Letter Of The Month: Illawong Avenue Response

By Marea of Bondi on July 2, 2012 in Other

In his ‘From Eyesore To Icon’ report last month, Daniel Hutton’s only apt observation was that when it comes to fixing Harry Seidler’s eight-storey visual blight on Tamarama, “you can’t polish a turd”.

Even applying his uncritical pen to the bizarrely audacious plans of Glenview Court residents to go up a floor, Hutton fails to argue a convincing case on how making an over-development even bigger is going to make it more attractive.

And his report totally ignores the wider planning implications if approval is granted for body corporate executive chairman Christine Smetsers’ proposal to increase the number of residences in this “grotesque” complex by almost 10 per cent – from 78 to 85.

It is undoubtedly a great individual tragedy that uninterrupted coastal views are not enough to entice unit-owners in Tamarama’s ugliest building to invest $65,000 each to fund $5 million worth of essential building repairs.

What is unclear is why this embarrassing personal cash flow problem should become a nightmare for hundreds of surrounding residents, who will never pocket proceeds from $800,000-plus sales of any Glenview Court unit.

Conveniently, Glenview Court owners so far have not mentioned that despite lobbying Waverley Council since September, Council refused approval for an extra floor or new townhouses on grounds of height, bulk and impact on surrounding residents.

Also ignored is that allowing impoverished Glenview Court residents to raise their eyesore from eight
to nine floors will set a precedent to allow every cash-strapped – or commercially astute – unit block in NSW to slap on another floor and stick five three-storey townhouses in the car-park.

Such a precedent would allow residents in the seven-storey block down the road, with ocean views from the top floors, to astutely maximise their investment with a couple of “roof top”, i.e. extra floor, penthouses.

And the three-storey block next door? It needs recarpeting, tiling and rewiring.

From a fourth floor, the penthouses would enjoy ocean views. So why shouldn’t they top up the building with a fourth floor for a couple of penthouses, sell them to fund the improvements, then let property owners in the body corporate divvy up the rest?

According to Smetsers and her Glenview Court co-owners, this should be a perfectly reasonable proposal. And if there’s a bit of green space or car parking, they can capitalise further by sticking in a couple of townhouses.

All the glib, glossy spin pedalled by Smetsers makes no mention of height restrictions, floor space ratio, open space requirements or population density allowed under council zoning laws.

Conveniently, nor has anyone asked her opinion on this.

As architects, one might suspect Nick Tobias and Associates, who drew up the latest Glenview Court plans, may have some insight into these complications.

The other implication Smetsers has overlooked in her enthusiasm to have us all cheering that she wants to further clutter the view and over-shadow surrounding homes is what approval for this wild cash-grab will mean for long-term planning laws.

When Glenview Court needs its next cash injection to fix yet another maintenance issue, of which it has apparently had many, can it then just level the roof of the penthouses and add a couple more floors?

And if councils or joint regional planning committees approve a new three-storey residential flat building, when will it rise to become four floors? Then five?

Approving this scheme will leave building height restrictions null and void.

There is no height restriction if buildings are allowed to add “just one more floor”. It isn’t a density restriction if you can add seven more dwellings. There is no open space requirement if you can knock up a few townhouses in the open space.

It is impossible to fathom how residents of Glenview Court can argue that because they bought into a gross, ugly, over-developed maintenance nightmare, they should be allowed to dismiss long-established state planning laws.

More bizarrely, these selfish 78 owners seem to think the rest of us should be grateful to them for splashing out to build their townhouses and two $5 million ninth floor penthouses.