Bay project on move
A PLAN to build a multimillion-dollar mixed residential and retail precinct at Kangaroo Bay is another step closer to reality.
Clarence City Council has granted Hunter Developments preferred developer status for the Boulevard site of the Kangaroo Bay precinct.
Hunter Developments is behind the $50 million Kangaroo Bay Hotel at the wharf side of Kangaroo Bay and is also behind another controversial Eastern Shore development — the Rosny Hill Hotel, for which a development application was recently lodged.
Hunter Developments holds preferred developer on both these sites. While still in the preliminary stages, the Boulevard site proposes a large mixed-use residential and retail precinct with about 80 units across 13,400sq m of land with 280 car park spaces.
At a council meeting yesterday, aldermen voted on the matter with only Richard James voting against and John Peers absent.
Ald James wanted to go back to the open market to see if there was another developer that would be interested but his council colleagues disagreed, with some fearing Hunter Developments could walk away and seek financial recompense.
Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman said awarding preferred developer status would provide Hunter Developments with exclusive rights to submit a planning application for the site and to develop it if the planning application was approved.
“Should the development application be lodged, it would initiate statutory public consultation inviting public representations,” he said.
Hunter Developments director Robert Morris-Nunn said preferred developer status offered the company some certainty to move forward with the project.
“About a month ago we proposed a preliminary idea to the council to make council comfortable about confirming us as preferred developer,” Professor Morris-Nunn said.
“There is a mountain of money that needs to get invested in these sorts of projects and so this gives us that certainty.”
Hunter Developments must undertake public community consultation before a development application can be submitted.
Anne Geard, the spokeswoman for Kangaroo Bay Voice — a community group with concerns over the development — said more public consultation was necessary.
“Any consultation where they listen to people and their concerns is excellent,” she said.
“We are not against development as long it’s appropriate development.”
On March 20, 2015, the council and the State Government invited the submission of development proposals to activate the Kangaroo Bay development precinct.
Council awarded Hunter Developments preferred developer status for the wharf site in October, 2016, but deferred a decision for the Boulevard site pending further information on the proposal.