After a decade of failure, the Kollaras family have finally gotten the green light for a multi-storey home on Cliff Road.
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Since 2012 the family have been trying to redevelop the waterfront block at 82a Cliff Road, now home to the Belmore Apartments.
Plans have been drawn up several times, and at least two prior development applications lodged with Wollongong City Council - both of which were withdrawn.
Proposals have varied from a Spanish mission style development to a four-storey apartment block with balconies in close proximity to the footpath.
Concerns about previous proposals related to the bulk and size of the development.
Over that time the Kollaras family, which runs an independent liquor importing businesses at Albion Park, gave up on the idea of building apartments and instead opted for a duplex with rooftop plunge pool, a cellar and butlers' pantry.
The latest plans, Lodged on behalf of Michael and Nadine Kollaras, were knocked back by Wollongong Local Planning Panel in 2020.
The panel found the revised proposal was "an overdevelopment of the site and does not respond to the sensitivity of the context of the site".
The dispute ended up in the Land and Environment Court, where the Kollarases finally got the go-ahead.
The two parties sat down at a court conciliation session where "amended plans and documentation was prepared and agreement was reached between the parties".
The court-mandated approval is subject to a 26-page list of conditions of consent.
These include the need to seek approval from Sydney Water and the requirement to stop work should items of Aboriginal significance or human remains be found.
There will also be a ban on working outside of the hours of 7am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
