Minda wins approval for $77 million Brighton development including seven and five-storey retirement apartment buildings

DISABILITY services provider Minda has won approval for the second stage of its massive beachside housing development at North Brighton, which includes buildings up to seven storeys high.

An artist’s impression of how the retirement apartments will appear from the North Brighton beach.

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MINDA has won approval for the second stage of its $260 million housing development at North Brighton.

The organisation will spend $77 million on the latest stage, which includes 68 retirement apartments in both a five-storey and a seven-storey building.

It also includes 16 units, 18 houses and four activity rooms for the disability services provider’s clients.

The Development Assessment Commission (DAC) has approved the development, despite neighbours’ concerns about building heights and the removal of 11 large trees.

Holdfast Bay Council had also opposed the development because of encroachment onto a small portion of its land and the project’s impact on the sand dunes.

The DAC has given Minda a year to start work at the King George Ave site.

Minda chief executive Cathy Miller said the approval would allow the organisation to replace “outdated” living arrangements for more than 170 residents.

“We have been very pleased to work with the local community and the State Government in bringing this development to fruition,” Ms Miller said.

An artist’s impression of the development at Minda’s North Brighton property.

Neighbours Mark Laurie, Richard Reed and Janet French spoke against the project at the closed DAC meeting.

Mr Laurie, who is also a spokesman for the Save Brighton group, said the decision was “preordained” and the project “an enormous negative for the area”.

“It’s too high, it’s too intense and they’re being greedy, basically,” Mr Laurie said.

“It could have been a net positive for the community.”

He said residents were unlikely to appeal the approval.

Stage one of Minda’s development was the $40 million three-storey Brighton Dunes retirement village, which was completed in December 2014.

In its report, the DAC said Minda’s latest proposal would “develop and revitalise” under-utilised land and the proposed buildings were “under the height limits and densities envisaged across the site”.