Revised Broken Bay Rd plans placed on exhibition
Revised plans for a three-unit multi-dwelling development at 121 Broken Bay Rd, Ettalong, have been placed on exhibition for public comment.
The application was originally lodged in November 2022 and exhibited over the Christmas break from late December 2022 to early January 2023.
It received a large number of adverse submissions.
These included comments about vague and unsatisfactory detail about the fate of existing trees, especially street trees.
They claimed inadequate setbacks, undersized private open space areas, insufficient solar access and overshadowing of neighbouring open space.
Submissions also complained about the lack of shadow diagrams and landscaping plan.
In response to a "request for further information" from the council, the applicant has submitted amended drawings, consisting of plans and elevations, landscape plan and hourly shadow diagrams, a revised Basix certificate and a revised stormwater plan.
The new landscaping plan proposes a total of seven trees to be planted on site.
These to consist of three tuckeroos, three Chinese elms and one coastal banksia.
It is also proposed to plant three white cedars on the road reserve.
The position for one of these appears to coincide with an existing street tree.
The landscaping plan does not explicitly advise which, if any, existing trees are to be removed.
It merely contains the note: "Existing trees greater than eight metres in height within three metres of the proposed building or any trees within proposed driveway to be removed by owner prior to construction."
There is also a document listing all the amendments that the applicant has made to satisfy the Council request for information.
The changes are not minor.
For instance, the number of garages separating Units 3 and 2 has been reduced from four to two.
This has saved about six metres which has been used to bolster the rear setback and thus private open space for all units.
The original application specified six off-street car parks to meet requirements.
However, the proposal now only appears to include off street parking for five cars including one visitor's car park.
The document, prepared by MHM Construction Group, states: "The required number of car parking spaces have been provided for residents and visitors as supported by the Traffic report prepared by Terrafic Pty Ltd dated 16.11.2023.
"We note that there is also opportunity for additional stacked parking spaces in front of garages, which is in addition to the parking spaces required."
The traffic report itself has not been included in the exhibited documents.
The overshadowing response states: "Plans have been updated to increase the side setback towards the southern boundary to reduce the shadow impact on the dwelling to the south of the subject site."
The response also indicates that all units will now have private open space that is compliant in all respects and that side and rear setbacks will now be compliant, as will setbacks to the garages (5.5m).
The front setback, however, has been reduced from six metres in the original drawings to 4.5 metres.
The front setback is required to be a minimum of the average setback of adjoining property and street properties within 40m or 4.5 metres if there are no adjoining properties within 40 metres.
The calculated average front setback has not been provided in the exhibited documents.
The response states: "Area calculations are included in the set of plans on DA700 and DA701 to demonstrate compliance with the controls."
However these plans have not been exhibited and no figure for the new gross floor area appears to have been provided to verify compliance with the required floor space ratio of 0.5:1.
Finally the response document states: "The fencing has been adjusted as requested and opens up the streetscape."
DA/2041/2022 is open for written submissions from the public until March 15.
SOURCE:
DA tracker, 2 Mar 2024
DA/2041/2022, Central Coast Council