An $18.5 million expansion planned for Wollongong Private Hospital is too bulky for its site, does not have enough car parks or public access ways and will ruin the streetscape in the city’s hospital precinct.
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This is the scathing assessment of Wollongong City Council staff, who have recommended the expansion plans be knocked back by the regional planning authority due to a long list of failures.
AA Crown Holdings, the consortium behind the hospital, lodged the expansion plans last October, hoping to raze the single-storey brick home at the north-east corner of the private hospital to make way for six new levels of operating theatres and medical suites.
In a report to the Southern Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP), which will meet to consider the expansion next week, council planners said the proposal was “permissible” but did not meet several development standards.
For instance, the floor space ratio – or bulkiness of the building on the site – exceeds the standard, and council staff said the developer has failed to justify why this should be allowed.
Listing 10 reasons for refusal, the planners said the development failed to meet standards about “landscaping, public domain, car parking, stormwater disposal, safety and security”.
“It is considered that the proposed development does not achieve a high quality design and would adversely impact upon the existing and future desired streetscape,” the council said.
“In its current form, the development is likely to result in adverse impacts on the amenity of the surrounding area.
“Approval of the development would set an undesirable precedent for similar inappropriate development and is therefore not in the public interest.”
AA Crown Holdings has signalled plans to take the council to court if the rejection goes through, and has already lodged an appeal in the Land and Environment Court.
Also ahead of the JRPP meeting, plans for a $27.3 million day surgery complex adjacent to the private hospital – again lodged by AA Crown Holdings – have been recommend for conditional approval.
The private day surgery at 1-3 Urunga Parade, would include a hyperbaric chamber as well as expanded theatre and inpatient facilities.
In their recommendation for this facility, council staff noted that approval – and demolition of the 1960s apartment building on the site – would lead to a reduced availability of affordable housing in Wollongong.
To offset this, the council advised that the developer should pay $180,788, which would be forwarded to the NSW Department of Housing to recover to loss of low-cost rental homes.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
