For nearly 25 years, Green Gourmet served vegan dumplings out of its small St Leonards shopfront along the Pacific Highway. When the restaurant was evicted last year and the block was demolished, the site was meant to be replaced by a major housing development.
But the project hasn’t gone far. More than a year after demolition, the block has remained a fenced off, overgrown patch of grass.
What happened: Lane Cove Council wants to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Under new rules adopted by the council last week, developers will be forced to tidy up the sites they demolish if they aren’t going to build on them.
Mayor Sherri Southwood claimed it wasn’t a big ask for developers. “It’s not intended to be a beautifully landscaped bush area,” she said. “We’re just asking for it to be turfed and have a few bushes … just enough to bind the soil and look a bit more visually appealing.”
How does it happen? In NSW, permission for demolishing a regular building can be obtained through a Complying Development Certificate (CDC): a fast-tracked planning and construction approval that allows a developer to bypass the local council.
The process of putting up something new can be more difficult. Approval may need to be sought from multiple government agencies. Alternatively, a development company might walk away from a project altogether if it can’t make the numbers work.
There are multiple sites across the northern suburbs that have been left in limbo. Demolition has occurred but approval for construction has not been granted, or complications have halted work.
The new rules specifically target these sites. Southwood pointed to the vacant lots on 14 Berry Road and 542 Pacific Highway, the former home of Green Gourmet.
Beyond visual improvements to the LGA, the policy will also enforce stricter rules on local pollution. Southwood claimed that stormwater runoff from these vacant sites has been entering local waterways, such as Berry Creek.
Under the new rules, the developer will need to show a plan for how they will manage runoff from the site, if it is left vacant.
While the policy will not be applied retrospectively to the two St Leonards sites specified, Southwood told the Lorikeet she hoped the new rules would “make the area a little nicer”.