YET again a developer is seeking to increase the building height of a property in Nelson Bay’s town centre well above the planning guidelines, and yet again DA’s with issues are being lodged over the Christmas and January holiday period.

The nine storey development is clearly over the LEP height limit by 1.5 – 2.8m.

The proposed development for a nine storey apartment building at 17-19 Yacaaba St, Nelson Bay DA 2021-781 is on exhibition until 24 January 2022 at http://datracker.portstephens.nsw.gov.au/Application/ApplicationDetails/016-2021-00000781-001/

The Tomaree Residents and Ratepayers Association notes that while a Visual Impact Assessment has been provided, it appears that no changes are proposed, with the applicant effectively dismissing all objections raised in the more than 30 submissions on the original DA.

TRRA believes that while Council should consider previous objections as part of the DA assessment, the second public exhibition period provides an opportunity to make further submissions including on the new material, and the group is encouraging objectors to tell Council they don’t accept that the applicant’s response adequately addresses their concerns.

The key community concerns in relation to the DA are the building height.

Council’s Design Panel commented on the proposed building being between 1.5 and 2.8 metres higher than the only recently revised height limit for the site (3.1m for the lift shaft).

Furthermore, Council’s Design Panel recommended that any approval of this variation be conditional on a visual impact assessment (VIA) being able to demonstrate limited view impacts of the exceedance from more elevated locations to the south.

The VIA states that the visual impact from a number of viewpoints will be moderate to high, and that from close proximity the building will be visually dominant.

In the revised application the applicant continues to argue that “The height of this proposal is in accordance with Council’s desired future scale of Nelson Bay”.

However TRRA disagrees – in only recently lifting LEP height limits for parts of the town centre to 28 metres (eight storeys), after a vigorous community debate, Council made a very clear decision.

The ‘variation’ clause in the LEP should not, in TRRA’s view, be used to so blatantly subvert the Council policy with the sole purpose of allowing a developer an extra floor of apartments.

Yacaaba Street is subject to high traffic levels as it houses both the Centrelink/Medicare Offices for the region and the Service NSW branch as well as the NAB and the very popular Two Bob’s Bakery where you will often find a queue of both people waiting for service and traffic waiting to access the artisan bakery’s offerings.

TRRA believes that the applicant has failed to address the implications of Yacaaba St now being one-way, with heavily used angled parking immediately opposite the proposed garage entrance.

TRRA submits that the garage access in this location causes a major traffic (and safety) problem due to the street now being one way with angled parking.

Furthermore it appears that the applicant has failed to address the objection that the design does not present an activated street frontage to Yacaaba St, as now required by the LEP.

 

By Marian SAMPSON