A concept master plan for the former Caringbah High School site provides for the staged development of 17 residential flat buildings ranging in height from five to nine stories.
There would be 656 units and 1181 basement car parking spaces in the development, named Highfield – the original name for the suburb.
Caringbah Bowling Club is included in the development, with three greens to be relocated and a new clubhouse incorporated into one of the buildings.
The master plan and a development application for stage one, valued at $33.6 million, was lodged with Sutherland Shire Council this week.
Stage one, at the southern end of the site in Willarong Road, includes three buildings consisting of 143 dwellings and part of an internal road network.
Two of the buildings would be nine storeys and the other five storeys.
They would provide 35 one bedroom, 100 two bedroom and eight three bedroom apartments.
A statement of environmental effects said the master plan was intended to set out the building parameters for future DAs for individual buildings.
It said the development would create an “inter-connected community”, with buildings located around a 600 square metre “civic heart” – a public gathering area, which would be subject of a future public domain plan.
Thirty five per cent of the site would be landscaped common area, the document said.
The 29.7 hectare site was earmarked for housing when the Education Department sold it as surplus land for about $20 million in 2012.
The proceeds paid for Caringbah High School, which had been spread over two sites several hundred metres apart, to be consolidated and upgraded.
New buildings were constructed and existing facilities improved.
Streets around the site were also zoned for high rise in the shire’s 2015 Local Environmental Plan.
John Hedison and Steven Rice, who live in the area, said they were not opposed to new housing, but were concerned about traffic and parking effects.
“The extra load on roads will be enormous,” Mr Hedison said.
Mr Rice said, “It’s not just the school site, but the surrounding streets, which will also have high rise”.
A consultant’s traffic and parking impact assessment, included in the DA, projected that when the former school land was fully developed, there would be 126 trips an hour in peak periods to and from the apartment blocks.
The report said stage one of the project would generate up to 28 vehicle trips an hour in the peak..
It said “the immediately adjoining local road network currently operates with a good level of service during peak periods” and was capable of accommodating the extra traffic.
“Having regard to the above, we do not consider that there are any traffic related issued that should prevent council’s approval of the subject DA.”
