Rajaratnam family’s $3.75m plans for former Brunswick Heads service station site

The project would see the addition of business, retail and residential spaces to the North Coast town.

Plans for a proposed mixed use development at 7 Tweed Street in Brunswick Heads have been on public exhibition with Byron Shire Council.

An amended development application for a commercial and residential building slated for Brunswick Heads has been released for public comment for a second time.

A development application for 7 Tweed Street, proposing an estimated $3.73 million in works, was lodged with Byron Shire Council last September.

It was exhibited for public comment the following month but the application has recently gone through that process again.

This time, with fresh artist’s impressions depicting a different building style.

New plans for a proposed mixed use development at 7 Tweed Street in Brunswick Heads are on public exhibition with Byron Shire Council until early October, 2021.

The earlier plans depicted a sloping roof and little detail as to materials to be used while a new version appears to have a pitched roof and different window, door and balcony details including a prominent timber balustrade.

Commercial Seating Solutions Pty Ltd, a company registered to a Ewingsdale address and connected to the family of Kumar Rajaratnam, an ergonomic engineer and founder of Sit and Move, a business which supplies ergonomic and healthcare products, has applied for consent to demolish existing buildings on the site and construct a new building for retail and other business premises as well as two shop top housing units.

An earlier version of building plans.

The plans suggest the planned development could be home to a new Sit and Move business space.

If approved, the commercial spaces would operate from 8am to 5pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on weekends.

According to documents lodged with the application, the development would create 10 new jobs and a total of 23 carparking spaces would be provided on site.

7 Tweed St in Brunswick Heads.

The property was previously home to a service station, but fuel tanks were removed in 1985, according to a statutory declaration included with the DA.

A report considering potential contamination on the land found there was no contamination-related issue with approving the development as proposed.

According to RP Data, the property sold to Commercial Seating Solutions Pty Ltd for $1.75 million in July, 2019.

Prior to that, it sold for $225,000 in 1995.

The proposal was on public exhibition until October 4.

Efforts to reach the applicants for comment were unsuccessful.