How is the deep excavation in sandstone going to be carried out without using rock breakers since rock breakers will cause significant vibration and will almost certainly cause damage to the adjacent heritage buildings?
Berit Fjall FIEAust

Significant concerns include:

the actual net loss of affordable housing;

damage to cultural, conservation and historical value;

traffic, excavation and amenity implications during and after proposed development causing negative community consequences;

significant scale and bulk of the proposed development;

negative privacy, environmental and amenity implications of neighbouring residents;

overshadowing of the public open space on Oxford Street;

impacts on Oxford Street’s Plane and Jacaranda trees;

extreme lack of community consultation;

establishing a precedent for further exploitation by developers prioritising short-term financial gain over legitimate social benefits.

As a resident nearby I object strongly to the project. I will make concise dot points below:
- The height of the building is considerably higher, 6 stories higher, than surrounding buildings or buildings along along Oxford street.
- The urban design, planning and architecture does not consider or reflect the surrounding buildings or heritage values.
- The basement excavation encroaches significantly on the tree protection zone and is close to the structural root zone, which means the existing mature trees on Oxford street will need to be removed. This impacts the current leafy landscape of the surrounding area. The basement excavation should be reviewed by an independent and qualified arborist and consider setback further from Oxford street.
- The height presents overlooking concerns into the nearby residents including my own backyard and a study should be undertaken to assess impacts and consider height restrictions on the proposal.
- Shadforth street is a space restricted street and cars need to stop in front of driveways to allow passing. Increased traffic to shadforth street needs to be studied, turning circles of construction traffic and for residents of the building need to be studied to avoid impacts.
- Shadforth street is one of the oldest streets in Australia, even older than Liverpool street and its heritage values and the surrounding old workers cottages for the Victoria barracks are not considered in this proposal.
- the construction impacts of the excavation and groundwater management and concerns of contamination disturbance needs to be assessed.
- the proposal does not consider impacts to utilities and disruptions to residents reliant on these services, noting some services like the sewer are very old, not of robust materials (ceramic pipes) and subject to damage from vibration.
- Noise and dust disturbance to residents during construction are a key concern.
- The busby bore is nearby across the road and the excavation is a concern that could damage this heritage item.
- Settlement and lateral displacement of the excavation has concerns of damage to nearby buildings and potential for collapse and safety concerns.
- Construction traffic of the excavation requires considerable truck movements to remove the large volume of material and safety to residents and children are a key concern.
- Parking in the area is already at gridlock for existing residents and parking for nearby shopping and new residents will significantly consume parking space available.
- Are the trees being retained on Oxford street?
- Does the proposal increase low income housing vs the existing building?
- Existing residents of the building are low income earners and the benefit of %increase of low income housing vs impact to residents and heritage is a key planning consideration.
- The proposal reflects an impact to the culture and fabric of the area which is expected to look more like Bondi junction and zetland/mascot and reduce house values in the area that are popular due to the leafy, low height village and historical feel of the area.

In final summary, this proposal is considered a poor outcome of the new planning rules objectives and reflects a significant breakdown in existing planning procedures, policies and values, heritage and conservation impacts, environmental impacts, health and safety impacts, noise impacts, traffic impacts, parking impacts, overshadowing and overlooking impacts and tree impacts.
The volume of impacts considerably outweigh any low income housing objective which is discovered to be minimal and I recommend the proposal is rejected.

In a housing crisis, we should not be approving greedy property developers to evict people in need, to construct even bigger apartments disproportionately targeted at only the very rich, and deny ordinary people of the right to have a roof over their heads close to places of work and/or hospitals for treatment. I object very strongly to this and any other projects that operate on the principle of profit before people! Please do NOT approve!

The proposed development will be replacing an existing building which already provides a substantial number of affordable housing units with a larger building which somehow manages to provide significantly fewer affordable housing dwellings, whilst markedly increasing the overall density of the site.
Furthermore, the proposed development fails to take into account the Heritage character of the surrounding area, both aesthetically and with regard to the narrow local streets and already limited options for parking and accessibility.
A development of this size will cause significant disturbance and disruption to the amenity of local residents and small businesses during and after construction, with little or no social or economic benefit once it has been completed. The increased number of residents will put further strain on what is already a densely populated area, in a Local Government Area that has one of the highest population densities in the State.