Changing of the Guard in Davidson Electorate

As you will be aware, Jonathan O’Dea has been the State Member for Davidson since before Support Lindfield was formed in 2012.  He has been a great supporter of ours and the Hub project. Because some State Government funds are destined for the Hub he’s been a staunch advocate for the Hub with relevant Ministers, as well as addressing Parliament several times about the project.

 
Jonathan has worked tirelessly for the communities in his electorate, and he has now decided to leave politics for the next stage in his career. We sincerely thank him for his dedication and work with us, the Hub project, and the electorate as a whole.  We wish him the very best in his next career move.
 
Jonathan invited us to meet his intended successor for Davidson; three of our Committee members met with him and Matt Cross last week. Matt hopes to be elected to the Davidson seat at the election this Saturday.
 
Matt was very keen to hear about the Hub project, and Jonathan had given him some information before we arrived. As a Lindfield resident, he is keen to get more involved and, should he be elected, will do what he can to move the project along.
 
We gave Matt a run down on the history of the project, its ups and downs and the difficulties that Support Lindfield has experienced over the past 10 years. He is keen to learn more about it and to work with us.

There has been silence from Council lately as Council staff are now in the stage of negotiating with “Proponent A” and no information is available for the community as Councillors continue to be prevented from communicating with us. Whenever we get further information, we will, of course, pass it on to you.

Councillors to Decide Fate of LVH Project on 14 February

At their meeting next Tuesday 14 February, Councillors will be considering a recommendation from the Officers that:
A.    Council authorises the General Manager to undertake exclusive negotiations with Proponent A, with the objective of refining their proposal and agreeing the terms of a Project Delivery Agreement.
B.    A report be brought to Council on the outcome of the negotiations, which if successful may result in Council resolving at a future meeting to execute a PDA with Proponent A.
C.    Council confirms allocation of proceeds from the future sale of the Lindfield Library site to the Lindfield Village Hub project.

Councillors voted on these same recommendations at its December 2022 meeting.  However, they voted to defer their decision until February because "they needed more time".  We sent the message below to each Councillor encouraging them to vote in favour of the recommendations so that the project could proceed. 

The project has now been on the drawing board for 10 years and the cost to the end of December 2022 is $10,460,377.  It's about time we saw more progress.

Regards,
The Support Lindfield Team

Any News on the Lindfield Village Hub?

Unfortunately the answer is NO!

It has been some time since we’ve communicated with you and that’s because there hasn’t been much to say.

On 15 February Councillors had their first Council meeting since they elected the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and appointed Councillor representatives to various Committees. Some of our Committee members watched the proceedings via Live Stream. We were favourably impressed by the chairmanship of the new Mayor, Jeff Pettett, as he handled the large agenda very competently. All Councillors appeared to be heard and had ample time to ask questions and say what they wanted to. The behaviour of the Councillors was very businesslike and respectful. We are pleased to note that this behaviour is much more conducive to a cohesive and productive Council than some of the performances we witnessed in the previous term. We compliment all Councillors and hope that it continues.

While there were no agenda items directly related to the implementation of the Hub project at that meeting, there were some references to funding in documents related to agenda items. These are of note and interest to our community.

• GB5: “Council’s investment Portfolio performance for December 2021.” and Note at foot of this item ” *** During December 2021, Council received a $9.8M grant from Transport NSW for Lindfield Village Hub Car Park. As part of the Grant’s terms and conditions Council is required to keep the funds in an independent at call account for audit purposes.”

• GB19: “The Ku-ring-gai Long Term Financial Plan and the Delivery and Operational Program 2018-2021 and Operational Plan 2020-2021 identify projects which are to be funded from asset sales, including:
  major town centre projects such as Lindfield Village Hub and Turramurra Hub;”

We assume, but don’t know of course, whether the GB19 item means that they will now use some of the proceeds from the sale of the current library site to help fund the Hub project. Support Lindfield and the community at large have been lobbying for that to happen for years.

Unfortunately, we have no information about the status of the project or anything resembling a timeline. On 30 January we wrote to all Councillors with some suggestions for next steps. To date we have had no replies from any of the Councillors. None of the Councillors has reached out to us since the January Council meeting. So we are still in the dark.

As usual, we appreciate your comments and feedback. Please write to us at info@supportlindfield.net. When/if we get any information about the project we will, of course, pass it on to you.

Regards,

The Support Lindfield Team

Coles Lindfield development underway

“Building a better store starts here” banners up around Coles Lindfield

The Coles Lindfield development is now underway! As reported earlier, Coles Lindfield has had a 2 part DA approved for apartments and a greatly increased floorspace supermarket approved. They have now begun at least Stage 1A which represents the first half of the DA.

Stage 1A diagram as per DA0197/18

The primary purpose of Stage 1A is to create a new roadway into the site, to give access to the school and in future become the primary access to the upper carpark of the new development. Confusingly, this stage doesn’t actually connect that roadway to anything. Instead, Stage 1B is a very small stage to connect this new roadway to Balfour St and the former end of Balfour Lane. Stage 2 is then the actual supermarket redevelopment.

