“The community will fight this. People are already getting active about it,” she said. “The community will not welcome this development at all.”
Ms Wade said the 12-metre height limit was part of what made Coogee “so special”,and breaching it would detract from the “low key,low scale village feel” of the beachside suburb.
Rod Sen,the owner of Coogee’s Barzura restaurant,said the proposal would divide the community between those who supported the renewal of the site and residents opposed to it.
“From a local business point of view,I don’t think it would be that bad because a lot of Coogee Bay Road is drab and tired,” he said. “But there will be a lot of blowback from ... local residents.”
Ryan Elliott,chairperson of community group Coogee Precinct,said residents would be concerned about extra road traffic generated by another supermarket,and the proposed buildings breaching the 12-metre height limit and overshadowing neighbouring properties.
“There is a little bit of,‘Here we go again’,from the community,” he said.
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But the project’s development manager,Russell Cotton,said it would reinvigorate the site,upgrade its accommodation,create a greater range of entertainment and dining options,public meeting spaces and a “more family-friendly environment”.
“It presents an opportunity to reconfigure the site from a conglomeration of ad hoc buildings and alterations from various time periods,” he said.
The proposal also includes three levels of basement car parking,comprising 227 spaces,and eight new cafés and restaurants built along an “eat street laneway”.
Labor MP for Coogee Marjorie O’Neill said the proposal was “over the top” and locals had every right to be cranky. “Sixty new luxury home units,a mega car park and a third supermarket will wreck for everyone Coogee Bay Road’s seaside village feel,” she said.
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