Crows Nest Approval Angers North Sydney Council

The New South Wales government has again overruled North Sydney Council, approving planning amendments that will allow a Crows Nest mixed-use tower to rise to 18 storeys—in an area gazetted for maximum heights of 10 metres.

The minister for planning and public spaces wrote to the Sydney North Planning Panel last week, ratifying a decision to allow for the development at 360 Pacific Highway, Crows Nest.

The minister’s delegate, Brendan Metcalfe, said the minister had reviewed the planning panel’s decision of July this year and determined the amendments “should be made without variation”.

The Urban Developer understands the planning changes will be published as soon as next month.

A planning proposal for the $50-million development on the single lot of 1406sq m was first lodged with the council in December 2021 and calls for four levels of basement parking, beneath three levels of retail and commercial across four storeys with 42 two and three-bedroom apartments in 14 upper residential floors.

In June of 2022 the council planners sent a detailed assessment report to the North Sydney Local Planning Panel objecting to “the transition between high and low built form, and insufficient setbacks on the western boundary”.

The panel agreed with the municipality and recommended the planning proposal not be supported to proceed to a gateway determination. A full council meeting that month refused the proposal.

But the developer, Barry Nesbitt’s Bazem Properties, lodged a rezoning review with the department of planning and environment.

In a Finalisation Report last month, the department’s manager of place and infrastructure, Charlene Nelson, recommended the amendments go ahead, saying they had strategic merit consistent with the St Leonards and Crows Nest 2036 Plan, as well as local planning statements and housing strategies.

▲ The 18-storey Nettle Tribe design for Crows Nest. Developers say they have no plans to begin construction, despite the decision.

“The draft LEP (Local Environment Plan) has site-specific merit as the increase to the planning provisions on the site will provide 42 new residential homes and provide employment floorspace close to accessible transport,” Nelson wrote.

The 2036 plan provides a strategic framework to guide future development in the area, (including about 16,500 new jobs and 6680 new homes) and supporting infrastructure within walking distance of St Leonards and Crows Nest stations to 2036.

But last week’s decision by the minister has not gone down well with the council, which has long-been critical of what it perceives as the NSW government turning a deaf ear to its views on development.

“As a council, we have been planning for, meeting and exceeding the various housing targets,” mayor Zoe Baker said.

“And communities will accept all sorts of density, if they have good faith the system will also deliver on a really good built form and some decent public benefits, like contributing to the revision of the open space and or affordable housing.

“But that sort of good planning is undermined when it can just be overridden by a decision of the state government without reference back to the community.”

Despite the decision, Bazem’s Barry Nesbitt said the company had no plans for a start to construction.

“This is just a bit of a long-term hold,” Nesbitt said.

“I think Crows Nest is a very good space to be, this is a nice building as it is,” he said. “But we’re just going to sit back and wait for the moment.” 

Architects Nettleton Tribe are behind the building’s design.