Avoca Beach manufactured home estate development application lodged

A CONTROVERSIAL proposal to build a large manufactured home estate on the site of a former caravan park on Avoca Lagoon is open for public submissions.

Artist's impression of one of the manufactured homes proposed for Avoca Beach.

Residents have four weeks to lodge a submission on a $20 million manufactured home estate proposal on the shores of Avoca Lagoon.

The 2.8 hectare site is on Bowtells Drive, just off Round Drive and operated as a caravan park for more than 50 years.

Owners of the site were granted approval to do a major redevelopment of park in 2009, but now seek approval to build an 80-home estate instead.

Map showing location of the land for the proposed Avoca development

The development application proposes two kinds of manufactured homes.

There would be 29 two-storey, three-bedroom buildings with double garage, kitchen, and upstairs and downstairs living areas.

Another 71 homes would be similar, but have a downstairs deck as well.

Vehicle access to the site is along a two-way driveway known as Bowtells Drive which connects to Round Drive.

Extensive improvements to the internal road system of the estate are also proposed.

Off street parking will accommodate up to 175 cars, including 160 spaces for residents of estate and 15 for visitors.

Map showing layout of proposed manufactured home estate at Avoca Beach.

Approximately half of the site will be for communal use.

Dozens of submissions on the proposal have already been lodged — all objecting.

Concerns include increased population, school overcrowding, traffic congestion and accidents, lack of parking, environmental impacts and the possibility of flooding.

One submission said the new proposal was so different from the 2009 proposal it warranted a completely new development application.

“The previous proposal featured much lower scale single storey residential buildings that were physically separated from each other and arranged in an informal manner following existing circulation layouts with vegetation in between to break up the bulk,” the submission said.

Existing community building and amenities block to be demolished on the Avoca Beach site.

“The current proposal by contrast consists of high density multi storey residential buildings arranged in straight continuous rows which when combined with the hard surface driveways and pathways result in an almost total impervious hard surface site coverage of the main building area.

“The overall building bulk, scale and impact is thus vastly increased.

“The building form proposed is box like structures which are out of character with the surrounding development.”