Name Withheld
Object
Name Withheld
Object
LANE COVE
,
New South Wales
Message
I request that our names be withheld from the list of submitters that is published on the NSW planning portal.
We are writing to formally object to the above development application. We are owner-occupiers at Emerant Lane, 280–288 Burns Bay Road, Lane Cove — the residential building directly adjacent to the proposed development site at 300 Burns Bay Road. Our building shares a boundary with this site. We have a direct and material interest in this application.
We have been following this proposal since a community information webinar held by the developer in November 2025, and we have grown increasingly concerned about the scale and impact of what is being proposed.
1. Concern About Exhibition Timing
This application was placed on public exhibition during the Easter school holiday period in April 2026. Many residents of this area were away or otherwise unable to engage with the materials during this window. While we acknowledge the minimum statutory exhibition period has been met, placing a major application of this significance during school holidays does not meet the spirit of genuine community consultation. We ask that this concern be noted on the record.
2. The Proposal Requires the Planning Framework to be Rewritten to Permit It
Based on community information distributed to residents in this precinct, the proposed development significantly exceeds the current height limit applying to this site, which community materials describe as a 6-storey limit. The developer is seeking to build towers of up to 15 storeys — more than twice the currently permitted height. This is not a development application within the existing rules. It is a request to change the rules to permit something that would otherwise be refused.
We want to be direct about what this means: the planning controls that exist today were put in place to protect residents like us. They reflect considered community and council decisions about what is appropriate for this precinct. Dismantling those controls to accommodate a single developer's commercial project, using a state-level fast-track pathway that bypasses local assessment entirely, is not something we accept as appropriate in these circumstances.
Under the planning principle established in Tenacity Consulting v Warringah Council [2004] NSWLEC 140, a development that fails to comply with existing planning controls is assessed as less reasonable when evaluating its impacts on surrounding properties, including view loss. This application cannot proceed at all without first amending those controls. That is a significant factor weighing against approval.
3. Total and Irreversible Loss of Our Views
Our unit directly faces the proposed development site. From our balcony and our master bedroom, we currently have unobstructed water views across Lane Cove, green bushland views, and an open western sky that gives us sunset views each evening. These are not background views — they are direct, unobstructed views that form a central part of what we purchased and what we live with every day. Our daughter grows up looking out at this landscape. It is part of the home we have made here.
The proposed towers, rising immediately to our east, would sit directly between our building and the water. The loss would not be partial. It would be total and permanent.
The NSW Land and Environment Court's established planning principle in Tenacity Consulting v Warringah Council [2004] NSWLEC 140 sets out a four-step framework for assessing view impacts. Applying that framework to our situation:
Step 1: The views affected are water views — the category the Court has consistently recognised as the most highly valued in the NSW context.
Step 2: The views are obtained from our balcony and master bedroom — primary living and sleeping areas, which the Court treats as the most significant locations from which view loss is assessed.
Step 3: The impact would be total. The proposed towers rise directly between our property and the water. The water views, the green canopy, and the evening sunset we look out onto every day would all be permanently erased. Photographs of the current views from our balcony, living room, and master bedroom are attached to this submission, and we request that they be formally considered as evidence of what would be lost.
Step 4: A development that cannot proceed without first amending the height controls is, by definition, not reasonable under existing planning standards. Step 4 of Tenacity makes compliance with existing controls directly relevant to whether the impact can be considered acceptable. This proposal fails that test.
The more recent decision in Furlong v Northern Beaches Council [2022] NSWLEC 1208 further affirmed that where views are of high value and the impact is significant, the burden falls on the applicant to justify that impact. The applicant has not, in our view, discharged that burden.
4. Privacy and Overlooking
The proposed towers would rise immediately to the east of our building, at a height that would place dozens of apartments with direct sightlines into our balcony, our master bedroom, and our main living areas. This is not a minor or theoretical concern — it is an inevitable consequence of building towers of this scale immediately adjacent to an existing residential building.
When our building was approved and when we purchased our home, no planning instrument contemplated that a 15-storey development would be built on the boundary next door. The privacy that we currently enjoy on our balcony, and in the rooms that face toward the development site, would be fundamentally compromised. Our daughter would grow up in a home that is directly overlooked from towers we had no say in, and no ability to foresee when we chose to live here.
