Chester Square shopping centre facelift plans trigger congestion fears
Longstanding plans to upgrade a western Sydney town centre and transform it into a mixed-development with up to 515 homes is now on exhibition, resulting in mixed feelings from the community.
The Express
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Longstanding plans to upgrade Chester Square Shopping Centre and transform it into a mixed-development with up to 515 homes is now on exhibition.
The site currently houses a rundown one-level shopping mall with almost 40 businesses, including a Woolworths.
Major Sydney Developers Holdmark Property Group lodged the 1 Leicester St, Chester Hill plans to the City of Canterbury Bankstown council, stating the centre will contain residential and commercial units which will encourage new area activity.
However, Real Estate employee Tania Stewert who works near the site said the developers needed to sort out what was happening with the already overcrowded roads and parking in the area.
“I think that will be everyone’s major concern because there’s already a lot of over development in the area,” she said.
“It’s a really busy thriving little suburb but it hasn’t got the capacity to take anymore cars on the roads.”
Ms Stewert said she already found it difficult to find a parking space and joked she may have to get a parking permit.
“You already can’t get a park now,” she said.
If approved, the facility will be 60m in height and include 12,400sq m of retail space, 1218sq m of commercial space and 2000sq m of public space.
Visitors of the shopping centre have labelled the mall as “outdated” and “unhygienic” online.
“When I walked in the shopping centre it had that outdated smell as if it hadn’t been maintained or regularly cleaned. The bathrooms are especially so disgusting and smelly I almost threw up,” one wrote on Google reviews.
“This centre is bloody unhygienic. In a time where we’re all about hygiene this centre consistently demonstrates a lack of it,” another note.
However some people took to social media to express their outrage at the plans.
“Ridiculous, it will be the slum of Chester Hill,” a man wrote on Facebook. “I’m definitely against it.”
“That will be the start of ruining our community. We don’t want high rises in the area,” a woman wrote.
Ms Stewert added if the developers fix the road and parking concerns she believed it would benefit the community and would provide a few more lunch options.
The development exhibition period is set to close on August 15.
The council has been contacted for comment.
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