The compromise is that a number of parking spaces have now been lost from the site, which won’t be replaced until the entire development is completed. The asphalt has already been ripped up over the last few days. This is not ideal given the Village Green carpark is yet to be finished, but given lockdown the demand for commuter parking is certainly lower than normal and so shouldn’t be a problem.

It remains to be seen if Stage 2 of the development quickly follows Stage 1 or not. Here’s hoping it does and it’s all completed before the Village Hub starts - of course it will!

2020 - The Year in Review

Dear Residents,

Well, what a year this has been! I’m sure all of us are glad to see the end of it in many ways. A year like no other and hopefully never to be repeated in our lifetimes.

In a normal year, we would have had our Annual General Meeting by now. However the Office of Fair Trading has allowed incorporated associations to extend their “year” until late 2021 if they wish. We elected to extend our year to probably mid 2021. However, we want to give you a summary of the activity since we last prepared a President’s Report in October 2019.

• Request for Tender was sent to five developers in December 2019.

• After Council Officers refused to release a suite of documents (including the Request for Tender) under our GIPA (Freedom of Information) request, Support Lindfield requested a review of the decisions by the Information and Privacy Commission (NSW). Request for access to the RFT and other suite of documents were recommended by IPC.

• Tenders closed on 3 April 2020 with two developers submitting bids. Fabcot (Woolworths) and Aqualand.

• Council approved Planning Proposal end of April 2020 for submission to State Government Planning Department for Gateway Determination.

• Advised mid May that there is no timeframe for completion of evaluation of the bids.

• 30 June Councillors approve report from Council Officers stating the tenders received did not conform to the requirements of the RFT and they recommended negotiating with the two tenderers; report to be prepared in three months and submitted to October Council meeting. (See Report at this link.)

• Support Lindfield writes to all Councillors over major concerns with the progress of the project. (See letter at this link). Counsellor Sam Ngai replied. (See his reply at this link.) Mayor Anderson replied on 27 July and her response is at this link.

• Council confirms expenses on the LVH project since its inception in 2013 total $8.35 million to end of June 2020.

• Support Lindfield representatives met with Council General Manager and other senior officers to discuss a range of topics related to the Project. No useful information was forthcoming from that meeting.

• 20 October Council officers report that “negotiations have progressed, but not yet reached a conclusion”. Councillors received a written report that was confidential and not available to the public. There is no indication when “a conclusion” will be reached.

• November Support Lindfield submitted two GIPA (freedom of information) applications to NCAT (NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal) after Council conducted reviews and again refused to release documents; the applications are currently going through the legal processes.

• 8 December LVH Tender Negotiation Update - Supplementary Report submitted to Council meeting with confidential documents. Councillors resolved “a. the LVH tender and subsequent negotiation period has coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a global economic downturn, uncertainty in the property market and impacting on project viability and competitive tension. b. that an offer has not yet been received that is financially viable. c. continue to negotiate with any possible providers, while undertaking a review of Council’s project assumptions and objectives.”

• The community continues to be kept in the dark by a Council that lacks transparency, accountability and leadership. We envisage nothing but more delays in the project over the next few months. As Council has “gagged” the developers we are unable to communicate with them to get their side of the story.

It’s been another busy year for the Support Lindfield Committee. While we continued to monitor the (slow) progress of the LVH project we also successfully campaigned to interrupt the fraught Housing Strategy that Council was going to submit to the State Government.

The other evening Rajee, Simmy and Sabina Grewal, who own Marciano’s Restaurant in Lindfield, kindly hosted an end of year celebration for the Committee. The food is delicious. Please try it some time! See below for some of the people who work hard for our community.

We wish you a safe and happy holiday season and may 2021 be a much better year for all of us. Thank you for your support.

The Support Lindfield Team
info@supportlindfield

L.to r: Andrew Sweeney, Deb Vievers, Bruce Strachan, Linda McDonald, Sarah Davis, Rachel Watts, Laurie Ormerod, Sabina Grewal, Richard Vowell, Alan McDermid. (Missing: Warren Dwyer and Scott Savage)

Ku-Ring-Gai Draft Housing Strategy

Just a reminder if you have not yet completed our survey, please read on and complete it. Please see note at the bottom re using a mouse.

In our email of 3 May, we told you about Ku-ring-gai Council’s Draft Housing Strategy, which was on public exhibition from 26 March 2020 to 8 May 2020. We mentioned that we would be running a survey to get community views on the form and location of new dwellings in Lindfield and surrounding suburbs. A link to the survey is here and at the bottom of this message. But please watch the video (next paragraph) first. (If you prefer to read rather than listen, go the link at the bottom of this message and click on the script link.)

Support Lindfield video
Before you start the survey, we recommend that you watch this video we have prepared that provides some background information about Council’s Draft Housing Strategy.