The Lane Cove DCP 2009 includes specific provisions requiring developments to demonstrate acceptable privacy outcomes for neighbouring properties. We submit that this application cannot satisfy those provisions. A development built to the boundary at 15 storeys, directly overlooking an existing residential building, represents exactly the kind of outcome the DCP's privacy controls exist to prevent. We request that the consent authority assess the overlooking impacts on Emerant Lane rigorously and independently, and not simply accept the applicant's own assessment.
5. Character of the Precinct
Burns Bay Road in this stretch is characterised by low- to mid-rise residential and mixed-use buildings. Towers of 15 storeys in this location would permanently transform the character of the street and the precinct. The Greater Sydney Commission's North District Plan requires new development to be contextually appropriate. Nothing about this proposal is contextually appropriate for this location.
6. Financial Loss, Psychological Harm, and the Destruction of Our Family's Amenity
This is the section we feel most strongly about, and we want to be direct.
We did not buy a home at Emerant Lane by accident. We chose this home deliberately — because of the water views, the green outlook, the evening sunset, the sense of space and light, and the quiet confidence that the planning framework protecting this precinct would hold. We are raising our daughter here. This is not an investment to us. It is our family's home.
If this development proceeds, every one of those things will be gone. Permanently. The water views from our balcony, our living room, and our master bedroom will be replaced by a wall of towers. The evening sunset we watch from our balcony will be blocked. The green canopy our daughter looks out onto will be gone. And we will have dozens of apartments looking directly into our home, every day, from now on.
The financial consequences are real and severe. Property valuers are clear that direct water views command a premium in Sydney, and that the total loss of those views to an immediately adjacent development of this scale causes a material and demonstrable reduction in property value. We purchased in good faith, relying on the planning controls that governed this site. Those controls are now proposed to be discarded to accommodate a single developer. That is a direct financial harm to our family.
But what concerns us most goes beyond money. The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 requires consideration of social impacts, and the concept of "amenity" in NSW planning law includes psychological and emotional wellbeing — not just physical impacts. We are genuinely distressed by this proposal. The prospect of losing our views, our privacy, and the quality of life we have built in this home — the home in which we are raising our daughter — carries a real and lasting psychological and emotional cost that we are asking this consent authority to take seriously.
We did not choose to live next to a 15-storey development. No one in our building did. We chose to live here because this is the kind of neighbourhood it was — and this proposal would change that irreversibly, at our expense and at the expense of our family's future.
7. Traffic
Community materials distributed to residents in this precinct indicate the development would generate approximately 300 new car spaces and a significant increase in vehicle movements. Burns Bay Road already experiences congestion. We request that an independent traffic impact assessment be made publicly available and that residents be given an opportunity to respond to it.
Conclusion
We are fully and unequivocally opposed to this development in its current form. It would erase our views permanently, tower over our home from directly adjacent, destroy our family's privacy, cause us serious financial and psychological harm, and do irreversible damage to the character of a precinct that many families have chosen to live in precisely because it is not like this.
We are writing to formally object to the above development application. We are owner-occupiers at Emerant Lane, 280–288 Burns Bay Road, Lane Cove — the residential building directly adjacent to the proposed development site at 300 Burns Bay Road. Our building shares a boundary with this site. We have a direct and material interest in this application.
We have been following this proposal since a community information webinar held by the developer in November 2025, and we have grown increasingly concerned about the scale and impact of what is being proposed.
1. Concern About Exhibition Timing
This application was placed on public exhibition during the Easter school holiday period in April 2026. Many residents of this area were away or otherwise unable to engage with the materials during this window. While we acknowledge the minimum statutory exhibition period has been met, placing a major application of this significance during school holidays does not meet the spirit of genuine community consultation. We ask that this concern be noted on the record.
2. The Proposal Requires the Planning Framework to be Rewritten to Permit It
Based on community information distributed to residents in this precinct, the proposed development significantly exceeds the current height limit applying to this site, which community materials describe as a 6-storey limit. The developer is seeking to build towers of up to 15 storeys — more than twice the currently permitted height. This is not a development application within the existing rules. It is a request to change the rules to permit something that would otherwise be refused.
We want to be direct about what this means: the planning controls that exist today were put in place to protect residents like us. They reflect considered community and council decisions about what is appropriate for this precinct. Dismantling those controls to accommodate a single developer's commercial project, using a state-level fast-track pathway that bypasses local assessment entirely, is not something we accept as appropriate in these circumstances.
