This tiny coffee kiosk has a wee problem

To pee or not to pee? That is the question that’s been dumped on North Sydney Council by a local business wishing to establish the tiniest of tiny coffee kiosks.

The can crisis gets down to whether council’s planning committee will force the owners of the venue to install a toilet before approval is granted. 

What happened: A 35-square-metre patch of grass in Neutral Bay made headlines last year, when the plot housing a former electricity substation sold for $189,000, more than three times its price guide of $60,000.

In June, a development application was submitted for a coffee kiosk that would take up 11 square metres of the site.

There was some pushback from locals, including the adjoining Neutral Bay Club, for one specific reason: it lacked a toilet. 

When you gotta go: If a staff member or patron of the cafe needed to run to the loo, the nearest public toilet would be at Forsyth Park or Neutral Bay Village, both about a 10-minute walk.

At a Local Planning Panel meeting on Wednesday, the president of the bowling club, Stewart Hodgson, said that with no nearby public toilet, patrons and staff will “look to the club”.

Members of the panel questioned Melissa Neighbour, a planning consultant for the cafe’s owner, on how the kiosk would manage concerns over a lack of convenient conveniences. 

Neighbour emphasised the small scale of the service and said staff would only be on site for two to three hours at a time. 

In response, panel members pointed to the fact the DA asked for 12 hours of operation, from 7am to 7pm. 

One panel member said a condition for approval may be including a toilet. Neighbour said there was enough space and that the owner would be happy to install one.

The panel is still considering the matter.