The NSW Planning Minister has confirmed that new dwelling targets in Ku-ring-gai Council’s Housing Strategy are not required by the State Government, despite claims to the contrary by Ku-ring-gai Mayor, Jennifer Anderson.
To accommodate the thousands of new dwellings required to meet the targets, the proposed Housing Strategy provides for residential towers of up to 15 storeys in Lindfield, Turramurra and St Ives and 20 storeys plus in Gordon.
The Planning Minister has stated that Council is responsible for deciding new dwelling numbers and that our State MPs were correct to identify that the target "is not a legal requirement upon Council by the Government". He also stated that "Council should carefully consider whether the housing target...accords with the expectations of the community…” and that also relevant “...is the increase in local housing dwelling numbers that have taken place in the last decade and the demands they have made on local infrastructure”. For further information and a complete copy of the Minister’s letter to Mayor Anderson, please click here.
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Coles Lindfield Redevelopment
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.
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.