see attached letter and refer to Sydney Airport letter for previous
approval

see attached previous approval

see attached letter

North Sydney has long struggled to maintain activity outside of 9-5
weekday business hours. Very few people will stay in North Sydney
after work hours for entertainment, and seldom do they visit the
district on the weekend. I believe that the Victoria Cross Metro will
be one of the last opportunities to shake off this norm, and may
potentially risk cementing North Sydney further as a commercial office
only precinct.

In my opinion, having lived and worked in North Sydney, there are 3
main considerations I would like to see included in further planning
for the Victoria Cross site. Each achieves the same objective - draw
and maintain a higher base headcount of people in the North Sydney CBD
outside of weekday business hours.

1 - The plan to pedestrianize the area on the eastern side of the
Victoria Cross Station on Denison Street, whilst imperative, will be
insufficient to provide opportunities to fully transition North Sydney
away from the commercial status quo. This is despite the planned Ward
Street precinct to the north. In short, I believe the area doesn't
provide sufficient space for the type of retail I believe is required
in the redevelopment (refer my second and third point). What I believe
the development needs to plan for and encourage is to pedestrianize
Miller Street between Berry Street and the Pacific Highway. I remind
that this has long been considered by Council (pre any announcement of
the Metro), and has also been considered recently in Council planning
documents (see attachment from June 2016).

2 - The recent food offerings added to North Sydney (i.e. refurbished
North Point and Greenwood Foodcourt) continue to only cater for
daytime commercial workers. I believe these types of offerings should
not be copied at the Victoria Cross development for the following
reasons:
* The Foodcourt style design of the current offerings are not popular
for dinner as patrons prefer to stay longer compared with lunch. They
are also subject to trading restrictions imposed by landlords.

* Many workers in North Sydney who purchase dinner before returning
home will do so at their nearest suburban centre (e.g. Chatswood,
Ashfield, Strathfield, Hurstville) because of the price point and
hours of operation. Whilst maintaining higher end dinning in North
Sydney is important for the commercial spend (e.g. the new Japanese
restaurant in North Point, Treehouse, Devon), I believe the main
competition for people based on headcount alone between 5pm-10pm are
the suburban centres listed above. To compete with these centres, I
believe the redevelopment needs to consider setting a target (approx.
10 stores) for the number of low cost, non-franchised/privately owned
restaurants around 150 sq meters providing seated meals for <$12. If
these lower budget options are not provided somewhere in North Sydney,
the majority of the 70,000 workers will never consider staying in
North Sydney for dinner.

* With the large number of residential developments recently commenced
or completely around North Sydney, the majority of these residents
will continue to travel to Chatswood or the CBD due to the price point
/ offering mentioned above.

3 - There continues to be a lack key retail offerings in North Sydney
that draw a headcount outside of business hours. I believe the
development should aim to encourage these:
* A large chemist with late operating hours (10pm minimum). North
Sydney currently only has 1 chemist, a relatively boutique chemist on
Walker Street with very limited trading hours. A large discount
chemist (e.g. Chemist Warehouse) with late night trading will draw
people to North Sydney and help increase the base headcount outside of
business hours. If it is a convenient chemist on people's commute, it
will also draw adhoc purchases from commuters who will tap on/off at
no extra expense solely to visit the chemist. This type of passenger
movement commonly occurs at Chatswood, Strathfield, Burwood and
Hurstville if commuters don't have a chemist at their local station.

* A large franchised coffee shop. e.g. Max Brenner. Such a premise can
help keep a pleasant crowd within North Sydney late at night.

* One of the 2 major fast food outlets, McDonald's or KFC. Currently
North Sydney is relying on less popular outlets (Hungry Jacks and
Oporto), which have limited trading hours and don't encourage a
greater headcount in the area.

* A budget, non-franchised hair salon. The main demand for this I
believe is the North Sydney tertiary education precinct. Every
tertiary education precinct I'm familiar with (UNSW, Usyd, Macquarie)
all have a budget offering nearby primarily targeting students
(usually by offering $10 cuts).

