Belrose, Wyatt Ave: Developer’s new push for 55-room boarding house
Locals say a 55-room boarding house will ruin a northern beaches’ neighbourhood, but the developer says it will give essential workers much needed homes.
Manly
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Planning authorities are being urged to reject controversial plans for a 55-room boarding house on the northern beaches because it’s too big and doesn’t fit in with the character of the neighbourhood.
The council has recommended the $7.7 million three-storey units at Belrose be refused by the independent Northern Beaches Local Planning Panel when it meets next week.
Local have lodged 94 submissions against the plan with concerns about its size — 108 residents across two buildings — and the people who will rent there.
But the developer said the boarding house, to be built on a 1.2ha block that now accommodates a six-bedroom house, would provide affordable housing for essential workers such as nurses and aged care employees.
An anonymous notice was circulated through the community calling on residents to oppose the DA — originally containing plans for 62 rooms — and to make negative submissions to the council.
In its Assessment Report the council stated that one of the boarding house buildings exceeded the local maximum 8.5m height.
It also stated that the facility was not consistent with the “desired future (rural residential) character for the locality” and would not be able to keep the “existing established bushland setting of the site”.
The developer, Northern Beaches Essential Services Accommodation Pty Ltd, told the Manly Daily that the Land and Environment Court had already approved a previous DA for a 27-room boarding house on a neighbouring block.
In public submissions to the council a resident wrote that the facility being close to the John Colet School in Wyatt Ave was a “a huge factor”.
“What sort of people are expected to live in these boarding houses?” they asked.
“We like the community the way it is. We don’t want it getting bigger, we want it to
remain small and safe for our children and stay a small tight knit community.”
Another local asked: “There are so many young families and children in this area, what type of people are moving in?
A neighbour submitted that the development was out of character for the “quiet low-density” area.
Gopala Maurer, president of the Northern Beaches Strategic Community Group, which campaigns against boarding houses, said on Friday that it was “in the wrong location”.
“It’s not close to public transport, it’s in an area of bushland blocks and it’s actually not needed,” Ms Maurer said.
“These boarding house are not what the community wants or what the community actually needs in terms of housing.”
Ms Maurer said that developers who have had boarding houses DAs approved, were now selling the blocks because of a lack of interest.
A spokesman for the developer said there was a huge need for affordable accommodation for essential workers such as nurses and people employed in local aged care facilities.
“Those people who are putting in submissions are just not well informed.
“People should be asking why is there a need for (the boarding house) and do we want to have staff looking after us when we moved into aged care?
“Those staff need accommodation somewhere.”
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