ApartmentsHarrison CaithnessWed 02 Sep 26
Vinnies Reveals 165-Home Precinct for Sydney’s Lavender Bay
The St Vincent de Paul Society’s Community Housing Provider arm has filed plans for 165-home project around a 19th century heritage-listed church site on Sydney’s North Shore.
Proposed is a 20-storey tower on a three-storey podium that would comprise 88 market and 19 affordable apartments above two ground floor retail tenancies at Lavender Bay.
Adaptive reuse of a heritage school building next to St Francis Xavier Catholic Church would bring the project’s affordable housing to 77 units with a seven-storey, 58-unit co-living extension.
A five-storey basement beneath the main tower would provide 118 car spaces.
Almost half the homes on the site at 1-19 MacKenzie Street and 211 Blue Points Road would be affordable.
The 5992sq m site on Cammeraygal land is next to the North Sydney Station and less than 500m from the Victoria Cross Metro Station.
A concurrent rezoning proposal has been filed seeking to change the land’s designation from religious use and mid-to-high density to site-wide high-density use.
A six-fold height limit increase from 12m and 8.5m to about 73m has also been proposed.
The 1881-built Gothic sandstone church on the site would be conserved and upgraded for continued use as a place of worship.
All up, the HDA-approved project is expected to cost more than $288 million.
The precinct surrounding the North Sydney Station would be linked by a new church square to Blue Street Plaza and the station.
St Vincent de Paul Society Housing Australia provides about 1500 rent affordable homes nationally for about 2500 people.
Vinnies, as it is popularly known, is an international volunteer organisation of the Catholic Church with 650 op shops across Australia.
About 200m south-east of the church’s site at 64-66 Lavender Street and 3-7 Middlemiss Street, developer Central Element is planning 160 apartments across two towers of 32 and 23 storeys, while about 750m away in the North Sydney CBD, Freecity’s 51-storey, $1.5 billion hotel and residential tower has been approved.
And 200m further north again, student accommodation provider IGLU paid $87 million for a 24-storey maximum site at Victoria Cross Metro station in August.
