Malaysians Greenlit for Macquarie Park Tower

Malaysia-listed Eco World International has won approval for a 16-storey, 123-apartment tower in Sydney’s north-west suburbs.

The Sydney North Planning Panel agreed with Ryde City Council that a small breach of the 45m maximum building height could be tolerated, allowing for the $61 million development to move ahead.

It’s the third Australian project for the Malaysian developer, after the 40-storey West Village residential tower in Parramatta and the recently completed Fender Katsalidis-designed Yarra One, in Melbourne’s inner south-east.

Eco World’s latest Australian venture—at 1-3 Lachlan Avenue—backs on to Frasers Property’s Midtown MacPark, which was fast-tracked by the NSW government early in the pandemic.

Lured by the proximity to Macquarie University, a major business park, a regional hospital, a refurbished train station and the nearby overhauled shopping centre, Eco World acquired the 2750sq m site for a reported $40 million towards the end of 2017.

A vacant three-storey walk-up residential building will be demolished to make way for the new development.

Of the 123 apartments, there will be 100 single-level apartments, eight dual-level townhouses and 15 dual-level villa-style apartments. The homes will be a mix of one, two and three bedrooms.

The plans call for carparking for 105 residents on basement and mezzanine levels. About 850sq m will be given over to communal open space, including a courtyard, rooftop area and outdoor gymnasium.

At 47.83m high, the building is slightly less than three metres above the allowable height.

Ryde City Council agreed with the developer that strict compliance with the development standard was both unreasonable and unnecessary.

“In this case assessment of this request concludes that the application offers an improved outcome as it delivers a usable rooftop area which features communal open space and associated landscaping,” the council said in a letter to the planning panel.

Eco World first applied to develop the site 15km north-west of downtown Sydney in June 2021. Ryde told the planning panel the developer had amended architectural plans at least four times throughout last year.

Many of those changes were in response to 24 submissions that were lodged during a public exhibition.

The issues raised included site isolation, overshading, overdevelopment, non-compliance, as well as construction impact from noise and dust.

▲ The Macquarie Park residential development will be the third Australian project for the Malaysian listed company.

In supporting the proposal, architects Bureau SRH said the project site was in an area that was transitioning from low-to-medium scale development into large scale tower type development.

“This can be identified by three-to-four storey residential buildings along Lachlan Avenue and tower-style new development along Herring Road,” the architects wrote.

Eco World International is a real estate developer listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange but whose core business involves property development outside the country.

It launched its first project in 2015 and now has 18 ongoing and upcoming projects in the UK and Australia.