Balgowlah Heights: Push back against plan for ‘co-living’ apartment block on Dobroyd Rd
Plans for ‘co-living’ apartments on the northern beaches to help tackle the rental crisis have been the focus of a community push back. See what ‘co-living housing is about.
Manly
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There is community push back against a plan for a so-called “co-living” apartment block in one of the northern beaches most up-market suburbs.
A development application for the three-storey, 10-unit housing development at Balgowlah Heights, that will offer cheaper rental options for singles and couples, will go before planning authorities this week.
Locals say too may people will be squeezed into the block, resulting in too much noise and traffic as well as a loss of privacy for neighbouring properties.
But the property owner, Enda Hughes, says he wants to offer reasonable rents to essential workers such as nurses, teachers, police officers and paramedics who now have to travel to work on the northern beaches.
“We want to keep people in the community – police and fire brigade officers, nurses, junior doctors, and give them an option to live here as well,” Mr Hughes said.
“It’s unfair that people who teach our kids and put out our fires have to drive from places like the Central Coast, work their shifts, sleep on a mate’s couch and then go home.”
Co-living accommodation — sometimes dubbed “rental 2.0” — offers tenants a studio-style apartment with an ensuite, small kitchen and laundry, but with communal loungerooms, dining areas and outdoor spaces.
It's a new form of affordable rental housing introduced under the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021, but properties cannot be rented out for short-term tourist or B and B-style accommodation.
Because more than 60 of submissions had been lodged with Northern Beaches Council — many from locals worried that the block is a gross overdevelopment of the site on Dobroyd Rd — the application has been referred to the independent Northern Beaches Local Planning for adjudication.
The council, in an assessment report to the panel, noted that the main concerns from neighbours with the block, which included a ground-floor shop, were increased traffic, a reduction in off-street parking — the block only has three internal car spaces — streetscape character, visual privacy and residential “intensity”.
A local, who asked not to be named, said people had concerns with the size of the building and it would set a precedent for having “boarding house-type” developments at Balgowlah Heights.
“They are trying to put too many people into too small a block,” the resident said.
“And the height means that some of its tenants will be looking into people’s backyards.”
Another resident said while the renters would likely be people with good jobs, the noise from the development might be too loud.
“There could be as many as 20 people living there, coming and going, all with cars to get to the work because the bus service around here is not great.”
Mr Hughes, a former leading chef who has owned the property for more than 20 years and lives in Manly, had applied to demolish the existing building where his Rent a Kitchen business operates commercial kitchens that can be leased by food preparation and supply businesses.
He said co-living also offered accommodation options for young people.
“Do the people of Balgowlah Heights want to drive out to Penrith or the Central Coast to visit their kids when they grow up?”
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