But - with developers not backing away from their target to build up to 760 homes on the former industrial site despite opposition from the Corrimal community - they are also proposing more apartment buildings.

Wollongong councillors will next week consider the revised rezoning plan for the old cokeworks, which is one of the most significant development sites in an established area in the Illawarra.

Read more: Corrimal Cokeworks to be heritage listed ahead of 700-home development

The developers want to change the now defunct industrial land to medium density housing, and have asked for permission to build blocks rising up to four and six storeys across the site.

Plans to rezone the cokeworks - which closed in 2014 - were first lodged by the Illawarra Coke Company in October 2017. Their initial plans included 180 town houses, semi-detached and detached homes and 515 apartments in buildings ranging from two to six storeys.

Over the past three years, Corrimal residents have raised a litany of concerns about the development, which they believe will alter the character and liveability of their northern suburb, dominate views of the escarpment and create traffic havoc.

Wollongong councillors have also held concerns, and in the past year have taken action to protect the industrial heritage of the site - after the development partners Legacy Property and the Illawarra Coke Company went outside the council to gain permission to demolish some of the old cokeworks infrastructure.

In a report to councillors about the latest plans, which the developers will unveil on Monday afternoon, council staff have highlighted that the developers target of 735-760 dwellings for the site remains unchanged.

Instead of townhouses and detached dwellings, the new proposal will result in a precinct made up solely of apartment buildings.

Five per cent of these homes - 35 dwellings - will be set aside for affordable rental housing, to be managed by the Illawarra Housing Trust, the council plans say.

There will also be a heritage plaza built next to Corrimal Railway Station, shops and services focusing on commuter and resident convenience. Some of the heritage elements - like the chimneys, part of the coke ovens and the old powerhouse building - will be retained, repurposed or interpreted.

The developers' vision includes the inclusion of neighbourhood shops, cafes, restaurants, and possibly business start-ups or flexible work spaces in the heritage plaza, the council said.

This area will be limited to a maximum of 2,000m2 floor space - including one neighbourhood supermarket of no more than 1000m2 in size, to ensure that it does not take away from the retail importance of the nearby Corrimal Town Centre.

The council has also highlighted that 52 per cent of the site is now proposed as open space - originally 43 open space was proposed - which will include the riparian corridor, a central neighbourhood park, southern recreation park and the heritage plaza.

Council staff have recommended the councillors support the rezoning proposal, but have suggested a lower floor space ratio (building density) than what the developers have asked for in some parts of the site.

The issue will be debated at next Monday's council meeting, and if supported, will be put out on public exhibition for further comment.

The president of a community group representing hundreds of Corrimal residents says she believes the latest plans to turn the suburb's old cokeworks into apartment housing is worse than developers' previous proposals.

Anne Marett, who leads the Corrimal Community Action Group, said residents still held major concerns about traffic, heritage and the environment, and were alarmed to see plans for "huge apartment blocks that are way too high" dominating the most recent version of the cokeworks redevelopment.

"The height limit for that area at the moment is four storeys, and they're asking for six to seven storeys," she said.

"It sets an incredible worrying precedent for all the suburbs of Wollongong, because the density and bulk of this will be the equivalent of what we'd see in the town centre of Dapto, or in Wollongong CBD and North Wollongong."

"There will be up to 1500 people moving in there, if you take an average of two people per homes, and that is the equivalent of the whole suburb of Russell Vale and bigger than all of Stanwell Park.

"You're putting a whole new suburb in the middle of Corrimal - it will be so out of character."

She said residents main concern about this influx of new residents was that Corrimal roads would become gridlocked, like many others in the northern suburbs.

"Accrding to the plans, there's one access point on Railway Street, intersecting at Harbinger Street," she said.

"They're saying that their modelling, which has been done with the RMS, shows that will be able to handle the traffic - but for those of us that use Railway Street daily, we know that's flawed.

"They're saying that it would generate 350 cars in the evening and 450 in the morning - but the whole size of the develop is based on the flawed assumption that people will use public transport."

"The rail service in Corrimal is hourly, and the bus service is even worse - the public transport service is not adequate at he moment to get people out of their cars."