SUTHERLAND Shire Council fears infants and primary school children could be at risk from convoys of B-double trucks if an early start to work on the Kirrawee brick pit development is approved.
Kirrawee Public School is only a few hundred metres from the site where 750 apartments and a shopping centre are planned for construction.
Development company Payce sought approval from the Planning Assessment Commission to "de-water", remediate and excavate the property while its request for substantial modifications to the concept plan are determined.
This would involve a construction certificate for early works being issued, with the need to meet requirements, including traffic management, deferred.
The council, in a submission last month, asked for the application to be rejected.
While some of the material that would be excavated to create the basements would be used to fill the brick pit and create a park, some would be transported from the site, the council said.
From experience with similar projects, including the Westfield Miranda redevelopment, it submitted that "the effect of these truck movements is widespread".
The council said Princes Highway already suffered from substantial peak-period congestion and there was "no existing practical and safe access to it" from the site.
"One likely route for heavy vehicles carting soil is past an infants/primary school," the submission said.
"B-doubles passing the school during the morning and afternoon drop-off and pick-up times would be unacceptable from a child-safety point of view."
The submission said another likely route was Oak Road, but the intersection at the Princes Highway was too tight for turning trucks and already operated poorly during peak periods.
The developer submitted the early works were ‘‘unlikely to generate a significant volume of construction traffic compared to that which would occur when construction began, by which time the traffic plan would be in place’’.
Being allowed to start work as soon as possible ‘‘represents orderly development’’, the application said. It would bring forward the economic benefits associated with the development, including the creation of jobs and ‘‘the timely delivery of residential accommodation to relieve housing affordability within the area’’.
COUNCIL FIGHTS INCREASES
The council has called for the modified concept plan to be rejected.
Payce, which bought the site for $61million in 2013, is seeking to build seven buildings of up to 15 storeys and increase the gross floor area from 60,735 square metres to 85,000.
Residential floor space would rise from 45,505 square metres to 70,810 square metres, and retail/commercial floor space would decrease from 15,230 square metres to 14,190 square metres.
There would be a total of 750 apartments — 73 percent more than the number originally approved by the Planning Assessment Commission under the Part 3A process.
The council said while the amendments had addressed some site design and amenity matters, it was concerned at the ‘‘significant increase in scale and mass, as well as changes to the open space creates additional problems and uncertainties’’.
‘‘The numerous shortcomings of the development are symptoms of a proposal that has given limited consideration to the history of the development of this site or to its interaction with surrounding development,’’ the submission said.
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