The height and scale of this development are too large and will alter the character of Paddington and way of life for residents.

Hi,
First of all, I do not understand how a project that would see a reduction in affordable housing by 17 be accepted by the NSW government when we all know how difficult it is for lower income families to find a place to live. The construction of such a massive property with 4 underground levels will take several years during which traffic will be seriously affected. Those long years of construction will also have a very negative economic impact for all the local small businesses. The area around the building consist of very narrow streets. When the building is completed, the traffic around the area will be dramatically affected. We need to protect Paddington Preservation Area but this building if approved will set a precedent that will result in the whole area being completely disfigured in the coming years. The question is why would the government accept to sacrifice 17 affordable housing to have 40 luxury appartments?

See letter attached.

Dear Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure,

I write to object in the strongest possible terms to the proposed development at 148-160 Oxford Street, 6 Shadforth Street and 13 Gipps Street, Paddington (SSD-97528708). I am a resident of Paddington, living within approximately 100 metres of the proposed site. I walk past this site daily with my young children and am intimately familiar with the streets, traffic conditions and character of this precinct.

My objection is grounded in the following concerns.

1. NET LOSS OF GENUINELY AFFORDABLE HOUSING

This is my primary objection and should be the Department's foremost concern. The proposal is dressed up as an affordable housing contribution, yet it delivers the precise opposite.

The site at 160 Oxford Street currently contains 27 genuinely affordable studio apartments that house students, creatives, essential workers and medical staff — many of whom work at nearby St Vincent's Hospital. The proposal demolishes all 27 of these dwellings and replaces them with only 10 to 12 so-called "affordable" apartments representing 15 per cent of gross floor area.

This is a net loss of between 15 and 17 genuinely affordable homes in an area where affordable housing is already critically scarce. The "affordable" replacement apartments — two and three bedroom units within a luxury development featuring five swimming pools — will not be affordable in any meaningful sense for the people being displaced. Describing them as affordable housing is disingenuous at best.

The Infill Affordable Housing provisions of the Housing SEPP were designed to increase the supply of affordable housing, not to facilitate its destruction. Approving a development that results in a net reduction of affordable housing would be a perverse outcome entirely contrary to the stated policy objectives of the NSW Government and the National Housing Accord.

The displacement of essential workers from inner-city housing close to major hospitals has well-documented consequences: longer commutes incompatible with shift work, increased fatigue, reduced workforce retention and greater reliance on costly agency staff. These are public interest impacts that the Department must weigh seriously.

I urge the Department to refuse this application on this ground alone.

2. HERITAGE IMPACT

The proposed site sits within the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area. This is not incidental — it is central to the assessment. Paddington's heritage listing was hard-won, established precisely to prevent the kind of development now proposed.

The site is part of the original 1840 land grant to the Australian Subscription Library and later became Little Paddington Village, home to the workers' cottages built for the artisans who constructed Victoria Barracks. These include some of the earliest and most intact examples of workers' housing in Sydney. The proposal involves demolishing buildings at 142-148 and 160 Oxford Street and 6 Shadforth Street within this historically significant precinct.

An eight-storey building (nine levels when the rooftop is included, plus four excavated basement levels) is grotesquely out of scale with the surrounding two to three storey heritage fabric of Victorian and Edwardian terraces and workers' cottages. The heritage streetscape along Oxford Street, Shadforth Street and Gipps Street would be permanently and irreversibly altered.

Approximately 50 years ago, there was an attempt to raze Paddington to make way for high-rise development. The community fought that proposal and won. The heritage conservation designation that followed was supposed to ensure that history would not repeat itself. This development represents exactly the kind of destructive intrusion that designation was intended to prevent.

3. TRAFFIC, PEDESTRIAN SAFETY AND CONSTRUCTION IMPACTS

The surrounding streets — Shadforth Street, Gipps Street and Walker Lane — are narrow residential streets entirely unsuited to the traffic volumes this development would generate, both during construction and once operational.

