Scots College reveals $10m plan to solve parking woes in Bellevue Hill
For years residents in Bellevue Hill have complained about traffic and parked cars from Scots College clogging up their streets. But the school has come up with a $10.6m solution.
Wentworth Courier
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The Scots College has unveiled a $10.6 million plan to help ease the traffic and parking woes of their Bellevue Hill neighbours.
The proposal seeks to create a new pick up/drop off point as well as demolish the tennis courts near Victoria Rd to make way for an 80-space car park.
The tennis courts will then be rebuilt on the car park’s roof.
The plan follows many years of complaints from locals over parking and traffic associated with what is one of Australia’s top schools.
The proposal comes just months after the school’s controversial $29 million new library was approved by a State Government planning commission in August.
In the lead up to the library approval, traffic and parking were raised as reasons to oppose it.
Woollahra Council also said the library project had stoked frustrations among residents that the college was “in breach of a condition of consent regarding student numbers”.
At present although the college has 1520 students it only meets the requirements for 1220.
The college has said the new proposal, which is split into two separate DAs, will ensure the school complies with its 1520 capacity.
The proposal will “better deal with traffic and parking issues associated with the day-to-day operation of the college,” the application states.
The school’s principal Dr Ian Lambert said that over the years residents have raised concerns about parking and traffic.
“The recent DAs have been prepared to address the longer term,” he said.
“The pick-up and drop-off area for the senior campus will aid traffic flow during peak times. “The application for a car park underneath the Macintyre tennis courts increases the number of available carparking bays on college grounds.”
The school is one of the most popular in Australia with a waiting list of many years.
The school is also one of the wealthiest in Sydney, making over $68 million in 2017 according to recent statistics.
“The College recognises that its operations as an educational institution have an impact on local parking and that in the eastern suburbs, the demand for parking is always at a premium,” Dr Lambert added.
The senior school campus at Victoria Rd covers 6.15 hectares of Bellevue Hill.
The planned drop-off/pick-up zones will be adjacent to Ginahgulla Rd and estimated to cost over $500,000.
This includes nine drop-off/pick-up spaces and eight general parking spaces available for parking.
The school has sought to reassure there will be no increase in student numbers as a result of the DAs.
The school has “no plans to increase the student numbers at any of the Bellevue Hill campuses of the College,” the principal said.
“Applications for admission to The Scots College remain strong and the continued depth of the waiting list reflects this interest,” he added.