Early in 2021 the owner of the Eden Gardens nursery complex on Lane Cove Road in Macquarie Park submitted a DA for an 18 storey office tower right on the edge of Lane Cove National Park. Ryde Council knocked back the application mainly for reasons of visual impact, traffic and height relative to surrounding areas.

The next stage would be a hearing before the North Sydney Planning Panel. In the meantime discussions were held with council and the panel trying to persuade the proponent to modify the plan to no avail.

The hearing was suddenly announced to be in December 2022. After all that time the applicant has not been able to obtain concurrence from the Rural Fire Service, Transport NSW and an Aboriginal Heritage Impacts Permit.

It was inevitable that the panel would refuse the application. Their determination summarised the situation that:

An acceptable redevelopment proposal of the site is more likely to be developed with close cooperation between the applicant and council. Such a dynamic has been lacking to date, as evidenced by the disagreements documented in the assessment report.

The next step will be a Land and Environment Court hearing in March. We hope the plans are considerably modified before that takes place.