The Adventist School and Sydney Adventist Hospital parent company, Australasian Conference Association, submitted revised plans for 200 units across five six-storey towers last December as part of the Wahroonga Estate precinct.

The school’s parent body representative Carli Jeffrey said the plan to “overdevelop” the precinct had already tarnished the name of the Adventist Group and parents were willing to “boycott Weet-Bix”, owned by the Australasian Conference Association.

“This is an area already overdeveloped that houses an incredibly large hospital, churches, schools and hundreds of homes that line single-landed Fox Valley Rd,” Mrs Jeffrey said.

“The school cannot even protect their students because the parent company owns them and the hospital.

“We want them to see that we are willing to work with them. We appreciate the support the school, the church and the hospital provides the community.

“However, we have some major concerns surrounding this high-rise development.”

Mrs Jeffrey said the Australasian Conference Association had a mission for health, education and spiritual wellbeing but there were major concerns around adequate playground space, security and child safety from overlooking apartments.

“Their mission is not being accomplished through this development,” she said.

“We have young children being forced to play in a basement car park because there is a lack of recreational space at the school.”

More than 750 residents have signed a change.org petition against the project.

The petition urged the developer to spurn the high-rise towers so they can use the space for sport.

The student popultion is forecast to rise to 1200 students in several years.

The Wahroonga Estate concept plan was approved under the former Labor State Government several years ago with the suggestion that housing would be included in the precinct.

Calls from the school’s parent body have been echoed by the Fox Valley Region Action Group, which dubbed the estate as the hotspot for “bushfire alley” in Wahroonga.

“It comes back to the same issue we always have with development on Fox Valley Rd, which is infrastructure and bushfire hazards,” group spokesman John Farrar said.

“The very substantial increase in traffic through Fox Valley Rd and The Comenarra Parkway, and other new developments since that time, mean that the concept plan is no longer viable or appropriate.”

The residents’ association — along with its 136 members — wrote to Ku-ring-gai Council to object to a display suite to sell the precinct being built on Fox Valley Rd in February.

EDUCATION REMAINS ‘PRIORITY’

THE CONSTRUCTION of hundreds of homes across several residential apartment towers will not impede on the Adventist Group’s mission for quality education, according to spokesman Steve Currow.

Adventist Group has partnered with developer, Capital Bluestone, to construct the new residential community, earmarked to include 200 homes.

The plan also includes the rehabilitation of adjoining bushland and major infrastructure upgrades to Fox Valley Rd and the Commenara Pkwy.

Adventist Group spokesman Steve Currow said the company was forced to decide between maintaining vast bushfire prone land, or spending funds on the mission of the church “to continue to deliver healthcare and education right throughout the South Pacific” — the Church’s mission won that fight.

“There will be a 20m setback between residential buildings and the property boundary of the school,” he said. “The school knew that before they finalised this deal.

“There was information provided to the school about the residential development, however I can’t speak on exactly what the school has told (parents).”

Mr Currow said changes to planning regulations meant that the only way the Sydney Adventist Hospital and Wahroonga Adventist School would be expanded, was if a masterplan was created for the site in 2003.

“When they established the masterplan, it was the needs and requirements of a growing Wahroonga community that formed the thinking behind the precinct,” Mr Currow told the Advocate.

“We were clear the hospital and the school would grow, but we were also clear that there would be added needs for an expanded residential community.”

Capital Bluestone spokesman Tom Zdun said the wider community would benefit from approximately $20 million in infrastructure upgrades, that included the development of three separate phased intersections along Fox Valley Rd, as well as the expansion of lanes along the Comenarra Parkway and Fox Valley Rd.

“It would also be our hope that the school would benefit from an outdoor learning space through the rehabilitation of the National Park,” Mr Zdun said.

“We are providing safe, direct access to the schools playing fields with a phased light intersection and pathways.”

When asked about community concerns surrounding the separation of the school community from sporting fields, Mr Currow said the NSW Planning department of the time issued a preferred site for where the school and the playing fields would be located, “that saw a separation between the facilities”.

Mr Currow also confirmed that an open basement car park was being used by younger students of the school for outdoor recreational space.

Ku-ring-gai state Liberal MP Alister Henskens has met with residents and the school’s parent body to hear their concerns around traffic problems and the density of the development.

“The 200 apartments in the Wahroonga Estate were approved by the former State Labor government in 2010 under the infamous Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act which was abolished for any future developments by the coalition government,” Mr Henskens told the Advocate.

“I am meeting early next week with senior members of the apartment land owners to discuss the situation and I am currently awaiting advice from the Planning Minister’s office as to the legal status of the former Labor Minister’s consent.”