Parramatta: Boarding house planned for 13 Collett Pde
A four-storey boarding house is set to provide “affordable housing’’ to a western Sydney neighbourhood but it has been labelled unsuitable for the area.
Parramatta
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A four-storey boarding house is set to provide affordable housing to Collett Pde at Parramatta but Parramatta Council has deemed it unsuitable and recommends it be refused.
Applicants M Ahal C/- PTI Architecture have lodged plans with the council for a 17-room building including a 17-lot basement carpark at 13 Collett Pde, where a fibro home now stands.
But the council will recommend Parramatta Local Planning Panel refuse the project after it deemed it unsuitable for not being “in harmony with the existing and future desired character of the locality”.
Council papers state that the development application would lead to “an overdevelopment on a constrained, isolated site’’ and also eclipsed the 11m height limit by 2m.
“The proposal in its current form would be visually intrusive on an isolated site when viewed from the public domain,’’ the papers state.
The council also recommends the building height, setbacks and facade should be addressed on the 566sq m site.
The applicant first submitted plans to the council in 2017 for 20 apartments and a two-level basement carpark and withdrew them in March 2019 before resubmitting them with the council in April this year.
Despite the opposition to the development, similar development applications have been given the green light in the same street — including a 58-room, four-storey boarding house at 12-14 Collett Pde where 90 lodgers are due to live.
At 8-10, another four-storey boarding house with 16 rooms has been approved.
At neighbouring 260A Victoria Rd, the Western Sydney University land is subject to rezoning, meaning height limits could soar from three to 18 storeys.
The council paper site would be more suitable for a smaller boarding house to fit in with surrounding properties, including the double-storey public housing home next door.
Last month, the NSW Planning Department released its new Housing Diversity State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPP), which proposes to give councils greater control of where boarding houses are permitted.
Changes to the Affordable Housing SEPP will allow councils to determine whether or not boarding houses can be permitted in low density residential zones.
The panel will meet on Tuesday to discuss the Collett Pde application.