The Draft Housing Strategy documents
You can find the draft Housing Strategy documents at this link. Much of the important detail is contained in the Technical Document and its Appendices. 

Some key information about the Draft Housing Strategy 
The Draft Housing Strategy is 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. 

We want the community to have a say
We know that many of you will have views on the height, form and location of new housing in Ku-ring-gai and we therefore feel that it is important to bring the Draft Housing Strategy to your attention so you can have your say. 

Council officers refused to extend the public exhibition period, despite it directly coinciding with the COVID-19 shutdown and several requests (including from some Councillors). This is extremely disappointing in circumstances where the State Government was amenable to an extension and given there are community members who would like to provide input but missed the deadline. 

Although the deadline for submissions has passed, we still think it’s worth making the views of the community known and we propose to do that by delivering a report on our survey results to Council. Our survey focuses on Lindfield, Killara and Roseville. If you would like to provide input on the Draft Housing Strategy more broadly, we suggest that you email Councillors directly with your views. Councillors@kmc.nsw.gov.au will reach all 10 Councillors.

The survey
To complete the survey click on this link. Please note that you will require a mouse to complete two questions so it is not possible to complete the whole survey on an IPad or IPhone.

The more respondents we have, the more useful the survey results will be. You can help by encouraging at least 5 others to complete the survey - neighbours, friends, family, colleagues etc - preferably people who live in the local area. 

Thank you very much for your support. Please contact us at info@supportlindfield.net with any comments or questions. 

Regards,

The Support Lindfield team

For a full transcript of the video, please download the PDF.

Coles Lindfield Redevelopment

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Coles Redevelopment - View from corner of Pacific Highway and Balfour St

Coles Lindfield is currently located on the corner of the Pacific Highway and 1 Balfour Street Lindfield. In May 2018 they appealed their development application in order to take it to the Sydney North Planning Panel. In August 2019 their appeal was determined to be successful, and so the development will go ahead. We wanted to capture the summary of the information for the residents of Lindfield.

The development will commence in 2 phases. The first phase will see the construction of a new Balfour Lane adjacent to the school boundary in order to guarantee access to the Holy Family School and Church. The second phase will involve the demolition of the Coles site, carpark and old Balfour Lane, with the exception of a heritage building and electrical substation. This will create a large construction area for the new development.

The new development will contain double the number of carpark spaces, 249 retail parking spaces over 2 levels and 73 residential parking spaces. The new supermarket will also be approximately double the size of the current store; ~4500m2 in total floor area, retaining Liqourland and adding a cafe. The development will also include 70 new (very small) apartments above the supermarket.

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Balfour Lane view of Coles redevelopment

The building height is roughly 5-6 stories plus rooftop plant, which is below the height of the Village Hub proposal. There will be two carpark entrances, one roughly at the original Balfour Lane location into LG2 and one on the western boundary (access road built in phase 1 as mentioned) that connects to LG1.

There is currently no start date for construction that we are aware of, although we hope it doesn’t clash with the Village Green and Hub construction dates as that would make parking and access to supermarkets very difficult in Lindfield.

North Shore Times editorial November 2019

“Six years wasted and $6.5m already spent of your money on the Lindfield Village Hub with nothing to show.”

It will be years before a shovel hits the ground on the Lindfield Village Hub project and there is still no clear picture of what the design will look like. This is despite Council spending a whopping $6,289,615 (including $690,177 for salaries of Council staff involved in the project) on the project from July 2013 to July 2019 according to documents obtained by Support Lindfield.

Millions were spent in relation to the masterplan unanimously adopted by Council in 2015, before it was abandoned last year. It had a 7-storey height limit and broad community support. It attracted interest from developers, including an unsolicited proposal in May 2018 that was generally in accordance with the masterplan and would have delivered community facilities at the developer’s cost (Council would have to fit out the community facilities), but which was rejected by Council. Since then Council has spent over $3 million on the project.

In August this year, after Support Lindfield vigorously campaigned against proposed height increases to 8, 10 and 14-storeys, Council settled on a 9-storey maximum height plus roof top plant, lift overruns and rooftop communal open space.

Council last month lodged a planning proposal with its planning division to increase the permitted height and floor space ratio in the planning controls, commencing a lengthy process requiring determination by the State Government. Crucially, the revised floor space ratio sought in the planning proposal has not been made public. This process was previously completed for the now defunct 2015 masterplan.

At its meeting on 19 November 2019 Council unanimously agreed to the officers’ proposal to go to tender in December. This risks further cost wastage given the uncertainty on whether the planning controls will be amended to allow the proposed changes to the height limit and floor space ratio.

Mayor Jennifer Anderson (except one year when Cheryl Szatow was Mayor) and General Manager John McKee have presided over this project since the beginning.

The Ku-ring-gai community has every right to question the management of this project; why has it taken so long and cost so much with, so far, little to show for it?

The Support Lindfield Team