The following relates to the development application (DA) on exhibition for 3-5 Fingal Street, Brunswick Heads, but I understand the theme herein is currently occurring in Byron Bay.
The developers have leveraged the DA on ‘affordable housing’ to take up a 15.67 per cent concession above the 9m overall height limit.
Once built, it is reasonable to assume the structure will have a life expectancy of say 100 plus years. So, by leveraging concessions on the provision of a two-bedroom x 1 and a three-bedroom x 1 ‘affordable housing’, and having those grandfathered for 10 to 15 years the relevant legislation is a golden egg for developers particularly when they are astutely aware of specific sites to target.
In this case it is in the premium commercial block in Brunswick Heads to be redeveloped for 13 shop top dwellings and four commercial premises. And whilst the DA commits to no holiday rentals it is within the 365 days permissible area for such.
At current market rentals, a two-bedroom unit in Brunswick would be $900/week and a three-bedroom unit would be $1,100/week.
Under the notion of affordability, the rents for the two ‘affordable units’ would be reduced to say $720/week and $880/week respectively. Of course, these rents are subject to discretionary change per year to reflect market conditions. Without any enforcement, a holiday rent would return substantially more.
The 15.67 per cent concession on height is critical to the proposed 41 on-site parking spaces in this DA. This effectively circumvents substantial parking contributions to Council being one of the options for the developers.
The Traffic Assessment Report states there are 14 existing on-site parking spaces. The proposed development is citing 41 spaces. There is a shortfall of 27 spaces. At approximately $70,000/space this is equivalent to $1,890,000 that is circumvented by putting in an ‘affordable housing’ DA. Whilst the parking contributions would be tied to specific expenditures, I can only vision the alternatives foregone.
The bigger question is, was it the purpose and intention of the legislation to be used in the aforementioned way?
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