Mount Penang Parklands: Decision made on Kariong plan for fast food highway hub

A planning panel has made its decision on controversial $8.5 million plans to build a number of popular takeaway restaurants just off Central Coast highway.

Plans for a fastfood hub for the Mount Penang Parklands in Kariong have been knocked back.

Plans for three popular fast food restaurants and a tyre shop in Mount Penang Parklands have been shut down.

The Central Coast Local Planning Panel has unanimously refused the $8.5 million scaled-down version of a the Highway Commercial Precinct development at the parklands in Kariong.

The DA, lodged by Parklands Kariong Development, was for a six-lot subdivision to include fast food outlets McDonalds, Oporto and Taco Bell, as well as a Bridgestone tyre outlet. It also included “left in/left out” access onto Central Coast Highway.

Site of the DA lodged for fast food outlets and tyre shop at Mount Penang Parklands.

The planning panel’s reasons included refusal of the proposed access driveway by Transport for NSW along with refusal from the Heritage Council of NSW.

The panel also indicated the DA did not comply with local planning instruments.

In a report to the panel, Transport for NSW stated “the creation of a new access point to the Central Coast Highway will compromise the effective and ongoing operation and function of the Central Coast Highway”.

The 50km highway has since been labelled the deadliest in NSW, with the highest rate of

fatal crashes from 2015 to 2020, according to data from the Centre for Road Safety.

Access to the development would have been off Central Coast Highway.

The Heritage Council also voiced its concerns, with the Mount Penang Parklands listed on the State Heritage Register as the site of the former Mount Penang Juvenile Justice Centre. The site also has two groups of scribbly gum trees, classed as “high landscape significance”.

A similar application for the highway commercial precinct, which included an eight-lot subdivision for the 5.7ha site, received fierce community backlash and was refused by Central Coast Council in May 2019.

The latest DA received 81 objections ranging from concerns about fast food outlets near schools and traffic on a highway which is already “at capacity”.

Some stated the DA had no community value without basic services such as a supermarket, medical services or a childcare centre.

The panel voted that the council contact the Hunter Central Coast Development Corporation, Transport for NSW, Heritage NSW and other stakeholders encouraging them to prepare a strategy for future use of the site.