Lindfield Village Hub Story

Ku-ring-gai Housing Strategy 2020

Our right to information

Lindfield Village Hub Story

Here’s a reminder of the Lindfield Village Hub journey…..
In 2012 Support Lindfield approached the then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian who put a hold on plans to build a multi-storey commuter carpark behind the West Lindfield shops to allow time for a better project to be conceived. The Community worked together to create a vision for the Lindfield Village Hub that included a town square, library, other community facilities, café precinct, specialty retail and supermarket.

Woolworths put forward several proposals to build the project, like those they have delivered for other Sydney Councils. They would fund the building of the Hub in return for a lease on the supermarket space with Council funding limited to fitting out the community facilities using funds generated from the sale of the current library site. No additional Council/ratepayers money would be required. Their design included a pedestrian bridge from the Hub to the railway station and a new Scout hall on the site.

Council rejected these offers and instead have pursued an expensive consultant-led process to identify requirements and determine an alternate design. Despite an exhaustive tender process Woolworths is effectively the only development group still interested and Council remains unwilling to commit to starting the project. Over $9m has been spent on the project to date with no contract with a developer in site. And Transport for NSW has put a deadline of Q3 2022 for starting the project as a condition of their funding for 135 commuter car spaces.

We need a Council committed and capable of serving the community by overseeing appropriate planning policy and the development and revitalisation of shopping precincts and community facilities.

Support Lindfield will endorse candidates in all Ku-ring-gai Council wards who will commit to making the Hub happen and to listening to the community in all respects. Email us at info@supportlindfield.net or go this link for a library of news items to our database.

Ku-ring-gai Housing Strategy 2020

Some key information about the Draft Housing Strategy
The Draft Housing Strategy was premised on there being a need for an additional 10,660 new dwellings across Ku-ring-gai in the period 2016 to 2036. Council has allocated 1,600 of the new dwellings to Lindfield. The Strategy does not take into account the COVID-19 pandemic, which is likely to have a significant impact on population growth in Sydney, at least in the short-term.

The Support Lindfield Committee is not satisfied that there is in fact a requirement for Council to deliver the number of new dwellings proposed in the Draft Housing Strategy and we question the appropriateness of the density and height of development proposed. However, we appreciate that Council is required to have a strategy for housing and that it will likely need to deliver some new dwellings between now and 2036.

The Draft Housing Strategy identifies four relatively small geographical areas for new housing - within an 800m radius of the train stations in Lindfield, Gordon and Turramurra and within 800m of the St Ives centre. It contemplates apartment buildings of up to 15 storeys in Lindfield, Turramurra and St Ives and 20 storeys in Gordon.

Support Lindfield mounted a campaign to urge residents to write to Councillors before they voted on this abhorrent strategy that would see building heights in the major town centres of these heights. Over 1000 people filled the inboxes of all Councillors. Alister Henskens, SC MP for Ku-ring-gai also encouraged his constituents to write to Councillors with a similar message. The campaigns worked and Council voted to throw out the Draft Housing Strategy. However, in doing so, they decided to do nothing so had no strategy at all, which was a cop out. They continued to blame the State Government for the mess.

Fast forward to 16 July 2021…… and here’s the latest.

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

Jonathan O’Dea MP Member for Davidson
Alister Henskens SC MP Member for Ku-ring-gai

KU-RING-GAI COUNCIL LOCAL HOUSING STRATEGY

It was correct for local Members of Parliament to say that Ku-ring-gai Council’s 2020 Draft Housing Strategy unnecessarily proposed dramatic increases in heights and densities according to the recent evaluation by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

The current Ku-ring-gai Council zonings without any change will achieve the Greater Sydney Commission’s 6-10 year (2021-2026) dwelling target.

Member for Ku-ring-gai, Alister Henskens SC and Member for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, welcomed the Department’s evaluation which confirmed their assessment.

“Instead of spending money on footpaths and roads, the Council has spent over $2 million on an unnecessary and now abandoned Draft Housing Strategy”, Mr Henskens said.

“I am still at a loss to understand how Ku-ring-gai Council produced and exhibited a flawed Draft Housing Strategy that proposed 20 plus storey heights in Gordon, 15 storey heights in Turramurra and Lindfield and expanding high density to 800m from town centres instead of the existing 500m”, Mr Henskens said.

“If it had gone ahead, Council’s proposal would have had extreme adverse impacts on the cherished local character of Ku-ring-gai”.

The Department projected that Council was on track to achieve the local housing target based on completion of dwellings under construction and those with DA approval in September 2020.

Mr O’Dea said, “The Council’s Draft Housing Strategy never properly assessed the residual capacity in the existing zonings and vindicates the strong opposition of myself and Mr Henskens”.

“The Department forecast includes the progression of the current planning proposals for the Lindfield Hub and the site at Roseville Memorial Park to meet the dwelling target for the 2021- 2026 period”.

To support the longer term needs of the Ku-ring-gai LGA beyond 2026, the Department’s approval of the Local Housing Strategy requires Council to commence and undertake planning for the town centres of Lindfield, Turramurra and Gordon.