I moved to a property in Glencoe Rd Katoomba in 2020. I did so because of the peace and quiet, the surrounding bushland and the prettiness of the area.Since being here I have been amazed and delighted at the bird life-king parrots, rosellas-crimson and eastern,magpies, currawongs,butcher birds,a family of bower birds with bower in the bush next door, white and black cockatoos,kookaburras, and once, two young lyre birds at the back door.
The proposed development would utterly destroy the serenity of the place. All the birds would leave, there will be noise and disruption all the time. Glencoe Road is a one car width road, utterly unable to cope with traffic increases.Narrow Neck Road is also fairly narrow, and in a time of bushfire it would be a chaotic scene with traffic management. Any additional population will make extreme demands on the management of traffic all the time, let alone during a bushfire emergency. There were fires burning on the western slope of the Narrow Neck ridge in December 2019, and only the wind direction kept the fire from sweeping over the road.This bushfire risk will not go away.
There is in addition the slope of the land, which alone should make large building on this site prohibited The slope also determines the amount and velocity of run off water, currently a slow speed . Water running quickly off large areas of hard surface will adversely impact the ecology and water systems of the land of the golf course below.
The site prop0sed for this large development is 20 minutes by bus and 5 minutes by car from the Katoomba town centre, in an area of quiet bushland and low development.It is entirely inappropriate and I am very opposed to it on the grounds outlined above.

This project is a grotesque overdevelopment of a site isolated from public transport, shops, and other community facilities. It is completely out of scale with residential development in the upper Blue Mountains. If the proposal were on a site within easy walking distance of Katoomba railway station I would be less concerned.

I have no objection to this development .

As a resident of Katoomba for over 35 years working as a documentary maker and bush regenerator I've come to love the Blue Mountains for its sheer beauty, but I've also become increasingly aware of its vulnerability to inappropriate developments. I'm opposed to the Narrow Neck development (SSD-86456706) for the following reasons:

ENVIRONMENTAL: A development of this size and scale is likely to cause pollution problems with run off damaging the fragile eco systems nearby. Only recently one of the most popular walking tracks in the Blue Mountains - Prince Henry's, near The Three Sisters - had to be closed to walkers after the land immediately above collapsed across the track. It's widely believed that this slippage was caused by an inappropriate development - a house constructed above a steep slope immediately above the walking track.

BUSH FIRE DANGERS: I know from personal experience the danger of bushfires in the Blue Mountains as our home - under two kilometres from the proposed Narrow Neck development - was nearly burned down twice in the last 30 years- only saved by the speedy response of local firefighters. On the second occasion when my wife was rescued from our house the flames were only 15 meters from our front door. Our house is on top of a steep hill. As we know all too well bushfires have a tendency to race up slopes.
Evacuating one person proved simple - and life saving - but how would the potential evacuation of more than 250 people on the proposed Narrow Neck site be handled? This is one of the most bush fire prone landscapes in Australia - how exactly will the threat from wildfire embers be assessed in relation to the eight buildings proposed?

NATURAL BEAUTY: Each year millions of people visit the Blue Mountains world heritage listed national park to enjoy its stunning natural beauty. There were compelling reasons why it was awarded world heritage listing at the dawn of the new century. It's clear that many of the park's millions of visitors are here to escape suburbia, to relax in the natural world, and the numbers are growing as ABC NEWS recently reported: "NSW National Parks hit record high with more young people heading outdoors - data shows (19.4.26)" Significantly Blue Mountains topped the list of most visited parks. As Minister for the Environment Penny Sharpe says: "The amount of people in the 18-24 age group has jumped from 19 to 26%. Younger people are looking for something more scenic".
One thing is certain - visitors are not looking for more suburbia on the scale and intensity proposed on Narrow Neck Road. In deed I believe this type of development will detract from Katoomba's tourism appeal.

THE HOUSING CRISIS: It's true that the housing crisis is affecting Katoomba the same as everywhere else. Young people especially desperately need affordable accommodation. However I don 't believe this development would help those most in need. While I don't know what the individual accommodation in the development will sell for it's likely to be around Katoomba's media house price $865,000 (Domain data Dec 2025) - modest by Sydney standards but way beyond the reach off local workers on average wages, let alone those earning less, working as casuals.
15% of the proposal is said to be "affordable" which means that 85% will be unaffordable. Rather than helping alleviate the housing crisis this development could easily mean even higher local house prices. Meanwhile there are many examples around the upper mountains of houses standing empty. Tourists are already well catered for with a range of accommodation from luxury to budget. We also don't need more restaurants, as Katoomba already offers a great range of dining.

CONCLUSION :For the reasons outlined above I believe this development does not meet the mountain's needs and should be rejected. Its approval would be a threat to local flora and fauna, and against the interests of the great majority of locals and visitors. In short this is the wrong type of development in the wrong place.

