Frenchs Forest Town Centre: Plans revealed for mega-unit blocks in new precinct
Plans have been revealed showing the first big ticket apartment developments that will make up part of a new town centre on the northern beaches. See the artist’s impressions.
Manly
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Details of plans for some of the first big ticket residential redevelopments around the future new Frenchs Forest Town Centre have been revealed.
They include a massive $67 million proposal to build 127 apartments — across three 6-storey blocks — opposite Northern Beaches Hospital.
The development will take over four existing single housing lots on the corner of Frenchs Forest Rd West and Gladys Ave, according to documents lodged with a development application to Northern Beaches Council.
Just 150m away, at the intersection of Wakehurst parkway and Frenchs Forest Rd, an $18m 6-storey block with 40 units is proposed.
And a DA is before the council for a $12m development that includes 28 units in a 4-storey block, just around the corner in Gladys Ave.
There is already approval for a 55-room affordable housing development in Gladys Ave, aimed at offering accommodation to hospital staff, as well as permission for a seniors living complex in the same street.
The DAs come two and a half years after the NSW Government gave planning permission to create the new Frenchs Forest Town Centre based around the site of the current The Forest High School.
It means that as well as a new commercial strip just west of the Northern Beaches Hospital, the town centre will have apartment blocks up to 12 storeys high.
The town centres, part of the “Frenchs Forest Place Strategy 2041”, which includes 5360 new homes, was given the government’s planning tick of approval just before Christmas 2021.
It is the first phase of a three-stage redevelopment — designed to incorporate the Northern Beaches Hospital precinct into the suburb — to be rolled out over the next 20 years.
As part of phase one there will be 1000 new medium and high density dwellings in the town centre and another 1000 homes in nearby residential areas.
The town centre is about 12 hectares in area, incorporating The Forest High School, Northern Beaches Hospital as well as land to the north of Frenchs Forest Road West — the area that includes the new apartment block DAs — and land south of Warringah Rd.
The high school will be demolished. A new high school is now under construction at nearby Allambie Heights. About 1.5 hectares of new public open space, including a 1665sq m plaza, will be created and the council will upgrade three local parks – Brick Pit, Akora and Rabbett reserves.
DA documents for the 127-unit redevelopment show that it will include nine apartments set aside for community public housing and 21 for affordable housing for key workers.
In the Statement of Environmental Effects, lodged with the DA, a planning consultant wrote that it included “three buildings of exceptional design quality which respond to the irregular shape of the site and the site topography”.
The DA is on public exhibition for submissions until June 10.
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