This North Sydney loo would have a world heritage view. Opponents say the idea stinks

A North Sydney Council proposal to build public toilets and a viewing platform near a top spot for photographs of the Sydney Opera House framed by the Harbour Bridge has been criticised as a loo interrupting a UNESCO view.

The site at 1 Henry Lawson Avenue, McMahons Point, on the north side of the harbour has been hotly contested for years.

Joan Street, a resident and secretary of the Lavender Bay precinct group, says she was dumbfounded when the development application was released.Credit: Dylan Coker

After a range of development proposals were knocked back over the past few decades, the land was acquired by the former Liberal state government. It was given to the council to realise the dream of it becoming public open land that would provide contiguous access to the harbour foreshore from McMahons Point to Blues Point.

North Sydney Council has lodged a development application to demolish the old dilapidated boat shed and retain heritage items – critics say that is uncontroversial, though overdue.

But its plan to build new public toilets, along with a public viewing platform and pedestrian boardwalk, has angered locals who point out another block of facilities is a minute’s walk away.

The chair of the Lavender Bay Precinct group of local citizens, Robert Stitt, KC, said the view of the Opera House from McMahons Point should not be visually vandalised this way.

“It is equivalent to placing a public toilet in the foreground of Notre Dame Cathedral,” Stitt said.

Complicating the project is the site’s location within a 2.5-kilometre buffer zone established as part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Opera House to protect views from Bennelong Point and elsewhere around the harbour. Any development within the zone is subject to additional scrutiny.

The council says the project will increase open space, amenity and improve views. The single-storey accessible public toilet facility, covered by a green roof, and a pergola incorporating heritage elements will have a low profile to make them less obtrusive.

The project will be referred to the North Sydney Local Planning Panel for final approval after an independent report by an external assessor is completed. A council spokesperson said the council would conduct further community consultation to “inform the design” before works start.

Demolishing the dilapidated boat shed is not the controversial part of the plan.Credit: Dylan Coker

More than 60 complaints have been lodged opposing the DA. Many say there has been no consultation, and others say it is a waste of money, given that ratepayers will soon be slugged extra to pay for North Sydney Pool’s cost blowout.

Joan Street, a resident and secretary of the Lavender Bay Precinct group, said the expectation was that everything other than the heritage slipways and an old boat cradle would be demolished. “We were dumbfounded when the DA was released.”

Visiting the site, she pointed to the toilets nearby, and said the ferries have facilities. It was a “bit like a loo with a view”.

Emeritus Professor James Weirick from the UNSW’s school of architecture said the community hadn’t been consulted. “Keep it simple” should be the overarching principle for conservation of the highly sensitive site, he said.

Independent heritage reports said the terraces, viewing platforms and boardwalks would be “a much lower scale than typical buildings”.

The council’s spokesperson said the DA was consistent with the requirements of the buffer zone.

In the past two decades, the council sided with heritage groups and residents to defeat development proposals on the same site.

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