I am concerned about the additional vehicles this project will bring into circulation in the Katoomba region. As a resident, I understand that each weekend and holiday period, there are an influx of visitors to the area, many arriving by car. This jams up local traffic. There are only 2 entries to Katoomba to/from the highway and the roads in and around Katoomba are badly affected by traffic when more visitors come to town. Things slow to a glacial pace. I haven't had time to plough through all the documentation in this submission. I tried to look at the traffic and Parking Impact Report, but it only seemed to cover the precinct where the project is proposed. I work full time and have a family and couldn't attend the drop in info session on 23 April due to those commitments. I would like to ask if there is accompanying amelioration planned to widen or increase or amend entries to town and the roadways around town to accommodate all the extra traffic. This is my chief objection, but I haven't had time to examine in any detail the environmental impact statements. Also, despite the letter telling me I 'would have' been included in the letter drop in late 2025, I believe this is the first correspondence I have received. I would appreciate if further info sessions were organised outside of work hours so that everyone in the community has an opportunity to attend. I have spent the last 2 hours trying to log into this site and it isn't user friendly and I feel like this doesn't meet any definition of propoer consultation.

I object to the proposed development at 142–150 Narrow Neck Road and request that it be refused, or alternatively substantially reduced in height, density, and intensity to reflect the environmental, infrastructural, and bushfire constraints of the site.
This objection is based on the following key grounds:
• Fundamental inconsistency with the Blue Mountains LEP and DCP, including breaches of height, density, character, environmental protection, and bushfire related controls that have been carefully developed over decades to protect a World Heritage setting.
• Excessive scale and incompatibility with local character, introducing nine multi storey buildings into a low density escarpment environment dominated by vegetation, detached dwellings, and scenic values.
• Inappropriate use of the State Significant Development pathway, which bypasses democratically developed local planning controls and undermines the principle of orderly and economic development under the EP&A Act.
• Misalignment with transport and accessibility principles, placing high density housing far from public transport, services, and walkable infrastructure, resulting in unavoidable car dependency and increased traffic on a constrained road network.
• Unacceptable bushfire risk and evacuation constraints, with hundreds of additional residents relying on a single, narrow, winding road that already struggles with visibility, geometry, and capacity — directly affecting my own residence on a blind bend.
• Localised traffic and safety impacts, including increased accident risk at residential driveways, overflow parking narrowing the road, and unrealistic traffic generation estimates in the EIS.
• Environmental and hydrological risks, including increased stormwater runoff, sedimentation, habitat loss, and impacts on Katoomba Creek, Kedumba River, and the Sydney drinking water catchment.
• Failure to genuinely meet housing objectives, with only 15% affordable housing, a large serviced apartment component, and a high likelihood of units becoming short term tourist accommodation rather than long term housing.
• Significant visual impacts, with the development rising above the treeline and being highly visible from Katoomba, Echo Point, and surrounding ridgelines. The Visual Impact Assessment relies on selective viewpoints and makes a false equivalence with the Carrington Hotel — a heritage building in the town centre, not a modern multi storey complex on an escarpment edge.
• Infrastructure inadequacy, with no meaningful upgrades proposed to roads, public transport, pedestrian infrastructure, or emergency access.
• Conflict with the public interest, including risks to life and property, degradation of World Heritage values, and erosion of confidence in the planning system.
Taken together, these issues demonstrate that the proposal is over scaled, unsafe, environmentally inappropriate, and strategically misplaced.

please see attached

My first comment is that it is not easy to make a submission using this system.
The development proposed is too large for the site and location in the Blue Mountains. It will completely dominate the skyline and is out of character with the heritage aspects of the local villages that visitors come to see and that residents wish to live in. As well as being grossly oversized, the architecture looks more suitable to a casino than a housing development in a World Heritage National Park.
The location is on the western escarpment prone to high winds and regular bush fire threats. Given the narrow access road, adding this many Units to this area would be negligent and cause more pressure on the RFS and local brigades in the event of a fire.
The project proposes affordable housing. Given its location this is doubtful. You cannot walk to shops or schools from here. Our climate and lack of services makes public transport mostly unusable. We also have few taxis or Uber facilities. Residents would require a vehicle which again will cause problems on the narrow access roads as well as negate the 'affordable housing' concept.
This development is clearly aimed at the short term rental market. This does nothing to alleviate the housing crisis. I live in Leura which is full of empty houses. I am the only permanent resident on the block I live in. Many mountains communities are similar as there is no incentive for out of area home owners to permanently rent their homes up here. They either sit empty with the occasional visit or go on the short term rental market. This development will simply add to this. Depending on how it is managed and who it is marketed to I envisage bus loads of tourists being brought up from Sydney for a quick stay which does not contribute to the local economy and will cause issues again on the narrow access road.
The Blue Mountains City Council and local heritage groups are against this development for good reason as are the locals who will have to live with the result of this poorly conceived proposal if it is approved. I hope our comments are taken seriously and the development is not allowed. Thank you. Elizabeth Trihey

This housing development is a monstrosity. It violates the aesthetic of the region, and will cause significant damage to the surrounding environment.

I strongly oppose this project as it is totally against everything that the Blue Moutains represents. We are a World Heritage area and this demands a responsibility to respect and protect this. We have our own LGA that has been developed over decades to do just that. But this proposal will just bulldoze that aside! Creating an environmental disaster that will have negative impacts on the local residents in this area.... fire risk, evacuation risk, Infrastructure overload.... our LGA limits developments to 2 storeys here, yet this proposal doubles that.
There is nothing in this proposal that I can see as positive. And the fact that we are being sidelined by the HDA is offensive to all locals. The Blue Mountains , a World Heritage area, should be exempt from this.
I request that the Consent Authority spend time in Katoomba to experience the natural beauty that brings millions of visitors each year and to understand how sensitive our environment is, and to see for themselves how serious the negative impact of this development will be.
With Regards
Richard Madigan