Shoalhaven City Council votes against Berry Hotel expansion

A regional council has unanimously rejected hotel expansion plans following significant community backlash, but a state planning panel will have the final say on the controversial proposal.

An artist’s impression of the $10.5 million Berry Hotel expansion plans.

A regional council has rejected multimillion-dollar plans to expand a historic south coast hotel in the wake of major community backlash, but a state planning panel is set to decide the controversial proposal’s fate.

On Monday evening, Shoalhaven City Council voted unanimously against the proposed $10.5m expansions to The Berry Hotel, which has stood on Queen St, Berry, since 1863.

Documents from the meeting suggest the decision arose as the council believed The Berry Hotel owners, The Feros Group, did not adequately address a number of planning controls in the development application.

These included heritage conservation, building height, carparking allocation and adverse impact on the surrounding location.

The plans involved construction of 33 new hotel rooms, associated parking lots, a rooftop pool and landscaping.

The Berry Hotel, on the NSW south coast. Picture: Instagram

But there was major community backlash, with 315 submissions made against the proposal to expand the hotel on Queen St in Berry, which is north of Nowra.

Berry and District Historical Society president Margaret Cullity made one of the submissions against the project, noting The Berry Hotel was located in the most historically sensitive part of the town.

An artist’s impression of the $10.5 million Berry Hotel expansion plans.

She suggested her community group was concerned the scale and form of the proposal was not sympathetic to Berry’s historic streetscape and would visually dominate the “important heritage buildings which stand at the entry to the Berry Town Centre Heritage Conservation Area”.

“In particular, the Berry Museum, a state heritage-listed building, is directly opposite the hotel and will be negatively impacted by the proposal,” she said.

“[The society] would welcome sensitive renovation of the hotel to enhance this much-loved facility and make it a more usable public meeting place for residents and visitors, but renovations need to respect the cultural value of all four significant buildings and be of an appropriate scale and form.”

Berry Forum spokesman Ben Miller, who is also a senior town planner at Barker Ryan Stewart, agreed with Ms Cullity’s argument, noting plans were not clear on certain aspects, such as how parking was to be completed.

“The submitted architectural plans confirm the building will accommodate 33 rooms, with the existing 10 accommodation rooms in the pub to be repurposed as eight offices, storage, reception and staffroom facilities,” he said.

“Given the pub operation is unlikely to create the demand for use of eight offices and some of these offices are likely to be used by others in a fashion that would not be ancillary to the pub, the plans greatly underestimate the requirement for parking.”

The Berry Hotel expansion plans include new accommodation, a rooftop pool, parking and landscaping.

Despite concern from Berry residents, project plans state there would be no physical works completed to the existing building, which has historical significance in the coastal village of 2400 people.

However, this did not stop the council from voting against the proposal at its ordinary meeting on Monday evening.

The local government body has recommended the NSW Regional Planning Panel – which will have the final say given the project’s significant price tag – reject the expansion.

The NSW Regional Planning Panel met with community members and The Feros Group on Wednesday evening for their pre-determination meeting.

Berry Forum member Stewart Copeland spoke on behalf of the community group, reaffirming their distaste for the development, labelling the project as “unjustified”.

“This project would overdevelop the site and would be detrimental to the public interest,” he said.

However, The Feros Group spokesman said the team were working on amendments to the plan, should it be rejected by the NSW Regional Planning Panel.

The state government body will release its determination online within the next seven days.

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