Under the planning principle established in Tenacity Consulting v Warringah Council [2004] NSWLEC 140, a development that fails to comply with existing planning controls is assessed as less reasonable when evaluating its impacts on surrounding properties, including view loss. This application cannot proceed at all without first amending those controls. That is a significant factor weighing against approval.
3. Total and Irreversible Loss of Our Views
Our unit directly faces the proposed development site. From our balcony and our master bedroom, we currently have unobstructed water views across Lane Cove, green bushland views, and an open western sky that gives us sunset views each evening. These are not background views — they are direct, unobstructed views that form a central part of what we purchased and what we live with every day. Our daughter grows up looking out at this landscape. It is part of the home we have made here.
The proposed towers, rising immediately to our east, would sit directly between our building and the water. The loss would not be partial. It would be total and permanent.
The NSW Land and Environment Court's established planning principle in Tenacity Consulting v Warringah Council [2004] NSWLEC 140 sets out a four-step framework for assessing view impacts. Applying that framework to our situation:
Step 1: The views affected are water views — the category the Court has consistently recognised as the most highly valued in the NSW context.
Step 2: The views are obtained from our balcony and master bedroom — primary living and sleeping areas, which the Court treats as the most significant locations from which view loss is assessed.
Step 3: The impact would be total. The proposed towers rise directly between our property and the water. The water views, the green canopy, and the evening sunset we look out onto every day would all be permanently erased. Photographs of the current views from our balcony, living room, and master bedroom are attached to this submission, and we request that they be formally considered as evidence of what would be lost.
Step 4: A development that cannot proceed without first amending the height controls is, by definition, not reasonable under existing planning standards. Step 4 of Tenacity makes compliance with existing controls directly relevant to whether the impact can be considered acceptable. This proposal fails that test.
The more recent decision in Furlong v Northern Beaches Council [2022] NSWLEC 1208 further affirmed that where views are of high value and the impact is significant, the burden falls on the applicant to justify that impact. The applicant has not, in our view, discharged that burden.
4. Privacy and Overlooking
The proposed towers would rise immediately to the east of our building, at a height that would place dozens of apartments with direct sightlines into our balcony, our master bedroom, and our main living areas. This is not a minor or theoretical concern — it is an inevitable consequence of building towers of this scale immediately adjacent to an existing residential building.
When our building was approved and when we purchased our home, no planning instrument contemplated that a 15-storey development would be built on the boundary next door. The privacy that we currently enjoy on our balcony, and in the rooms that face toward the development site, would be fundamentally compromised. Our daughter would grow up in a home that is directly overlooked from towers we had no say in, and no ability to foresee when we chose to live here.
The Lane Cove DCP 2009 includes specific provisions requiring developments to demonstrate acceptable privacy outcomes for neighbouring properties. We submit that this application cannot satisfy those provisions. A development built to the boundary at 15 storeys, directly overlooking an existing residential building, represents exactly the kind of outcome the DCP's privacy controls exist to prevent. We request that the consent authority assess the overlooking impacts on Emerant Lane rigorously and independently, and not simply accept the applicant's own assessment.
5. Character of the Precinct
Burns Bay Road in this stretch is characterised by low- to mid-rise residential and mixed-use buildings. Towers of 15 storeys in this location would permanently transform the character of the street and the precinct. The Greater Sydney Commission's North District Plan requires new development to be contextually appropriate. Nothing about this proposal is contextually appropriate for this location.
6. Financial Loss, Psychological Harm, and the Destruction of Our Family's Amenity
This is the section we feel most strongly about, and we want to be direct.
We did not buy a home at Emerant Lane by accident. We chose this home deliberately — because of the water views, the green outlook, the evening sunset, the sense of space and light, and the quiet confidence that the planning framework protecting this precinct would hold. We are raising our daughter here. This is not an investment to us. It is our family's home.
If this development proceeds, every one of those things will be gone. Permanently. The water views from our balcony, our living room, and our master bedroom will be replaced by a wall of towers. The evening sunset we watch from our balcony will be blocked. The green canopy our daughter looks out onto will be gone. And we will have dozens of apartments looking directly into our home, every day, from now on.
