CNS Investments lodges plans for six-storey apartment complex at Brebner Drive, West Lakes

Vacant for a decade, this West Lakes site could be home to a glass-fronted, six-storey housing and retail complex – but will the council approve this one?

A SIX-STOREY apartment and retail complex has been mooted for a West Lakes property, which has been sitting vacant for more than a decade.

Plan SA has publicly released designs for the development, planned for 147 Brebner Drive, overlooking the lake.

It would sit between Greek on the Lake restaurant and another multistorey complex, the Cedars apartments, opposite West Lakes Shopping Centre’s carpark.

An artist's impression of plans for 147 Brebner Drive, West Lakes.

The proposal, by CNS Investments, includes 18 dwellings, an office on its first floor and ground-floor retail space.

In a letter to Charles Sturt Council, Heynen Planning Consultants’ Garth Heynen said the complex’s height, scale, proportion and appearance fit in with planning rules for the area. The building would be 22.35m high.

“The local context includes the Cedars building (7-storey), the adjacent Lakes Resort Hotel to the south (6-storey) and the Infinity Apartments mixed use complex (7-storey) to the north,” Mr Heynen said.

Artist's impressions of plans for 147 Brebner Drive, West Lakes

He also said the development’s “architectural expression and visual interest” was “superior” to others in the neighbourhood.

Plans for the site follow several other previous proposals, including a $15.3m complex mooted in 2018, which was to include 45 apartments across seven levels.

Charles Sturt Council had raised various concerns about that plan, including it exceeding maximum building heights, being too bulky and blocking sunlight.

In 2016, it blocked another plan for a seven-storey apartment and office complex at the site.

The property has been vacant since 2010.

Charles Sturt Council declined to comment, and the developer could not be contacted.

People can submit comment on the plans until Wednesday, January 12.

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