Alternative Media Group

DA lodged for Annandale Woolworths

Author:

Shant Fabricatorian

Posted:

Thursday, 26 August 2010

Plans for a Woolworths in Annandale appear to be forging ahead despite the wishes of residents and councillors, with a DA lodged with Leichhardt Council on August 16 for the redevelopment of the proposed site on 69-73 Parramatta Road.

The proposal details the planned construction of a new mixed-use development on the site. The DA includes provisions for a new two-level supermarket, a ground-level loading dock area, and parking on the ground and below ground for 98 cars. Pedestrian entry to the supermarket would be from Trafalgar Street.

Ten one-bedroom units also form a part of the site DA, although pedestrian access to these dwellings would be provided from a separate entrance, also in Trafalgar Street.

The site, on the corner of Parramatta Road and Trafalgar Street, covers around 2,100 square metres. The total floor area of the proposed development is 3,148 square metres, giving a floor-space ratio of 1.5:1. The proposed height, meanwhile, ranges between 9.9 and 12.5 metres.

The DA requests permission for the store to be able to trade between 7am and midnight, seven days a week. However, activity on the site will be constant, with the hours between midnight and 7am envisaged to be used by staff for packing and stocking shelves.

With the project valued at $12 million, it will automatically be referred to a Joint Regional Planning Panel, which has caused some consternation amongst Leichhardt councillors.

“[As] it’s going to the Joint Regional Planning Panel, it won’t come before us councillors,” said Greens Councillor Daniel Kogoy. “I’d like to have a say and be able to represent the community on this issue, and I can’t – I’m sidelined from it.”

Save Annandale Village, a local resident action group, has listed a series of objections to the development. These include increased traffic and noise, worries over pedestrian safety, and arguments over the necessity of the development, given the close proximity of supermarkets in neighbouring suburbs.

Labor councillor Lyndal Howison paid tribute to the community campaign against the development. “The scale of the community campaign and the consistency of their concern is a wonderful thing to see,” she said. “I think that the applicants of this DA really need to take note of the community’s response to this application – that’s a really important factor in this process.”

Cr Howison also noted the potentially detrimental impact of the proposal on the area’s traffic and parking arrangements. “There’s two schools and a childcare centre just down that end of Trafalgar Street, and the street really cannot take a big increase in the scale of traffic that would be associated with something like a supermarket,” she said. “The impact on traffic and pedestrian safety would be very significant, and of huge concern to me.”

But spokesperson for Woolworths, Simon Berger, defended the proposed development, stating that the impact on traffic flows would be kept to a minimum. “The impacts will be thoroughly assessed during the Development Application process; however, our advice is that the overall traffic implications will not be substantial and that this development will help revitalise an otherwise rundown section of Parramatta Road,” he said in a statement.

Mr Berger argued the majority of the area’s residents would welcome the store, which he said would create around 100 new jobs. “Annandale has grown in recent years and Woolworths will fill a local demand, while saving thousands of trips we know residents from Annandale – along with Forest Lodge, Stanmore and Glebe – make to Leichhardt and Marrickville each week to do their grocery shopping,” he said.

A frightening prospect? A flyer, from the Annandale Residents Action Group, warning against the Woolworths proposal

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