the additions of further development of apartments, attracting professional young couples and families to the area and its pressures around street parking, I feel that the 2 x 26 room boarding houses proposed at 51 and 47 Mindarie Street goes against the current transformation objectives Lane Cove Council are encouraging. The boarding houses would have an adverse affect on the neighbouring apartments, park and public school that hopes to grow to 1000 students.

The move would force future and current professionals to look elsewhere or relocate driving the socioeconomic conditions down for both the neighborhood, Mindarie Park and Mowbray Public School.

I implore Council to consider the two separate plans for 51 and 47 Mindarie Street and reject them on the above basis as well as other applicants.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Lane Cove Council,

We have been living at the apartments in 41-45 Mindarie Street since it had passed its Certificate of Occupancy. In the 4 years our family have lived in this pocket, we have seen its transformation from a community in isolation and trouble to a family friendly and social area with a greater mix of skilled professionals.

This has also lifted Lane Cove North as a suburb with the addition of the new all inclusive park, a benchmark for the council and enforcing the family friendly environment.

Given the additions of further development of apartments, attracting professional young couples and families to the area and its pressures around street parking, I feel that the 2 x 26 room boarding houses proposed at 51 and 47 Mindarie Street goes against the current transformation objectives Lane Cove Council are encouraging. The boarding houses would have an adverse affect on the neighbouring apartments, park and public school that hopes to grow to 1000 students.

The move would force future and current professionals to look elsewhere or relocate driving the socioeconomic conditions down for both the neighborhood, Mindarie Park and Mowbray Public School.

I implore Council to consider the two separate plans for 51 and 47 Mindarie Street and reject them on the above basis as well as other applicants.

Thank you for your consideration,

Daniel Harbin

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, a quick update on the above matter.

On the 11th July 2018, the Sydney North planning panel (SNPP) decided to defer the decision on 266 Longueville rd, giving the applicant 6 weeks (until the 24th of August) to submit updated plans. In an extraordinary manner, they have now extended the date by 7 months to the 29th of March 2019 (9 months in total), a week after the next NSW state elections. The SNPP notification is published on their website.

The bad news is that, this may well signal an intention to approve the proposal while minimising political impact to the minister of planning, state representative for Lane Cove. A similar approach was taken in stage 1 when re-zoning this land from “Public Recreational” to “High Density Residential” where the approval announcement was not made until after the last State elections.

The good news is that, there will be an election where the public can express their view. Local Democracy Matters!

This section of Moore Street has road safety issues that should be urgently reviewed. It carries high traffic volumes in the am and pm peaks. It is also has no lines marked and has parking on the northern side. Vehicles turning left into Cullen Street do not keep entirely to the left hand side of the road. For safety reasons these issues should be reviewed prior to approval of any new development.
Further, the Bush regeneration work by Lane Cove Council and volunteers is enhancing the natural landscape setting and upgrading the environment in the location.
If approved, the development should be conditioned to retain remnant natural vegetation and trees in order to retain the natural landscape character of this area.
I would appreciate the Council addressing these matters in the public interest.

Comment on DA 177/2018

Following are agreed amendments to the documentation of DA 177/2018.

At an on site meeting on 10/10/2018, these amendments have been discussed and agreed to, in total, by Mr Kevin Lei, acting for the owner of 60 Cliff Road and William McLaughlin owner of 56B Cliff Road Northwood. A copy of the signed agreement has been forwarded to Development Manager Mr Ravi Shankar by email.

1 Attachment A - Description of the Proposal. Item 3
ERROR. The property described as 58B Cliff Road in the printed document, Attachment A, is actually 56B Cliff Road.

Following is suggested suitable wording for, The Proposal, that more accurately describe the agreement between the two parties.

The owners of the two properties, no. 56B Cliff Road and no. 60 Cliff Road. have agreed to keep the, as built, foundations. They have agreed to the demolition and removal of all the, as built, steel reinforced concrete block walls, intended to be on the property of 60 Cliff Road, that at present, overlap the boundary between the two properties, to the extent of being up to 180mm on the land at no. 56B.