Overall I believe that increasing the base headcount of people outside
of business hours is a priority if North Sydney is going to change.

I strongly OBJECT to, and reject, this application by Sydney Metro and
requests that these concerns be considered by the Approval authority.

How can this application for a commercial building, be treated as a
State Significant Development? It does not form part of the Metro
Infrastructure, as it is above it, and the transitional slab.

I object to the design impinging upon the right of access to the
adjacent heritage building - MLC's vehicular access to the rear of
their building.

I object to the Miller Street setback NOT being in line with the MLC's
setback from Miller Street, and because of this the solar access to
the open passive green space called Miller Street Special Area, is
compromised.

I think that the North Sydney Community should get some greater
benefit from this over development of the site, along with the loss of
the open air, sun and sky space that was previously available to
workers on three portions of this site, being the Tower Square site as
well as the Miller and Berry Streets corner open plaza, as well as the
previous Miller Street setbacks that were in line with the MLC
building.

So if the design for this OSD is not rejected completely, I request
that it be redesigned to accommodate the existing and proposed
additional 20,000 workforce and 8,000 student populations, providing
more open green passive solar spaces. This needs to be far greater
than the areas that were existing previously, so as to cater for the
increased populations in North Sydney & using the Metro station, as
per the Greater Sydney Commission figures!

At what was the existing rate of open public domain in NS, it equated
to 0.75 sqm per person. THerefore an additional population of 20,000
workers alone, you need an additional 16,000 sqm. of open space. This
site should go some way to providing this additional 16,000 sqm. of
solar passive open space.

Traffic matters:
* NO underground link to other side of the Pacific Highway, nor
UNDERGROUND AT Grade link to Greenwood Plaza & the NS Railway station.
Pedestrians will have to go up the 30m to the street, exit, walk along
Miller St and then go down again to Greenwood Plaza at the Pacific
Highway intersection - This impedes the frail, the infirm, older
person, or younger families, anyone on wheels ... or those wishing to
stay out of inclement weather in winter, or stay cool & in shade in
summer

* No access to the bus interchange currently existing in Blue Street
Nor consideration of the 300 + morning peak hour buses from the
Northern Beaches being diverted from the Beaches Link tunnel to travel
through NS & to terminate & disgorge their passengers onto the Metro
and NS Rail stations, according to RMS managing the WHT&BL.

Has the DPE had discussions and considered all these other impacts on
the NS CBD with the proposed WHT&BL, RMS, Transport for NSW etc.?
Because it does not seem to be happening as there is no continuity of
looking at this bigger picture ....

THOUGHT this was all going to change being under the Greater Sydney
Commission ... but it has not! The silo's still operate exceedingly
well, such that we get poorly considered applications like this being
imposed upon the NS CBD.

* Overshadowing is increased on the Public open GREEN space called
Miller St. Special Area - the passive green grassed area in front of
MLC building, in winter! This should not be allowed!

* The EIS states that Traffic will increase by 33 vehicles movements
per hour in AM peak; while the new building is taller, has more
commercial and retail space than what was there for the existing
building, and proposes 47 fewer car parking spaces than what was
there! Not taking into account that additional building volume, nor
people wanting to access parking to travel into town, if they are
infirm or disabled and live further away, than walking distance.
This is not acceptable, when it is predicted that the majority of the
future population in NS will be over the age of 65.

You must be designing your spaces buildings and access to them with
this older, more infirm or disabled persons in mind. If you get it
right for them using wheels, you will also get it right for the
younger family population as well, who use prams.

In addition, I request that a significant portion of the podium level
of this redesigned OSD building, be dedicated and GIVEN to NS Council
and the community of North Sydney, as a Civic Theatrical Space. The
space to be designed, similarly to Angel Place, that could hold 1,500
seat theatre, for concerts, events within the CBD, graduations for
schools, TAFE, Colleges and University, drama and orchestral
opportunities. It could also double as a cinema.

Thanking you for your consideration of my submission.