Westmead family wins application to build childcare centre at Austral Ave
A Westmead couple was so frustrated by the lack of childcare options in their suburb they decided to develop one in their street of Austral Ave.
Parramatta
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A Westmead couple was so frustrated by the lack of childcare options in their suburb they decided to develop one in their street at Austral Ave.
George and Rhonda Ishac first submitted an application for a double-storey centre for 43 children to Cumberland Council in August.
This month, Cumberland Local Planning Panel approved the project at 22 Austral Ave despite overwhelming objection from residents concerned it will inflame traffic problems caused by nearby Westmead Public School.
The original application has been revised to accommodate 38 children with a 16-space basement carpark.
By the time it is built, the Ishacs’ three-year-old son, Noah, will be in primary school but they said there was a demand for childcare at Westmead after they were forced to send their son to a centre at Rosheill.
“We are not building it for Noah,’’ Mr Ishac said.
“We are building it for what we went through because a lot of other families are going to go through.
“I just think it’s very necessary because of all the influx of units, especially on the Great Western Highway — there’s thousands of units going up.”
The couple, who also has two adult children, run a demolition company and has lived on the street for more than 20 years.
Mrs Ishac said it was stressful to find Noah a childcare centre: “Nowadays you have to go on a waiting list for two or three years and you still don’t get called up.
But the project has not been welcomed by several residents.
Resident Edward Knust lives opposite the proposed childcare centre and said the plans submitted to the council drew 38 submissions and 55 signatures that objected to plans over traffic and noise concerns.
“Well-planned childcare is an asset to the community,’’ Mr Knust said.
“However, we only need to look to the neighbouring Westmead Public School, which now has over 1700 students, as evidence of the unintended but entirely foreseeable consequences of poor planning decisions with huge density, traffic, safety and noise issues affect the children, family and local residents.
“Rather than learning from these planning errors this DA will repeat them in the sole quest for commercial profit of the developer.”
Mr Knust said Austral Ave was a rat run between Bridge and Hawkesbury roads and residents feared parents would drop off their children on the street like they did for dropping off children at Westmead Public School instead of the basement carpark.
He said noise pollution in the report would reach 51 decibels — the “noise of a new Dishlex dishwasher” and there was no way to manage noise.
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“Does anybody seriously believe that the noise omitted by a large number of children in a confined backyard area will not exceed the noise level of a dishwasher?”
Church Ave resident Scott Xu, whose two daughters attended Westmead Public School, said he witnessed a dramatic explosion in its population, which forced parents to park at surrounding streets Austral and Grand avenues.
“In the 10 years that my kids are there, we have witnessed the growth of the school from 400-500 when my oldest daughter started to now … 1700,’’ he said.
“ … the traffic those these streets are really chaotic. Accidents are prone to happen.’’
In delivering the panel’s decision, chairman David Ryan approved the centre on a raft of conditions including the owners must submit an operation management plan to manage noise and traffic, and ensure parking is only in the basement.
Mr Ishac said he revised plans to ensure parking was in the basement.
“We were trying to minimise the impact on the street,’’ he said.
“This street is one of the nicest in Westmead and there’s quite a lot of cars that use this as a thoroughfare but it’s not too bad.”