Under newly lodged plans, a former pub site in the Sydney suburb of Heathcote will be redeveloped into apartments.
The project in Sutherland Shire is taking advantage of affordable infill housing policy changes, introduced last year by the NSW Government.
While the infill housing reforms may not be a silver bullet, they have certainly encouraged expanded development, and the Heathcote project has made use of bonuses that allow expanded projects if they have at least 10-15 per cent of gross floor area allocated to affordable housing.
The proposals for 1 Veno Street, about a 50-minute drive south-west of the CBD, consist of 168 apartments of which 25 will be affordable, although a housing provider is yet to be secured.
While the current Heathcote Hotel will be demolished to make way for the new development, the project includes a retail tenancy and a ‘cold shell’ commercial tenancy for a future pub, over which the residential building will sit.
There is not currently an operator for the pub, so the proposed development does not yet seek consent for a hotel/pub use on the ground floor site.
The 7245sq m site has street frontages to Veno Street, Strickland Street and Princes Highway, and is 200m from Heathcote railway station.
The project has been in the works for a number of years, before Dickson Rothschild were brought on as architects on behalf of DK Heathcote Pty Ltd, the sole director of which is listed as Morgan Talbot.
If approved, construction will be staged with the first six-storey building constructed in Stage 1 consisting of 60 apartments with communal open space at level five.
Stage 2 will deliver the new pub and 108 apartments across two buildings.
Of the units, 50 will be one bedroom, another 77 will offer two bedrooms and 41 will contain three bedrooms.
The Sutherland Shire local government area (LGA) population is forecast to increase from 238,255 in 2024 to 251,531 in 2036, according to the development application, and is thus in dire need of housing.
The development would “make a positive contribution to housing affordability and diversity in the LGA”, it said.
The developer was planning to support student and key-worker accommodation at the site, it said, given the Heathcote location which has good public transport accessibility.
While development in Sutherland Shire has come in fits and starts, centred historically around suburbs such as Cronulla, which lean towards the ultra-luxe apartment market.
However, major developers have been turning their attention to the LGA, with Landmark announcing plans for a 242-apartment project across eight buildings in the suburb of Caringbah last year.
