He knocked down a $45m house – but luckily he’s allowed to rebuild
By Tawar Razaghi and Emily Power
Construction on Tamarama’s most iconic empty block is set to go ahead after its owner won a dispute against the local council in the NSW Land and Environment Court that deemed the new home will neither ruin the view nor the character of the neighbourhood.
Australian adman David Droga took Waverley Council to the NSW Land and Environment Court to resolve a planning application stalemate hanging over the Tamarama block.
Droga, who is based in New York and is also known as the ‘Wombat of Wall Street’, had appealed the Council’s objections.
The council took issues with the architectural property design on a number of fronts, including its impacts on the streetscape, views, Aboriginal cultural heritage and history and neighbourhood character.
The 56-year-old bought the basic brick bungalow on Gaerloch Avenue, named Lang Syne, in 2023, for $45 million. The deal set a suburb and eastern beaches record.
The suburb’s previous record was $29.2 million for an oceanfront block of apartments set on a block half the size of Lang Syne’s 1100-square-metres. That was purchased by socialite Di Maloney to be redeveloped into a family duplex.
Less than a year later, Droga demolished the modest home, steps to the cliffs and rolling ocean, lodging plans with council by leading architect Luigi Rosselli for a modern replacement house.
He told The Australian Financial Review: “I always remember thinking, ‘That’s got to be the best piece of land in Australia.’ I was so obsessed with it growing up.”
It was his plans to build rounded pod-like shapes, described as “cocoons” that rise in a staggered and radial plan, as well as arguments over setbacks, overshadowing and visual impact, the court heard, that formed part of the resistance from the council.
The council’s urban design expert, Tim Williams, said he considered the design “menacing”, while Council’s planning expert Ms Jo Zancanaro considered the built form to ‘loom over’ the public domain and believed the home required greater setback from the popular Bondi to Bronte coastal walk.
David Droga’s plans for a new house in Tamarama have received permission to go ahead.Credit: Luigi Rosselli Architects
The court’s commissioner Timothy Horton disagreed and ruled in favour of Droga on January 28.
The council took issue with the “height, bulk and scale” of the two-storey house and impacts from the proposed earthworks that would be undertaken during the build, the court heard.
It argued these placed an “unacceptable” impost on the natural environment, including fauna and native plants, as well as “scenic qualities” and Indigenous cultural heritage.
Archaeological investigations at the block found a tula adze, an ancient tool which has origins in arid zones of Australia. While widespread across Australia, they are rare in eastern NSW, with no other record of it in Sydney. They are known to be used from the late Holocene period onwards for woodworking, plant-processing and butchery.
Lang Syne, the former house on the Tamarama site.Credit:
Council contended that soil conditions indicated more objects may be found, such as engravings or grinding grooves, if the sand below it was intact.
Horton visited the address, saw a prototype of the cocoons, and ruled the structures were suited to the site and to be made from materials from the old Lang Syne home.
Their undulating shape would support the surface growth of flora, as they became salt and sun bleached, and surrounding landscaping would “visually fuse” with the natural environment, he said.
“The relevance of these cocoon structures to the consideration of this matter is that the Council and its experts regard the vertical form of the cocoon structures to be domineering when viewed from the coastal walk and contribute to overshadowing of this important public space,” Horton said in his published decision.
“The coastal walk is a well-known foreshore path that meanders along clifftops, beachfronts, headlands and other topography along the eastern most extent of Sydney. At points, it is also the site of cemeteries, sculptures, parks and other public places.”
Any overshadowing would be “moderate”, Horton decided and, in considering heritage and visuals, ruled the design would not have the adverse impacts on public open space and the public domain as put forward by the council.
“For those reasons set out earlier, just as I do not find the proposal ‘menacing’, neither do I find grounds for it to be ‘confronting’,” Horton said.
“Instead, I consider the proposal highly responsive to its context, and in no way detrimental to the heritage significance of those conservation areas in the vicinity of the site.”
Tamarama is a tightly held suburb, with too few sales to calculate a median house price for 2024. The median house price across Sydney’s eastern suburbs is $3.79 million.
Its neighbouring suburb of Bronte clocked a suburb record of $30 million set by venture capitalist Craig Blair in 2023.