Brookvale: Proposed 68-unit apartment block will add to suburb’s 15-year improvement plan

Plans have been revealed for one of the first proposed new “shop-top” apartment blocks that will help transform the heart of a tired and dated Sydney suburb. See the pictures here.

An artist's impression of the proposed 68-unit shop-top apartment block at 638 Pittwater Rd, Brookvale. Picture: Supplied

Details of one of the first proposed new “shop-top” apartment blocks that will help transform the heart of tired and dated Brookvale have been revealed.

Developers are seeking planning permission to build the $22m, 4-storey building, with 68 units on what is now a rundown vacant block on Pittwater Rd, near the public bus depot.

In 2020 a development application to redevelop what was once the site of a St Vincent de Paul shop and warehouse was approved, allowing for a three-storey unit block with 48 units and three retail or commercial outlets on the ground floor.

Another DA has now been lodged by a developer based in Strathfield, seeking to add a fourth storey, with another 20 units, to the building that would be located on the edge of one of Brookvale’s industrial zones.

In November 2023, Northern Beaches Council approved its Brookvale Structure Plan that it will use to guide development in the suburb for the next 15 years.

An artist's impression of the original 3-storey proposed version of the apartment block at 638 Pittwater Rd, Brookvale. Picture: Supplied

It means the council can allow 1350 new homes in the suburb in apartment buildings up to eight storeys.

Apartment blocks up to 15 storeys apartment blocks could also go up near a new town square, near Warringah Mall and the B-line bus stop.

The building at 638 Pittwater Rd, Brookvale, that was demolished to make way for the proposed 4-storey apartment block. Picture: Supplied

The structure plan allows for the suburb to have two industrial areas, east and west of Pittwater Rd, with businesses allowed to increase to four storeys.

A Pittwater Rd zone would have new mixed use buildings up to eight storeys with the eastern side of the road to “provide an opportunity to establish a new creative hub where creators, makers and entrepreneurs set up shop and share space, skills and ideas, and display their wares”.

Nearby Roger St would also be transformed, but keep its “light industrial identity” with buildings between seven and eight storeys.

It would support a “broader range of working spaces, such as . . artisanal food and drink producers and small-scale retail”.

The location of a proposed 4-storey, 68-unit, shop top apartment block at the corner of Pittwater and Orchard roads, near the Brookvale bus depot. Picture: Google Maps

An artist's impression of what Brookvale could look like under Northern Beaches Council's proposed Brookvale Structure Plan. Picture: Northern Beaches Council

An artist's impression, contained in Northern Beaches Council's Brookvale Structure Plan, of a "pop up event" in the Winbourne Road car park. Picture: Northern Beaches Council

In a statement of environmental effects lodged with the DA, the developer’s planning consultant argued that using the vacant block at 638 Pittwater Rd for shop top housing was “entirely consistent within anticipated development on the land following the adoption of the Brookvale Structure Plan (BSP)”.

“The construction of a four-storey building on this prominent corner site is considered to

represent a better planning and urban design outcome having regard to the BSP and the

heights anticipated to emerge through the future development of the Brookvale precinct.”

Submissions can still me made until July 9.