Meriton’s Little Bay apartment proposal rejected by planning panel

A proposal to squeeze 5000 people into an eastern suburbs enclave has been sunk amid traffic and parking concerns.

A proposal to build 18-storey apartment towers near a quiet eastern suburbs beach has been blasted out of the water.

Meriton planned to put 1900 apartments on a 13.5ha site at Little Bay near Long Bay Jail, in a project that would have added 5000 people to the area.

The proposed development at Little Bay, looking south.

There was also provision for a medical centre and hotel.

The ambitious proposal was met with howls of protest from locals, while Planning Minister Rob Stokes described it earlier this month as “inappropriate”.

In a unanimous decision by the Sydney Eastern Planning Panel, the proposal to rezone the site has been knocked back.

“If approved, this proposal would have concentrated half of Randwick City Council’s proposed housing growth over the next 6-10 years on one site,” Mr Stokes said.

“Little Bay is a fantastic place to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and we will continue to look at appropriate ways this area can be supported with homes, jobs and infrastructure.”

The panel, chaired by former transport minister Carl Scully, said “the scale and bulk of development anticipated under the planning proposal is not in proportion to the current (nor committed) level of accessibility, centres hierarchy and amenity of the surrounding area”.

Harry Triguboff.

Carl Scully.

The decision was published Friday, with parking and traffic issues raised as major concerns.

But the panel has left the door open for future, lower-scale development at the site, saying “there is an opportunity for alternative distributions of development density and built form on certain parts of the site”.

When discussing a broader vision for the site, billionaire Meriton founder Harry Triguboff has previously said there must be more homes built closer to jobs and transport.

“We cannot keep on pushing density west where there is no infrastructure or it is too expensive to provide,” he said.

“We have to think of a whole-of-Sydney solution where everyone contributes.”

Randwick Mayor Danny Said said “today is a win for the community, a win for common sense and vindication of Randwick Council’s original refusal of this outrageous overdevelopment in 2020”.

“This sends a strong message to all developers that you cannot ride roughshod over existing

planning controls and disregard the community – no matter who you are,” he said.