The financial consequences are real and severe. Property valuers are clear that direct water views command a premium in Sydney, and that the total loss of those views to an immediately adjacent development of this scale causes a material and demonstrable reduction in property value. We purchased in good faith, relying on the planning controls that governed this site. Those controls are now proposed to be discarded to accommodate a single developer. That is a direct financial harm to our family.
But what concerns us most goes beyond money. The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 requires consideration of social impacts, and the concept of "amenity" in NSW planning law includes psychological and emotional wellbeing — not just physical impacts. We are genuinely distressed by this proposal. The prospect of losing our views, our privacy, and the quality of life we have built in this home — the home in which we are raising our daughter — carries a real and lasting psychological and emotional cost that we are asking this consent authority to take seriously.
We did not choose to live next to a 15-storey development. No one in our building did. We chose to live here because this is the kind of neighbourhood it was — and this proposal would change that irreversibly, at our expense and at the expense of our family's future.
7. Traffic
Community materials distributed to residents in this precinct indicate the development would generate approximately 300 new car spaces and a significant increase in vehicle movements. Burns Bay Road already experiences congestion. We request that an independent traffic impact assessment be made publicly available and that residents be given an opportunity to respond to it.
Conclusion
We are fully and unequivocally opposed to this development in its current form. It would erase our views permanently, tower over our home from directly adjacent, destroy our family's privacy, cause us serious financial and psychological harm, and do irreversible damage to the character of a precinct that many families have chosen to live in precisely because it is not like this.
Attachments
Name Withheld
Object
Name Withheld
Object
Lane Cove
,
New South Wales
Message
The current proposal to cobstruct a 13-15 story residential block at 300 Burns Bay Road would have devastating impact the the local area. As a resident directly impacted by this development, i am seriously concerned about the height of the building blocking almost all winter sunlight to the residence at 300A B and C. Sunlight has a major impact to mental health and with the stress involved of being next to a large scale construction site which would require night works, again which reduce sleep and impact residence well being, I am concerned that some residence may have serious mental health challenges, noting that some of the current residences are already struggling with this.
In addition to mental health, the lack of sunlight will block the option for future installation of Solar pa els at this residence impacting the sustainably options for this block significantly. As someone who is bery for renewable energy and conscious of my carbon footprint, this causes me serious distress. It would limit the block to having to purchase power for the foreseable future, further limiting EV uptake and making installation of EV charging stations less and less likely.
The lack of sunlight will also result in residence being forced to use dryers which are highly inefficient and environmentally dirty. There are major benefits of using clothes lines for drying of cloths including killing of bacteria from exposure to UV light. Additionally, the likelyhood of mould growth in these buildings will significantly increase as well presenting further health hazards.
Additionally, even more electrical energy will be needed to heat the block given the lack of sunlight in the living spaces of all residence of the 3 buildings. Further reducing our sustainability.
Additionally, the area is already over saturated with traffic and vehicles with nowhere for residence to park their spouses vehicle. The EIS submission does not allow for additional vehicles for couples or children of owners who are of age to drive (more than 1 vehicle per unit). Currently there is no all day street parking option in the block which will result in further issues in the area. Currently the access into and out of burns bay road traffic lights does not have the capacity to carry further loading without blocking the left lane heading up towards lane cove. This results in even more traffic and gridlock due to traffic having to form into a single lane. The sliplane heading towards Victoria road isnt much better with such a short turn it resulting in high closing speeds for traffic that is continuing forward. It is likely that this area will see an increase in traffic collisions.
Further there is very limited public transport in this area, with no ferry, tram, train or metro services meaning the existing and already under supplied residence would need to fit onto the very limited bus service, which is still running on a reduced schedule due to a driver shortage.
With no local shops, businesses, cafes to service all of these additional people, everyone will be required to drive.
Finally on the point of traffic, the current roundabout at SAS building is dangerous for traffic coming up from either Hughes Park 300 A, B, C or 302 Burns Bay Road. The access to the right is located at an angle which is almost from behind resulting in extreme difficulty seeing traffic entering the round about from the existing SAS complex. The risk of accidents here is also significant and not considered.
Without significant investiment into the existing infrastructure prior to any works, it would be irresponsible to construct additional apartments.
