Carlingford aged care facility on Murray Farm Rd rejected by planning panel
Plans for a controversial aged care facility on a residential road in Carlingford has been rejected by the Sydney City Planning Panel.
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Plans for a $34m aged care facility on Murray Farm Rd in Carlingford have been rejected by the Sydney City Planning Panel, which cited a lack of community benefit and privacy concerns in making its decision.
The project, submitted by HB+B Property, originally proposed a 132-bed, three-storey facility including a car park, hair salon, wellness salon and kiosk.
But public outcry over the facility on a residential street saw it scaled back.
Amended plans were submitted to reduce the number of beds to 120 and present a two-storey building.
Despite the changes, the Sydney City Planning Panel rejected the application on the grounds of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.
The decision was unanimous amongst the four-person panel led by chair Abigail Goldberg with the panel providing 15 reasons for the decision.
Principally the panel found the application failed to “maintain a reasonable neighbourhood amenity and appropriate residential character” of the area.
The application was also criticised for failing to “maintain visual privacy for neighbours”, and not meeting restrictions for “height, density and scale”.
The panel also found it did not comply with “application planning controls” and as a result was not “beneficial for the local community” nor in the “wider public interest”.
The panel also noted the application failed to satisfy safety standards.
There were 45 objections to the application from members of the public and the panel noted the developer had not addressed all the objections satisfactorily.
City of Parramatta, North Rocks ward councillor Andrew Jefferies, welcomed the panel announcement and said the proposal for a multi-storey complex was out of step with the low density housing character that surrounds Carlingford’s Murray Farm catchment.
Cr Jefferies, who represented the area when part of The Hills Shire Council, said commuter parking would be a much better fit for the former bus depot site.
“Given both proposals have been comprehensively rejected on local character grounds, the owner should consider selling the land to Transport for NSW as it was clear they are unable to deliver a proposal that justifies the cost of their decision to purchase the site in 2016,” he said.
“This parcel of land has always been the best in the area to deliver upon the NSW Government’s promise to deliver commuter parking near the Oakes Rd M2 stop. It was really a lost opportunity to resolve the area’s chronic lack of commuter parking.”
The developer HB +B Property has been contacted for comment.