Key Worker, HDA Approvals as Sydney’s New Era Dawns

An end-of-year spate of approvals has signalled that the push to reshape Sydney housing is beginning to bear fruit with key worker and Housing Delivery Authority projects now cleared to begin.

A state-significant project at a former Westconnex dive site on Parramatta Road has been approved for a 21-storey, 220-apartment tower.

The $236-million Landcom building will devote the entirety of its 17,280sq m residential component to key worker housing under a build-to-rent model. The site at 160-186 Parramatta and 79-95 Pyrmont Bridge roads is 2.5km west of the CBD, and 500m from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Named The Joinery by Landcom, the project will allocate a further 866sq m to commercial and retail use for a total floor space of 18,146 square metres. A basement level will hold 53 parking spaces and 240 bicycle spaces.

A new central open space is included in the proposal. Landcom intends further staged development of two more buildings on the site with an eventual yield of 580 homes. It has flagge

d the potential to build more affordable units in later stages if feasible. The first stage will use 5188sq m of the total 10,850sq m available, with a floor space ratio of 3.5:1.

Typologies across the all-electric tower will include 69 studios and 62 one-bedroom units, as well as 81 two-bedroom apartments. A further eight three-bedroom homes will be included in the mix. 

According to the application, the design by DKO includes vertical fins that emulate kookaburra feathers to control solar ingress.

Under the Inner West LEP, the site was formerly zoned for general industrial uses, but a rezoning was completed on December 12, allowing mixed use as well as increased height controls and FSR.

Meanwhile, Develotek has won the laurel of the first project to be approved under the Housing Delivery Authority pathway.

▲ The two-tower Develotek project is the first to be approved under the HDA pathway. There are more than 300 projects in the pipeline.

The two connected towers of seven and eight storeys will yield 106 homes. Designed by Marchese Partners, it has an estimated development cost of $110 million. 

Planned for a 7093sq m site, the project will comprise 17,709sq m of residential and communal space, including 32 units of four or more bedrooms. A 2 per cent affordable housing component will be included.

The site at 3A, 3B, 5A and 7 Burgoyne Street and 1 and 3 Pearson Avenue and 4 Burgoyne Lane is about 15km from the Sydney CBD, in the Ku-ring-gai council area. Within the Gordon TOD zone, the towers will be 200m from the local town centre retail area and within a five-minute walk to Gordon train station.

More than 300 projects have been declared state-significant under the HDA pathway, with 102,000 homes proposed.

The Ku-ring-gai council initially pursued legal action to reject TOD zoning, which would have brought allowed FSR on the Develotek site from down to 0.3:1 from the proposed 2.5:1, but accepted an amended version in November.