Gymea Bay residents protest at backyard privacy loss in draft Development Control Plan

Gymea Bay couple Scott and Shirley Phillips have a message for other Sutherland Shire residents.

“This could happen to anyone,” Mr Phillips said as they looked over the block next door to their home where a line of town houses will soon replace an old cottage.

The development, which also affects several neighbours, including Graeme and Judy Doble, has become the focal point of growing protests over changes in Sutherland Shire Council’s draft Development Control Plan (DCP) and further proposed amendments.

In the draft DCP, which the council is already using to assess development applications, town houses can extend right down a block.

Previously, they would have been much more restricted by floor space ratio requirements.

Proposed further amendments would allow the top level of two storey single dwellings and dual occupancies to also extend right down a block.

The impact the townhouse development will have on privacy in the backyard of the Phillips’ home in Arcadia Avenue will be enormous.

Windows of the back town houses will look directly over the Phillips’s backyard and swimming pool.

“We have three daughters, who won’t be able to sunbake around the pool in future,” Mr Phillips said.

“They told us that trees would be planted along the boundary to provide privacy, but they will take six to eight years to grow.”

Graeme Doble, who initiated a new Facebook page, Overdevelopment in the Sutherland Shire, said he and his wife moved from the waterfront to an area which was better for their grandchildren.

“We are not against reasonable development, but this development is totally out of character in the area,” he said.

In a Facebook post, Mr Doble wrote, “To all those that care, we need support, and we need to let everyone know that this can happen next door to you.

“There seems to be a common thread right across the shire, from Heathcote to Oyster Bay to Kirrawee, Gymea, Miranda, Caringbah to Cronulla.

“Council is favouring developers over the local residents [who] have either lived here for years or that have chosen to reside here.”

Mr Doble said, “If this council cannot deliver what the residents deserve, perhaps it’s time for a change come election time in September”.

Mayor Carmelo Pesce said the development was “an unusual case”, and residents should have taken their concerns to elected councillors and not just council staff.

“Had they done that, I believe there would have been a different outcome,” he said.

Cr Pesce said approval was given before it could be reviewed.