JWLand Tries Again with 582-Apartment Masterplan in ACT

Plans for a substantial residential development put forward by JWLand have been renotified after ACT planning authorities rejected it.

Filed back in 2022, the proposal comprised 582 apartments across six buildings at Braddon.

A hotel and food and drink premises were also included in the plans.

However, the Braddon Place project has faced a difficult journey and was rejected this year by the ACT planning authorities, which said it was not consistent with the National Capital Plan. 

The authority said it included bedrooms without windows, “snorkel”-style windows—a window in an external wall provides light via a long corridor—and wanted a wider variety of apartment types, commenting that just 0.5 per cent of those proposed were of three bedrooms.

Previous plans included a 239-room hotel and 602 units above two levels of basement parking.

The new plans that went on exhibition this week cut the residential component to 582 homes and the hotel to 100 rooms. Amenities including a wellness centre, co-working space, cinema, sauna and wine cellar were added. 

This would allow a greater diversity of typologies—36 studios, 264 one, 221 two and 61 three-bedroom apartments.

▲ JWLand has more than 510 units under construction—the Braddon Place project would increase its pipeline considerably.

It has also increased parking spaces by nearly 200 lots to 1083, removed “borrowed light” and snorkel windows from the plans so that all National Capital Plan requirements are met.

The inner northern suburb of Braddon is primarily medium-density residential and the new precinct would include buildings up to nine storeys. 

The exhibition of the plans until June 24 marks the next step in the provision of much-needed housing for the National capital on the back of Canberra’s annual 8 per cent population growth that is showing no signs of slowing.

And with the capital attracting new universities such as UNSW’s new Canberra Campus, the city will also need to support its growing student population.