The Ashmore estate at Erskineville … city and state planners disagree over the allowable density for its development.
The NSW Department of Planning has emerged as the
biggest threat to Sydney’s inner-city villages with its push for
massive intensification of site development.
A nondescript Erskineville industrial estate set on
Mitchell Road between Erskineville Oval and Sydney Park has emerged as
the site of a serious skirmish arising from the draft Sydney Local
Environmental Plan.
Under the Keneally government, the department demanded the City of Sydney double the site’s permissible building heights.
fighting the push, which is emerging as a strategic battle that will
shape future development of all the industrial estates on the
southern corridor from the city to the airport.
Because of a lack of suitable transport infrastructure
in the area the council suggested a maximum building height of nine
storeys, but the site’s owner, Goodman Group, was not happy.
Goodman secured plans from the former government that
will allow up to 19 storeys. The density allowable has also been
doubled, with the difference between the two schemes amounting to 636
extra dwellings.
With each selling at, say, $700,000, about $445 million in potential revenue is at stake.
The seven-hectare site – known as the Ashmore or
Mitchell industrial estate – was once headquarters of the Metters
factory producing ovens and boilers. Its best-known brand was the 1930s
Kooka range of gas cooking appliances.
The firm, established on Rundle Street in Adelaide in
1891 by Frederick Metters, initially opened a small factory on Alice
Street at Newtown before moving to the bigger site in 1906. It
stayed there until the early 1970s, about the time it was taken over
by Email.
Greg Goodman is the founder and chief executive of
Goodman Group, which ranked as one of the global high-flyers of the real
estate sector before the global financial crisis.
Goodman bought the site in 1989 from the NSW State Authorities Superannuation Board for $19.2 million.
At the time it has a net annual rental of $2 million, reflecting an initial yield of about 10 per cent.
Goodman’s general manager is the former Wallaby Jason Little, who has been with the group since 2003.
The site’s tenants include Toll Priority and Ausdoc.
The entire Ashmore precinct has been identified for urban renewal since 1998. It covers 17 hectares.
Much of it still contains large industrial buildings
surrounded by terraces from the late 1800s. Recent redevelopment in the
precinct includes the Motto, Glo and Star Printery apartment complexes
which are mostly six-storey.
Denis O’Neil’s nearby Sydney Park Village complex, built in the late 1990s, is of a similar height.
Cr Moore said that over the past six years the council
had put in much time and resources planning for the precinct’s
redevelopment.
It proposed three tall buildings of nine storeys at the
centre of the precinct, with smaller apartment blocks totalling 2240
dwellings and 4000 people. The department wants 2876 dwellings with 5200
people.
Cr Moore said the council’s work included technical
studies to look at issues such as stormwater management, traffic, and
transport, urban design and economic feasibility.
”Our workshops with locals helped us develop our
planning controls. These were to form the framework for the location of
new roads, open spaces, shops, and building heights and scale.”
They were reviewed as part of the Erskineville,
Alexandria and Newtown Urban Design Study and the directions
outlined in its Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy for sustainable renewal
and increased housing.
”Following representations from the landowner, Goodman,
the Department of Planning ordered the city to increase the floor-space
ratio and the buildings’ heights for two sites, at 57 Ashmore Street and
165-175 Mitchell Road,” she said.
The department’s demands allow an increase in the floor-space ratio from 1.75:1 to 2.75.
Cr Moore said it would be denser than the whole of the
Meriton development in Waterloo, known as Crown Plaza, which has a
floor-space ratio of 2.5:1.
”This is not the outcome we worked hard to achieve or
want and it seems to us yet another example of the [former]
government’s abuse of its planning powers,” Cr Moore said.
The draft plan remains on public exhibition until April 21.
Residents of all inner-city villages have been urged to
ascertain how the draft plan affects their area because opposition
must begin immediately if they want to try to limit any
over-development.
Those who think the change of government will remedy past planning ways might need to think again.
One of the inexplicable decisions Barry O’Farrell made
in opposition was to support the Land Acquisition (Just Terms
Compensation) Amendment Bill in 2009. It allows councils to purchase
private land and transfer it to developers for a profitable resale – all
for the supposed good of the community in a public-private partnership.
Source: www.smh.com.au/business/property/innercity-fights-to-save-its-villages-20110410-1d9a5.html
Council LEP Consultation details: www.redwatch.org.au/govt/cos/110404cos