Parramatta build-to-rent development plans scaled back

Owners have scaled back contentious plans for a major $156 million build-to-rent development near the Parramatta CBD more than four years after neighbours complained about the project’s scale and proximity to a cathedral and heritage-listed sites.

The original plan lodged in 2022 proposed knocking down a disused pharmaceutical factory at Gregory Place in Harris Park for 483 apartments. At the time, it was one of Sydney’s first major build-to-rent projects after state planning laws changed in 2021.

The project triggered backlash from heritage groups and the City of Parramatta Council over fears it would overshadow and dwarf what the National Trust described as “three of the most significant historic houses in Australia” – Elizabeth Farm, Hambledon Cottage and Experiment Farm.

Residents and community members lodged more than 100 negative submissions, and a petition against the project garnered more than 4600 signatures.

More than half of the submissions raised concerns about heritage preservation, another 45 per cent mentioned traffic or parking, and 39 per cent mentioned the proposal’s form and scale. About one-third also mentioned impacts on the neighbouring Our Lady of Lebanon Co-Cathedral.

In response to the backlash, the property owner has slashed the number of apartments from 483 to 320, reduced building heights, and increased setbacks to all boundaries, concentrating taller towers further away from sensitive heritage items. It is now proposing seven buildings of between two and eight storeys tall. Car parking was also reduced from 634 to 367 spots.

Half of the 320 apartments will be for affordable housing at 80 per cent of market rent for at least 15 years, and half for long-term renters through a build-to-rent model.

Urban planners said the project would deliver much-needed homes in Parramatta, which was facing an “acute housing and rental crisis”, and pointed to the accessible location 500 metres from Parramatta train station, 650 metres from Harris Park train station, and 300 metres from Macquarie Street light rail station.

Pacific Planning said ongoing pressure on lower-income renters and the “intensification” of housing and rental stress in the four years since plans were first lodged had “reinforced, rather than weakened, the strategic case for well-located affordable and rental housing”.

The project has been referred to the NSW Independent Planning Commission, which will decide whether the development application should be approved after a public meeting in October.

The commission was formed in 2018 to decide, and provide advice on, the state’s most complex and contentious developments. In 2019, a three-member panel killed off The Star’s $530 million plan to build a hotel and apartment tower above its Pyrmont casino.

The commission will also provide Planning Minister Paul Scully with advice on whether the City of Sydney’s controversial $150 million Town Hall square should be a “state significant” development decided by the government instead.

Pacific Planning conceded the amended plans would still change views of the heritage landscape, but said some people would always remain staunchly opposed to any development in the area.

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