11A Moonbie Street, Summer Hill, NSW 2130

To the General Manager,

I am writing to you regarding the development application DA2017/58.1 for 11A Moonbie Street, Summer Hill, NSW, 2130. As a local resident, I am concerned about several issues with the application. My concerns include mixed use, scale, noise and privacy, parking and miscommunication with residents in the notification.

Firstly, Inner West Council is currently run by an administrator. I believe that major developments such as this one should be determined by democratically elected council representatives.

1. Mixed Use
The development proposes to combine boarding style accommodation on the site with the existing methadone clinic. While the clinic does important work, it also increases crime in the local area and is frequently the subject of police surveillance. Combining the clinic on a single site with accommodation for people who may be vulnerable and easy targets for theft or other crimes seems misguided.

If the site already contained accommodation for vulnerable people, would the Council approve the addition of a methadone clinic?

2. Scale
The proposal includes 28 boarding house/bedsit rooms and a medical centre over 3 storeys. This is an R2 zoned area which requires developments to be harmonious with existing housing. The largest developments in this area are situated across the road on Moonbie Street and comprise 12-unit apartment blocks in 2 storeys. This application is more than double the size than these existing apartment blocks. Developments in R2 must also provide a minimum 35% landscaped area yet this proposal only provides 22% deep soil landscaping.

3. Noise and Privacy
According to the proposal, multipurpose areas such as balconies and other outdoor spaces will be out of bounds after 10pm. Given that there will be no on-site manager, how can this be monitored?

The height of the proposed building will also severely impact those living alongside or to the rear. Long term residents in these homes do not want other people to be able to peer into their yards. The application should include privacy screening to protect the privacy of all nearby homes from being overlooked.

4. Parking Congestion
The proposed boarding houses are closer to small apartments in design (they are all studio apartments containing individual bathrooms and kitchens), the developer’s traffic projections makes the assumption that very few of the residents will own a vehicle. Will this be part of the conditions of rent? If not, than it is safe to assume that many of the residents will have a car and will need to park said car on the street. We already have very congested parking on the streets and even with Council's recent parking restrictions in place, many of my neighbours end up parking blocks away from where they live.

5. Miscommunication
There are many discrepancies with this application. The development application refers to the development as boarding houses, however as mentioned above, the plans are for small studio apartments. Also, I am extremely concerned with the proposal for a “medical centre” within the development. The term “medical centre” is deliberately vague and is used to disguise the continued existence of the United Gardens Methadone Clinic. With the deliberate disguise of the methadone clinic both the social impact statement and traffic plans are invalid, as they do not take into consideration the amount of clientele coming and going.

I request that the DA be amended to clarify the continued operation of the clinic and go through notification again so that residents can make and informed response.

There is absolutely no business case for this development whatsoever. The myriad reasons against the size and nature of this dwelling far outweight any supposed community benefits.