The owners have agreed to build a new concrete and timber fence not exceeding an overall height of 1800mm, all of which is to be constructed entirely on the property at no. 60 Cliff Road.

The structure will be comprised of a base concrete block section not more than 600mm above natural soil level, with the upper section being constructed of timber of not more than 1200 mm in height.

No part of this new construction will, in any way, be over the boundary line on the property at no. 56B Cliff Road.

2. Page 3 of Statement of environmental effects 1 installation of new access stairs.
Please add to the DOT points:
Demolition and removal of the concrete block wall, currently spreading across the boundary line of the two properties 60 Cliff Road and 56B Cliff Road.

3. Page 10 of Statement of environmental effects
please add to, Response.
The large Morton Bay Fig tree on the boundary is to be protected during the construction so as to remain undamaged.

4. Side Area Section 1.7
The two fence panels shown on the street side of the diagram, each detailed as 1900mm in length, appear to show concrete block panels as being considerably more than 600 mm in height. These concrete sections will be the agreed height of a maximum of 600mm, above natural soil level.

This document was signed by Kevin Lei and Bill McLaughlin 10/10/2108

We have lived opposite the Greenwich Rd School site for 28 years.
For over 30 years Sue has taught at the school. Murray has been involved in school life on and off during this time mainly as our two children attended GPS.
Some things that have occurred-
• The proposed amalgamation of the school on the Kingslangley Site.
• The sale of the Greenwich road site possibly with enlargement as a private school.
These proposals were resisted by our community with a lot of work put in by various members of the Community.
The demise of the traditional Infants Department with K~2 classes has taken place. With growing numbers this could not be resisted.
We believe the current DA before Council represents a very positive move which will lessen comprehensively the above dangers.
As an architect I have some reservation about the building as designed but not its location or massing.
The original building, 1908, by Walter Liberty Vernon Architect if I remember correctly from my Uni. thesis was modern, exciting and significant in the Greenwich Rd neighbourhood.
Outwardly, though not entirely an exciting building, it will be for us, if approved, appropriately modern and more significantly will take the School towards exciting future learning possibilities.
Murray Holmes and Sue Holmes
83 Greenwich Rd Greenwich.

The additional facilities at the greenwich infants school are welcome but the impact on parking and safety {particularly children] is unacceptable . Street parking has to be found for the 15 sites taken from the school grounds as well as the inevitable increase required for the 70 odd additional pupils families . The area is already congested.
The other issue is the arrival/departure of infants .this is a kindergarten/infant school and infants are not "kiss and drop"- they are walked into school or at the very least watched from car to school grounds . This is already difficult and will be impossible and dangerous once this work is complete .
please survey the parents at school time - not a desk review!!
Consider angled parking on the school side of Wardrop st -this will create an extra 5/6 parking places .
Persuade the education dept to put build staff parking under the proposed building .
All of the above wont be enough but its a start !!

no

mmm, from what i have seen that is a huge building that will significantly change the school. It removes staff parking without consideration for where they will park and has potential to cause huge parking issues when more students arrive at the school. it is taking away much needed play area for the current kids - where will the new kids play?

Let me be clear parking is a BIG issue now as parents of Kindy and year 1 kids CAN NOT kiss and ride. they stay 12-30 mins. at 9am and 3pm parking is difficult already

I would think you need to consider
1. build underground parking for staff?
2. reduce the size and scale of the building
3. consider a remodel the current building to increase capacity
4. design the new building to be sympathetic to the old building (scale and design)
5. keep the outdoor space for kids to play

I am writing to express my support for this development. The area is expected to have a large increase in population. Currently these services are difficult for parents to obtain. Going for larger buildings with the needed space is the only answer. This will help kids and parents. This will bring public benefit.

In regards to the number of students, the infants site is currently at capacity. They are not allowed to put in another demountable classroom there and if anymore children turn up they will have to remove the library from that site.

I’m not opposed to an upgrade on the Infants site, however the proposed extension is extraordinarily large for the site.

