League star retreats from Tigers development

A revised project will go ahead without Ben Elias's backing.

Ben Elias

FORMER Australian rugby league star Ben Elias has walked away from the proposed $100 million-plus Balmain Tigers residential project.

Instead, he will focus on a Toowoomba truck stop development with grand prix motorcycle champion Mick Doohan.

The retreat from the project by the former Balmain Tigers hooker comes as Leichhardt Council lobbies to rezone the land in Sydney's inner west to commercial after strongly objecting to a recently redrafted concept for the site.

Last year, Mr Elias vowed to keep fighting for approval to redevelop the Balmain leagues club site after a $100m-plus proposal for 170 units in three towers was rejected by a NSW government-initiated joint planning panel.

The project was fiercely opposed in the area and the panel rejected the application because of concerns about height, scale and traffic implications.

The project, to be undertaken by a company called Rozelle Village, was initially understood to be backed by Elias, who faced local residents at council meetings in 2008 before the development application was rejected.

Rozelle Village is financially supported by Belle Property managing director Ian Wright. Mr Elias would not comment on whether he was still involved, but Mr Wright said he became involved in the past two years and that now Mr Elias was "not involved in the project at all".

"We are still going through the planning process," Mr Wright said.

Mr Elias said he was focused on developing a 4ha property in Toowoomba with Doohan.

The pair are understood to be planning a hotel, a motel and housing on the land. They had development approval and would find out in the next fortnight when it could start, Mr Elias said. "We haven't even done the costings yet. We have just got the DA, which is very encouraging. It is a very exciting place up there."

Last month, Leichhardt Council said it was considering returning the former Balmain Leagues site to its previous business zoning while special zoning provisions for the site were reviewed.

"This zoning has already been tested through the Joint Regional Planning Panel assessment process and it just hasn't worked," Leichhardt Mayor Rochelle Porteous said.

The council said Rozelle Village had since purchased more land and, in the final days of the Labor government, submitted a bigger-scale DA to the then minister for planning, Tony Kelly, to be determined as under Part 3A of the Planning and Assessment Act. Part 3A gave the planning minister consent authority for major projects of state or regional significance.

However, the Act has since been repealed by the Liberal government and the majority of projects returned to local councils.

Some, including the Rozelle Village application, were given to the Planning Assessment Commission. The new application for the Balmain Tigers site includes two 16-storey towers, 30,000sq m of residential and 20,000sq m of retail.

The council's proposal to rezone the site could only occur should the current DA be rejected by the state government.