Court Win Paves Way for 25-Storey Blacktown Tower

A 25-storey Blacktown tower has been approved after a Land and Environment Court hearing and an overhaul of the design.

The shoptop residential tower now approved for 2-6 First Avenue will comprise 200 apartments in a mix of one, two and three-bedroom units.

It will have five levels of basement carparking plus rooftop areas as well as ground-level retail and commercial premises totalling 499 square metres.

The applicants are listed as 2-6 First Avenue Blacktown Pty Ltd, a venture between First Equity Partners and Robert Chiha of ChihaCorp, a family-run Australian construction company workign for the investors.

The original development application was lodged with Blacktown City Council in August 2021.

It was refused at the end of 2022 but an appeal to the Land and Environment Court heard last week, in which developers and the council compromised and an amended development application was submitted, was successful.

“We bought it with a DA at 57m and that was mainly one bedders. The idea was to go for 80m and extract some more value out of the land,” First Equity director Christopher H Bregenhoj said. 

“Then Covid came, and of course everything seemed to slow down in council and elsewhere, and so there was a lot of uncertainty at the time.”

The initial refusals by the council stemmed from a focus on Design Excellence, particularly in buildings of this size.

“The council kept coming back and saying it’s not what we need for an 80m building,” Bregenhoj told The Urban Developer.

“In the meantime, the council had tabled excellence in architecture planning advice which was really about raising the game in Blacktown, so I applaud them for that. 

“But in August last year, we decided the only hope was to go through a section 34 [at the Land and Environment Court], to find out exactly what they wanted.”

▲ A render of the tower now poised to rise on the Blacktown site.

Bringing in designers at Dickson Rothschild helped rework the plans. 

“We were trying to build within the existing planned envelope and this constrained what we were doing—and we came to a realisation that the council wanted a lot more at a different standard for Blacktown,” Bregenhoj said.

“From there, Dickson Rothschild came back with a whole new design and layout, and a much better plan from the original envelope.

“We went through, line by line, what they required and you have to come up with answers and expert reports to accommodate that, which we did.” 

The court ruled that it was “satisfied that the amended application delivers high standards of architectural and urban design” and granted consent. 

After major safety and structural issues at developments such as Opal Towers, Sydney councils are becoming more focused on quality and design excellence, which is something developers need to be remeber, Bregenhoj said.

“There’s a perception that Blacktown is more about entry-level apartments but council are clearly trying to lift their game.” 

In the same area, Walker Corporation has recently signed a $2-billion deal with the Blacktown council to revitalise the city centre.

Despite the challenging process to get the development application approved, Bregenhoj said that it was worth investing in a Sydney suburb like Blacktown, which is 34km west of the CBD.

“Presales in places like these are not a problem, you can sell these priced properly overnight, although sometimes it’s not in your interests to presell now if prices are going up in the future [and you already have funding].

“Right now, we’re doing our own costing of whether we sell with a DA or build it ourselves. 

“The building will warrant a quality finish. It’s a great building, and properly built it will be an asset to the community.”