The proposed building has enough floorspace to house 15 standard classrooms. A smart redesign of the proposed build could reduce the building by half whilst still accomodating the necessary upgrade in classrooms.

Reduction in building size would also reclaim significant outdoor space - necessary if you are planning to double Student numbers.

I am concerned about the traffic flow around the Southern Site on Greenwich Road. The Traffic survey failed to observe that the shops are opposite the school and a lot of the parking is also used for this. It states there are 15 parking spaces on Greenwich Road which would have a conservative turnover of 2 mins. This is an outrageous claim compared to what actually happens here. Most cars would remain parked for approx 15-30 mins as there is a supermarket and coffee shops opposite. The traffic report also fails to consider the amount of commuter parking next to the school. This will continue to creep down Chisholm Street as population increases. As a split site school, staff often have to travel between sites (by car). I would think a couple of car spaces would be required on site to avoid teachers wasting time finding car spots. It will also impact local residents of which many around the school have no off street parking. Lastly, the narrow roads around the southern site often have small accidents (not shown on the report) as they are not wide enough for two way traffic, in particular the north end of Chisholm street. This road should be changed to one way between Wardrop and Greenwich road, heading north.

Thank you Susan.

Yes a shocking proposal from Lane Cove Council - especially given most residents rallied against it.

Council ignored schooling concerns when the development was originally proposed, suggesting there wouldn't be many kids living in the apartments. Obviously they have changed their tune.

The new development and school build will no doubt bring a tsunami of people, cars and traffic to Greenwich village shops...

Jane asked where the sudden rush of students might come from. One suggestion would be from the St Leonard's South Precinct. The proposal is for 2,400 units if Lane Cove Council have it's way. Apart from the towers going up on Pacific Highway and Christie Street.

We have no opposition to an upgrade on the Infants site - however constructing an unsympathetic box larger than the original school building is ludicrous.

There is no issue with numbers at the current Infants site - Infact there was a classroom empty on site last year. The 8 classes onsite this year have an average of only 21 students per class (well below area average) so even if there was a sudden rush of students wanting to enrol (from where?) a small increase in class sizes could accomodate this.

I understand the need to plan for the future but wouldn't it be easier, and more cost effective to move the Year 1 students up to the 20,000sqm River Road campus if size constraints ever became a problem.

If you need to replace the demountable classrooms - or add a couple of extra rooms fine... but why the need for a goliath of a building with 8 classrooms and an additional 6 rooms?

Reduce the building size by half.

Remove the ridiculous "breakout spaces" and give the poor kids some playground back.

I would like to comment on the driveway location and the removal of trees. This area has a great native heritage and it is therefore important to retain as many trees as possible - especially street trees. The type of trees are not noted on the plan so it is difficult to determine their significance.

There is an existing driveway on the site which arrives at the same location as the proposed garage. However the design includes a new driveway which requires the removal of three trees - T1, T5, T6. My question is why cant the trees be retained through the use of the existing driveway alignment? It would not be difficult to manoeuvre a car along this alignment to the proposed garage and therefore I can see no reason to relocate the driveway whilst at the same time retaining three more trees.

There is an existing footpath which ends one property to the west. Shouldn't this development include a footpath out the front for future extension of the existing footpath just 10m away? Eventually one would hope that all streets have footpaths in future - we need to plan ahead for this and include footpaths in all new developments to reduce the burden on Council.

I totally agree with Roger Promnitz. This is over-development of its worst kind - without any consideration for residents and their children growing up in the area. There is no proposal for relief of the traffic congestion the two residential towers housing 1138 cars and 654 units will create or to replace the 21 trees being removed - not to mention the shadow a 47-storey tower will create. I suggest this development proposal be modified with existing residents in mind.

We are in total agreement with all of the the well-researched points raised by Roger Promnitz.
It seems logical that a project of this scale, with such a significant impact for the local community should go through a very thorough consideration process. It is therefore particularly concerning that apartments are already being advertised and sold despite the lack of official approval for the development.