A unique home building site in Dee Why with a hi-tech past hits the market
It’s one of the most unusual home building sites that Dee Why has seen in recent years and it’s now on the market.
It’s one of the most unusual building sites that Dee Why has seen in recent years and it’s now on the market.
Called 66 Griffin Rd, the 252 sqm building site is effectively an island surrounded on all four sides by public land.
Listed by the Novak real estate agency as 66 Griffin Rd, the eastern boundary of the 252 sqm site is Griffin Rd, the southern boundary is a drainage easement 20ft (6m) wide that doubles as a right-of-way for houses that back onto it, while the western and northern boundaries are an L-shaped council reserve called Banksia St Reserve.
And the existing structure on the site is part of a landmark computer-controlled traffic management system that was developed in the 1970s by the Department of Main Roads (DMR) and has since been licensed to other Australian states and to 32 other countries.
The site now for sale is part of a 40-acre grant to John Harper in 1835 that passed through several sets of hands until it was bought in 1910 by Parramatta schoolteacher William Anderson, who paid £1537 for the land.
In 1911, William Anderson divided the 40 acres in a subdivision called the Dee Why Beach Estate that comprised 233 lots.
The estate included all of Boronia St and Banksia St, and parts of Pacific Pde, Cassia St, Daisy St and Monash Pde.
Two lots in the Dee Why Beach Estate, Lots 103 and 104, were identically-sized neighbouring lots fronting Banksia St, of which Lot 103 was adjacent to Griffin Rd.
Lots 103 and 104 passed through several hands over the years and by 1943 houses had been built on both of them.
In the 1980s, the two lots were purchased by the Warringah Council and the DMR, and by 1986 both houses had been demolished.
In 1990 Lots 103 and 104 were re-subdivided, leaving an L-shaped block of land measuring 641 sqm in the hands of Warringah Council and the 252 sqm site now for sale in the hands of the DMR.
Warringah Council’s land is now called the Banksia St Reserve.
The DMR’s block of land hosts a building measuring 6.1m by 3.7m that was one of a number of identical structures built across Sydney to house regional minicomputers that were part of the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS).
Identical buildings to the one at Dee Why were built at Punchbowl, Newtown, St. Leonards, Rushcutters Bay, Lewisham, Silverwater, Hornsby, Taren Point, Warwick Farm and Parramatta.
The SCATS was developed by the DMR in the 1970s and the regional minicomputers played a crucial role in managing traffic signals across the Sydney Metropolitan Area, particularly outside the Central Business District.
According to a 2019 Transport for NSW press release, SCATS “is used to manage traffic light signal phases across much of Australia to minimise delays on the road network”.
“It does this by using vehicle sensors at intersections to adjust signals in real-time according to changes in traffic flow”.
Since the system was developed by the DMR in the 1970s, “the system has been further developed by the then-Roads and Traffic Authority and, more recently, Roads and Maritime Services, which was recently absorbed into Transport for NSW”.
A $400 million upgrade by the state government in 2019 saw new sensors installed at 500 of the more than 4300 NSW intersections connected to SCATS.
Illustrating the sophistication of SCATS and how the system has evolved over the years as technologies have improved is that earlier this year, Transport for NSW installed a system at the traffic lights opposite Manly Wharf that has reduced risky crossings by pedestrians by using longer or more frequent green signals for pedestrians.
Roads Minister Jenny Atkinson said last month that the system outside Manly Wharf uses “smart cameras, AI data processing and adaptive traffic lights to safely move crowds pouring off ferries and buses”.
She said the trial of the system so far has seen risky crossings by pedestrians reduced by 34 per cent.
“The hi-tech smart system uses thermal imaging cameras to detect real-time crowd numbers, feeding live data straight into Transport for NSW’s adaptive traffic platform, SCATS,” she said.
“When the system detects a surge, it automatically gives people more frequent or longer green-walk signals, reducing wait times and stopping dangerous crowd spill-over onto the road.
“On a sunny afternoon, Manly can go from a handful of people waiting to cross to hundreds in seconds.
“This smart technology keeps crowds moving safely, stops people taking risks, and keeps traffic flowing when foot traffic is lighter.”
Naturally the increasing sophistication of SCATS means structures like that at Dee Why have been made redundant, leading to the sale of the land on which the structure stands.
For information about the site, contact Lisa Novak on 0488 988 888 or Billy Drury on 0481 707 754.
