Build-to-Rent Added to Liverpool Civic Place

In the latest in a series of residential add-ons to existing projects, Built Development Group has proposed up to 350 build-to-rent units for its approved Liverpool Civic Place project. 

The masterplan for the precinct was approved in 2020, its first stage topped out in mid-2023 and the $350-million second stage of the development was given the green light in 2022.

Now, however, Built is making some major changes to the latest stage of the development at 52 Scott Street, previously geared towards commercial uses. 

Built is applying to modify the concept development application to allow for up to 350 new units. 

It is asking to allow for residential flat buildings and shoptop housing uses to be permitted in an extended Phase B building envelope.

Phase B had originally included a 22-storey office building and a nine-storey hotel building, the consent for which has not been activated by Built. 

However, since the granting of the concept development consent, “there has been a change in market conditions including a reduced appetite for commercial, boarding house, hotel and educational establishment uses, which has coincided with Sydney’s ongoing and worsening housing crisis,” Built said. 

▲ The new build-to-rent residential element will neighbour Built’s Phase A project, which accommodates local government offices, a new library and plaza.

The plans expand the original building envelopes to 27-storeys to make way for the build-to-rent residential element, designed by Scott Carver Architects.

It will deliver 25,046sq m of residential gross floor area, and 314 of retail GFA.

The Liverpool area is predicted to have an undersupply of 7774 homes by 2036, with many existing homes (73 per cent) constituting low-density homes rather than apartments. 

Sydney itself has also been ranked as the second-least-affordable major city out of 92 cities, and Built argued that high-density residential housing has the potential to “breach the accessibility and affordability concerns surrounding sprawling low-density development”.

The site is 300m from Liverpool Railway Station and close to Liverpool Hospital, Westfield Liverpool and a Western Sydney University campus.

The future residential development will be the subject of a separate and subsequent detailed DA.