Council agrees to business zoning

Gosford Council has agreed to business zoning for a beachfront restaurant at Umina, after previously having proposed it be zoned residential.

The restaurant would have been able to continue operating in a residential zone under "existing use rights".

The council has agreed to zone the property, at 345 Trafalgar Ave, B1 Neighbourhood Centre after it received a submission from the owner.

The council was told a development application was refused for the site that proposed to have a height of 9.6 metres (three storeys with basement car park) and floor space ratio of 1.23:1.

The proposed rezoning to residential R2 was recommended in the draft Gosford Centres Strategy, based on its distance from the Umina town centre, and its smaller scale than other "local nodes".

A staff report to council stated that the draft LEP 2009 was now primarily being regarded as a "conversion" planning scheme.

The report stated that, as such, it was reasonable to zone the land to B1 with an associated height of 8.5 metre and FSR of 0.75 consistent with other B1 zoned lands.

The report said that this wais consistent with the approach taken to other pockets of business zoned land where proximate to centres.

Given the distance to Umina Centre and sensitive beach front location, a higher order B zone would not be appropriate, according to the report.

The new zoning was adopted as part of the adoption of Gosford's new Local Environment Plan on May 31.

Council Agenda ENV.34, 31 May 2011