Whale Beach residents rally against proposed restaurant

Not much happens in Whale Beach, a beautiful, sleepy enclave of just 250 people immediately south of Palm Beach at the far end of the Northern Beaches peninsula.

And that’s precisely how many well-heeled locals want to keep it. They are not enamoured by the prospect of the Boathouse Group’s popular but now-closed Whale Beach Deli kiosk expanding into a 170-seat restaurant.

The Cassar family is seeking to redevelop its Whale Beach property.Credit: Edwina Pickles

The redevelopment was proposed by the Cassar tourism industry family, which owns the property and lives in the attached apartments. Patriarch Les Cassar chaired Tourism NSW in the 2000s and his son Anthony runs the family company Aviation Online.

Their proposal has upset a who’s who of corporate Australia who live in the area, and they have inundated Northern Beaches Council with concerns about noise, traffic, parking and a general disturbance of the peace.

“Road rage is not unusual along this thin strip of Whale Beach Road,” wrote Lea Cleary, wife of television presenter Mike Munro. “If this proposal is allowed to go ahead, traffic will become far more choked and frustrating – along with the help of laws that allow drinking until 10pm.”

Sydney developer and chairman of Friends of Sydney Harbour John Molyneaux was reminded of the bad old days when Bill Drakopoulos’ Ripples restaurant did a roaring trade just across the road.

“The attendant noise was a constant upset to our enjoyment,” he wrote in his submission. The planned restaurant was “obviously going to be used for weddings and major celebrations ... Please, therefore, refuse this huge-sized restaurant so that this acoustical nightmare can’t happen again.”

The council also received written objections from Michael Shehadie, the son of former NSW governor Dame Marie Bashir and the late Sir Nicholas Shehadie, as well as Magellan’s head of investments Gerald Stack, former Goldman Sachs boss Charles Gorman, Travelogic founder Craig Smith and Macquarie director Phil Coffey.

Margot Coleman, the widow of late radio funnyman Jonathan Coleman, was particularly concerned about the impact on parking, while merchant banker Mike Crivelli – who paid $7.2 million for his Whale Beach Road pad in 2006 – feared for people’s safety.

“The road down to the beach ... is a tight dogleg, narrow and congestion makes it dangerous,” he warned. “Lives could be lost.”

Jo Benneyworth of nearby Bynya Road said Whale Beach was “one of the few beaches left on the northern beaches which is peaceful, family-friendly and a haven for those who come from the western suburbs with their families for a day at the beach”.

The Whale Beach Deli was operated by Pip and Andrew Goldsmith’s Boathouse Group. It closed last month.Credit: Edwina Pickles

“This should not turn into a playground for the rich eastern suburbs residents who want to party hard on the weekend,” she told the council.

However, Anthony Cassar told the Herald the complainants were overreacting to the size of the proposed restaurant. Anything smaller would not be commercially viable, he said, and he would simply rent the space to a lawyer instead.

“They’re myopic in their approach and they’re not looking at the bigger picture. The outcome from the trouble they’re stirring up could be there’s no restaurant at all,” Cassar said.

“That might make the immediate neighbours very happy, but everyone else in the wider neighbourhood will be very unhappy that they won’t be able to have a nice eatery there.”

Cassar said the 170-seat venue complied with the local development controls. “We’re not asking for anything more than what’s allowed under the planning instrument. Not anything less, not anything more.”

He said he gave the Boathouse Group a rent reduction during winter to help them make ends meet, but even so, the Whale Beach Deli closed last month. “Our landlords are planning to commence the redevelopment of this site before summer this year,” the deli posted on Facebook.

Cassar said he hoped the Boathouse Group, owned by Pip and Andrew Goldsmith, would run the restaurant if the redevelopment was approved. The matter will be considered at a public meeting of the Northern Beaches Local Planning Panel.

Not all of Cassar’s neighbours are against the redevelopment. “I’m all for this,” said Shore Financial chief Theo Chambers. “Love the design, love the concept and I think Whale Beach is in desperate need of more retail.”

He owns a hilltop house in Palm Beach, but his father, liquor mogul Steven Chambers, bought on Whale Beach beachfront last year for $11.6 million.

Mining industry boss Mark Lochtenberg, who paid $9.5 million a few doors up from the proposed site last November, is also a big supporter. “What a great benefit for the local community,” he wrote.

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