Further to all of this, the impact of excavation will result in settlement to the nearby buildings due to draw down of the water table potentially resulting in major structual damage to 300A in particular. It is my understanding that this the structure is proposed to be fully drained as well which further increases the risk.
Wind actions have also not been considered on the buildings surrounding the SAS proposed development. Given the length and narrowing of the space, I am concerned that the increased wind speeds from the effective wind tunnel will result in exceedences to the Servicability Limit State of our property. This would result in an unbearable sway in the building causing nausia and motion sickness, coupled with the differential settlement from the excavation. Given the relatively slender design of the building, this could be even worse and impact the Ultimate Limit State posing extreme danger as 1/100 year events have become signifcantly more common from the impacts of climate change and global warming.
Ignoring that this building would be an absolute eyesore completely out of place high rise building in a area not designed to have it. It is clear that no real thought has gone into the planning and proposal by this developer for such a construction project. The EIS, appears to have been written ignoring the realities of the impacts and has understated the level of impact such a project would have on the area. This project would be much better suited in a city centre such as chatwood where there is sufficient infrastructure to accomodate the scale of the works.
In addition to mental health, the lack of sunlight will block the option for future installation of Solar pa els at this residence impacting the sustainably options for this block significantly. As someone who is bery for renewable energy and conscious of my carbon footprint, this causes me serious distress. It would limit the block to having to purchase power for the foreseable future, further limiting EV uptake and making installation of EV charging stations less and less likely.
The lack of sunlight will also result in residence being forced to use dryers which are highly inefficient and environmentally dirty. There are major benefits of using clothes lines for drying of cloths including killing of bacteria from exposure to UV light. Additionally, the likelyhood of mould growth in these buildings will significantly increase as well presenting further health hazards.
Additionally, even more electrical energy will be needed to heat the block given the lack of sunlight in the living spaces of all residence of the 3 buildings. Further reducing our sustainability.
Additionally, the area is already over saturated with traffic and vehicles with nowhere for residence to park their spouses vehicle. The EIS submission does not allow for additional vehicles for couples or children of owners who are of age to drive (more than 1 vehicle per unit). Currently there is no all day street parking option in the block which will result in further issues in the area. Currently the access into and out of burns bay road traffic lights does not have the capacity to carry further loading without blocking the left lane heading up towards lane cove. This results in even more traffic and gridlock due to traffic having to form into a single lane. The sliplane heading towards Victoria road isnt much better with such a short turn it resulting in high closing speeds for traffic that is continuing forward. It is likely that this area will see an increase in traffic collisions.
Further there is very limited public transport in this area, with no ferry, tram, train or metro services meaning the existing and already under supplied residence would need to fit onto the very limited bus service, which is still running on a reduced schedule due to a driver shortage.
With no local shops, businesses, cafes to service all of these additional people, everyone will be required to drive.
Finally on the point of traffic, the current roundabout at SAS building is dangerous for traffic coming up from either Hughes Park 300 A, B, C or 302 Burns Bay Road. The access to the right is located at an angle which is almost from behind resulting in extreme difficulty seeing traffic entering the round about from the existing SAS complex. The risk of accidents here is also significant and not considered.
Without significant investiment into the existing infrastructure prior to any works, it would be irresponsible to construct additional apartments.
Further to all of this, the impact of excavation will result in settlement to the nearby buildings due to draw down of the water table potentially resulting in major structual damage to 300A in particular. It is my understanding that this the structure is proposed to be fully drained as well which further increases the risk.
Wind actions have also not been considered on the buildings surrounding the SAS proposed development. Given the length and narrowing of the space, I am concerned that the increased wind speeds from the effective wind tunnel will result in exceedences to the Servicability Limit State of our property. This would result in an unbearable sway in the building causing nausia and motion sickness, coupled with the differential settlement from the excavation. Given the relatively slender design of the building, this could be even worse and impact the Ultimate Limit State posing extreme danger as 1/100 year events have become signifcantly more common from the impacts of climate change and global warming.
Ignoring that this building would be an absolute eyesore completely out of place high rise building in a area not designed to have it. It is clear that no real thought has gone into the planning and proposal by this developer for such a construction project. The EIS, appears to have been written ignoring the realities of the impacts and has understated the level of impact such a project would have on the area. This project would be much better suited in a city centre such as chatwood where there is sufficient infrastructure to accomodate the scale of the works.