I witness dangerous traffic conditions in this precinct on a daily basis. Vehicles turning from Oxford Street onto Shadforth Street regularly do so at speed and without checking for oncoming traffic or pedestrians. Shadforth Street is a two-way street but has a carriageway width of barely one car once vehicles are parked along the kerb. The street only functions because of the mutual consideration of drivers travelling in opposite directions — a delicate balance that additional traffic volumes would destroy. Vehicles also frequently turn the wrong way into the one-way section of Walker Lane, creating dangerous conflicts with pedestrians and other road users. These are streets where families walk with young children, and the current conditions are already precarious.

The proposal includes four levels of excavated basement car parking accommodating over 80 vehicles. The traffic movements generated by this parking — entering and exiting onto streets that are fundamentally inadequate for this volume — would significantly worsen an already unsafe situation. The developer's own documentation acknowledges the site's proximity to eight bus routes and two railway stations within 1.2 kilometres, which raises the obvious question of why over 80 car parking spaces are proposed at all. This level of car parking is inconsistent with the development's claimed sustainability and transit-oriented credentials.

During the estimated three-year construction period (as estimated by developer), the impact would be severe. Heavy vehicle movements, excavation traffic and construction activity on these narrow streets would create sustained and intolerable disruption for residents and serious hazards for pedestrians. The scale of excavation required for four basement levels within a heritage conservation area is itself deeply concerning.

4. SCALE, BULK AND PRECEDENT

The proposal is for an eight-storey mixed-use building in a precinct where the prevailing built form is two to three storeys. The claim that this scale is justified by the "affordable housing bonus" height provisions is undermined by the fact that the development delivers a net loss of affordable housing, as detailed above.

This development is not occurring in isolation. A separate SSD proposal has been lodged for the nearby Oxford and Verona Street site (SSD-87245208). Together, these represent a pattern of large-scale development proposals within the same geographic catchment of the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area, each exploiting the SSD pathway to bypass local planning controls and each resulting in a reduction of genuinely affordable housing.

If SSD-97528708 is approved, it will establish a precedent that effectively renders the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area meaningless. Every developer with a sufficiently large site will be able to invoke the affordable housing provisions to justify buildings of a scale and bulk that are wholly incompatible with Paddington's heritage character. The cumulative impact of multiple such approvals would be the incremental destruction of one of Sydney's most significant heritage precincts.

5. INADEQUATE CONSULTATION

The exhibition period for this application is only 14 days. For a State Significant Development of this scale and complexity — involving heritage demolition, major excavation, and the displacement of affordable housing — this is wholly inadequate. The community has been given insufficient time to review the extensive documentation and prepare meaningful submissions. The fact that the SSD pathway bypasses the local council, Woollahra Municipal Council, further reduces the opportunity for genuine community input. This is particularly concerning given that the proposal is one of the first to test the Low and Mid Rise Housing provisions within the Woollahra local government area and the first within the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area.

6. CONCLUSION

This proposal delivers a net loss of affordable housing while claiming an affordable housing bonus. It proposes a building of wildly inappropriate scale within a heritage conservation area. It would generate dangerous traffic conditions on streets that are already unsafe for pedestrians. It sets a destructive precedent for future development across Paddington.

I respectfully request that the Department refuse SSD-97528708 in its current form.

If the Department is minded to approve any development on this site, consent should require at minimum:
- no net loss of affordable housing, with like-for-like replacement that is genuinely affordable to the people being displaced;
- a building height and scale consistent with the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area;
- a significant reduction in basement car parking and associated traffic generation; and
- a construction management plan that addresses the specific constraints of Shadforth Street, Gipps Street and Walker Lane.

Sincerely,
A Paddington Resident

As owners of a home on Gipps Street, my husband and I are extremely concerned about the impact of this proposed apartment block. It is completely out of keeping with the character of the neighbourhood. The proposed height of the apartment block will tower over our houses with significant privacy impacts and blocking of natural light. As parents we are also concerned about the privacy of local (and newly developed) playground Spring St Reserve. Childcare is already extremely difficult to secure with not enough availability at local daycares, this problem will only be worsened if this development goes ahead. We are also concerned that it will add to the already significant traffic and parking congestion on Gipps and surrounding streets, being some of the narrowest streets in Sydney. There has been minimal community consultation about this project.

I think I have attached a file labelled 8 Shadforth St SSD objection as a Word document.