Kogarah North Precinct Public Domain Plan

I have been a resident in Kogarah for over 15 years and love our little neighbourhood and peacefulness surroundings. Over the years, with population growth and stress for housing demand in Sydney, houses have knocked down and replaced with high rises, yet our infrastructure and local services remain the same. There needs to be an infrastructure development plan hand in hand with any future high rise residential development, otherwise, I see Kogarah becoming a new 'Hurstville' (congested and not living friendly). Kogarah station is already congested in the morning and afternoon peak hour. Street parking is limited. I can't imagine this precinct plan would have any positive impact on the quality of life of the existing residents in Kogarah. This is very concerning when Council do not consult with the local residents prior to issuing this draft plan.

Would you please provide a plan when you can provide "Final report"? It has been 2 months since the comment close and there is no indication when this could progress.

General feed back, it would be great if you could have ETA time next to each stage of all yoursay items.

I bought my small unit in Kogarah 10 years ago after searching for some time for something I could possibly afford in a suburb still within walking reach of the ocean, local shops, and transport. Since then there have been changes to the roads to make access to the train station slower (Princes Highway/President Avenue crossing removed), approved housing developments without adequate parking, reduced parking (through restricting more spaces on local roads), and now we have the planned F6 (Westconnex) tunnel and pollution stacks on one side (tunnel potentially running under my property) AND threatened extreme over development on the other side.... Thanks government for looking after the local residents....I'm guessing that the increased council tax rates each year (alongside increase in revenue from new developments) won't be put back into the local streets which are affected by this mess....

It's disheartening to think that after years of living in this once peaceful and friendly suburb, we are now faced with this dilemma. Kogarah has always been a safe haven for my family and I. We know the neighbourhood like the back of our hands. You step outside your house and walk along Kogarah Centre and it is usual to stop for a quick hello to small business owners and workers you have known for years and years. People who may not know your name but definitely know that you're part of this community and proud of it.

The plan for high density, high rise environment for Kogarah will have a tremendous negative impact on the homeowners of this little suburb. It will affect the amount of traffic as well as safety issues due to a influx in the number of people living in the area. As Home owners we are constantly being bombarded with offers to sell our property in order to use our land for high rise units. It's not only frustrating, it's irritating. We worked so hard to achieve the Australian dream of owning our house. It took us years of waiting for the right house to come along but we were willing to wait because we love this suburb. We are not willing to sell.

I am very disappointed as a resident of this once beautiful, family oriented and close community suburb who is now being turn into a money grabbing business. I agree that any development is good for the community however please step back and look at what is happening in our streets namely Station Street and Railway Parade traffic chaos day and night, too much infrastructure , numerous units, over population and constant lack of planning. I still remember when Kogarah was once a peaceful, quiet suburb and a great place to live. I am constantly being harass by developers who is interested in my property, I am not interested in selling and I will never be as Kogarah is my home for the past 30years !!! I am very upset that on one seems to acknowledge my neighbourhood concerns.

With all the towers planned, please have consideration for capturing the winter sun in the public areas. Planting of deciduous trees should be a requirement.

Appalling!

State and Local Government should be ensuring that the infrastructure is in place before allowing these massive high density developments to take place. They should be ensuring that we still have a liveable and lovable city in which to live. This hope is disappearing rapidly and overpopulation is ruining a once great place to live. Sydney for the last 15 or 20 years has being subjected to an horrendous lack of vision. Whatever happened to the imagination of the past (think Sydney Harbour Bridge, Snowy Mountains Scheme)? Great infrastructure projects were formulated with a plan for the future. Nowadays the planning is to build high rise residential developments, clog up the place and then hope the city will function like a modern city. Pathetic. Sydney is going downhill fast and only the elites in their ivory towers who don't have to live in areas like Kogarah will be the only ones who benefit.

Good plan but if you live in north side and wanted to drive for shopping to the kogarah cebtral, there’s no proper road (no one gives a way in princess highway and there’s no clear way signs) and parking is always a problem.

While I appreciate the need for housing due to an increased goal of 8 million for Sydney, does the development need to be without a soul. Have a height restriction and stick to it. Have some imagination with the architecture, no more boxes of clad high rise. Have the buildings set back with gardens. Have more than adequate parking. More greenspace instead of trying to take it from the local schools. More trees. Think about with the increased population what local facilities will be needed by the population instead of having this as an afterthought. work with the NSW government to see how this will impact upon the demand for the increased services such as education, transport, medical ,police etc.

I know there is a lot of opposition to rezoning, but I want everyone to think about alternatives: horizontal growth and 2hr travel to the city has become unsustainable. The city has to grow upwards, not only in Kogarah. Trains (currently every 10 mins) will increase in frequency for sure, buses will also respond to the demand. The big "if" is the infrastructure planning: Kogarah Public school, for example, is already full: the 4th demountable classroom was squeezed into the playground. More space and 2-storey classroom buildings are needed there. High School will also need extension. Parking is a huge problem in Kogarah and has been for a long time. Typically 1, rarely 2 car spaces are allocated for each 2-bedroom unit, and I know several families with 3 cars. Developers need for a rethink there (council has to form the rules), and also there needs to be at least one decent size public car park. Roads need to be widened to handle increased traffic, and green zones between Victor and Victoria Streets and Hogben park must not be compromised. Research into details of our projected infrastructure needs (growing number of students, patients in the hospitals, cars etc) is extremely important.
Rezoning and redevelopment would also be good for local businesses – so many premises along Regent and Kensington Streets are vacant. More people will bring more needs and more business services.
There must be, however, mechanisms to hold both the council and the developers accountable for planning decisions that do not explicitly reflect what infrastructure developments are planned. I communicated with Mr Chris Minns who was campaigning against the redevelopment and I told him that ignoring the realities of population increase is short-sighted. As long as the newly built unit blocks are not "shoeboxes" like he said, and have some greenery around, if roads, schools, hospitals, shops etc. are planned for smooth running, like in many European cities, our council can lead the way.