More than 40 residents turned out last Saturday to voice their opposition to a development proposal for a boarding house at 14 English Street, Kogarah.
The $5 million project is for a 40-room, seven-storey boarding house with basement parking for nine car spaces.
The proposal will bring social benefits to the locality through providing affordable accommodation, according to the development application’s accompanying Statement of Environmental Effects. Submissions closed July 6.
The protest meeting was attended by Kogarah MP Chris Minns and Georges River Council mayor Kevin Greene who listened to residents’ discontent with the development.
Residents' concerns: An artist's impression of the seven-storey boarding house proposed for 14 English Street, Kogarah.
Residents said the seven-storey boarding house will be situated on a smaller than normal-sized house block.
“Neighbours living two doors away were not informed about the proposal,” resident Suzanne O’Connor said.
“And with a building of such size and density the whole neighbourhood will be dramatically affected.
“There was general agreement about the total unsuitability of this building. It is very large, with no setbacks and no garden to soften its appearance. It is exceedingly ugly with no sympathy at all for the character of English Street which contains many heritage houses.
“The apartments already built in the street are attractive and well set back with large trees and big gardens. This is like a Lego House, just a block of boxes.
“With 40 rooms there could be as many as eighty people living there and parking for only nine cars.
“English Street has nowhere to have additional cars parked.
“The basic consensus was that it was too big, too dense, too unsympathetic and no one living in English Street and surrounds wants it,” she said.
Georges River Council currently has three boarding house applications pending which, if approved, will bring 100 new boarding rooms into the Kogarah central business district.
Another application is for a $3.27 million, four to five-storey, 16-room boarding house on a 278sqm site at the corner of Regent Street and Premier Street, in the Kogarah town centre.
The council has also received a development application for a proposed six-storey boarding house to accommodate 68 people in 44 rooms at 3 Gray Street, Kogarah with a value of $3.677 million.
A $4.3 million, five-storey, 43-room boarding house which will accommodate 77 people at 69 Gray Street, Kogarah was recently approved by the Local Planning Panel.
