Long Jetty boarding house plan prompts opposition petition
The owners say this small boarding house will be for over 55s, retirees and key workers, but this has not reassured more than 300 people who have signed a petition to stop it.
Central Coast
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Dissent is brewing in trendy Long Jetty after more than 300 people signed a petition opposing an eight room boarding house.
Ellison’s Capital Partners propose to build the boarding house on the site of Long Jetty’s former corner store at 48 McLachlan Ave which was a focal point of the community back in the 1970s.
The eight units are about 25 sqm each and will be fully self-contained with a bedroom, kitchen, en-suit and washing facilities which the developers are describing as “studios or micro apartments”.
Just eleven residents will be living at the site with three of the eight rooms being double and five single.
The developers said the target market for the boarding house would be key workers (such as nurses), over-55s, self funded retirees wanting to downsize and people with disabilities.
Owner Laurie Ellis said some opponents of the development feared it was going to be a “government build halfway house filled with mostly deviants, drug addicts, paedophiles and undesirables”.
“While this generalised portrayal of ‘affordable housing’ tenants has probably never been fair, it is particularly untrue of this development or any development we would ever put our name towards,” Ms Ellis said.
“I cannot make this any clearer; we have absolutely no interest in leasing our property to drug users, paedophiles, criminals or any type of undesirables,” she said.
“As a private landlord / investor it is not in our interest or the interest of other tenants to see the neighbourhood’s character tarnished, not to have a business model that relies on a diminishing pool of prospective tenants. Bad tenants drive out good tenants.”
A social impact study on the proposal said positive impacts included:
■ provision of affordable housing for key workers, older people, people with a disability, and those on low incomes;
■ increasing the diversity of residents of the area;
■ contribution to the affordable housing stock in the Central Coast LGA;
■ employment in the construction and fit out of the proposed boarding house.
But reassurances have done little to placate the 344 locals who signed the petition against the plan or the 97 followers of the Stop the Boarding House on 48 McLachlan Ave Long Jetty Facebook page.
The Facebook page says the main objection is that the development “does not fit the character of the area”.
There has only been one formal online submission to the Development Application so far. Among a range of objections in that submissions is that it could jeopardise the “continued flourishing” of the area once known as “the meth suburb”
“Long Jetty’s character has been transformed into a bohemian style cafe area where young entrepreneurs are operating successful businesses,” the anonymous objection said.
“They need the support of the middle income residents to continue to trade and thus this building proposal and others like it will slowly erode the market needed for these businesses to grow,” it said.
“I make this objection as an honest appraisal of the character of Long Jetty and the desire for this village community to continue to grow and be a place of nurture and confidence for the young families who have moved here in the last few years.”
