Housing options for the city's older members will be expanded, after Griffith City Council voted to approve the construction of a 129-home estate along Calabria Road in Collina.
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Council gave the green light to the project during Tuesday's council meeting, but not without discussion regarding the location and development conditions for the project.
The development - which looks to create a manufactured home estate for those over the age of 55 dubbed 'Griffith Hill Estate' - had received 90 submissions regarding the development, including a pair of petitions.
Objections focused on the quality of the development, the devaluation of the surrounding properties, an age restriction on prospective tenants and that the development is 'out of character' with the area.
Planning consultant and applicant for the project Warwick Stimson addressed council during Tuesday's meeting and said while the developers intend to be back before council to allow for the homes to be built on the site and the alteration of some conditions, they were pleased with the conditions set out.
"We've been through a lot of consultation and you've seen the results of that," Mr Stimson said.
"A lifestyle living community is not a caravan park, it's not tourism accommodation, it's not social or lower social demographic housing, it's not aged care, it's not student accommodation, it's not short term accommodation, it's not accommodation for workers and it's not a retirement village.
"This estate will be for retiring over 55s which will be governed by the approval to operate ... the community living in the estate will be governed by an established set of community rules and we've provided council with an example of those rules."
Three Griffith councillors asked questions of the development; Cr Simon Croce asked if the homes will be specifically owner occupied, Cr Rina Mercuri asked if the outside of the homes were made of Colorbond, Cr Glen Andreazza inquired what would happen if residents of the estate had to take in a person who is under the age cap.
Lincoln Place - the fund behind the development - director Ben Hindmarsh told council owners would be required to enter into a site agreement.
"Under the community rules, special circumstances would allow for residents to apply if they have a guardianship situation for that person to live with them," Mr Hindmarsh said.
"The Colorbond to be used on the homes would be the roofing and guttering.
"In the unlikely instance that person was left alone and both guardians passed away and that person wasn't over 55, community rules has that the resident needs to be over 55 so in that instance and more than likely in the realistic world that person would want to sell the home and probably not live in an over 55s estate."
Cr Andreazza said he would have liked to see the applicants confirm they seek to build on site as part of the application and Mr Hindmarsh said while he agrees, there is a legislative process which must be done but had a condition requiring it been on the application, it would have been accepted.
Councillor Mike Neville brought up correspondence councillors received on Tuesday regarding potential changes to a number of conditions and asked if council staff had made any changes.
Council's sustainable development director Phil Harding said they had agreed to change a condition about accessing the estate over the canals which run alongside the development.
"The most significant thing that we discussed was the bonding of the access-way over the canals," Mr Harding said.
"The applicant has been reluctant to do that prior to the occupancy of the houses on site, so what we've agreed to today [Tuesday] is the applicant will be able to bond an access off Calabria Road during the subdivision stage - so therefore that reduces their cost significantly at the outset."
Cr Neville also inquired about a condition imposing the development to connect the the nearest sewage pumping station.
"It appears logical to me that we actually investigate that before we impose a condition to impose significant cost to the developer if it's unwarranted," Cr Neville said.
"There'll be a future benefit for anyone that's in a future growth portion of this particular precinct ... if there's an expectation of council that any developer forward fund stuff there needs to be justification as to it's need.
"I just have some reservations about just carte blanche approval of matters when there are issues like this unresolved."
Mr Harding indicated the capacity of the sewer system has been set for the Collina development and council are "not proposing to change that" condition, while Mr Stimson said in regards to the condition, the developers were seeking a study to determine the capacity and plan to further work on the condition post-approval.
Deputy mayor Doug Curran told council he would be objecting the development and while it is an idea with "some real merit", the location of the development is not suitable.
"I am personally concerned with the location - it's not what I envisaged for the area," Councillor Curran said.
"Having spoken to some people today [Tuesday] they did point out that there is scope for something like this to go ahead ... my main concern is the amount of objections that we had, I think that there's potentially already a lot of bad blood out there within that locale within the area.
"I really do think that this idea has a lot of merit, I just think it's in the wrong area."
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Griffith mayor John Dal Broi said while there were a lot of complaints regarding the submission, they were made very early in the development process.
"If you look at the date they were all in January and since that time - all credit to the developers - they went out there and they communicated with the community," Councillor Dal Broi said.
"I would have expected to have objections here this evening but that hasn't happened."
Councillor Glen Andreazza said the public perception of the development may have changed since the beginning of the year as community members learnt what the estate would be for.
"As far as the objections go, I agree with you Mr mayor, they were all before there was very little meat around this and it wasn't sold very well," Cr Andreazza said.
"I agree that now the public are a lot happier with what they've seen and I think this going forward will be an attractive option to a lot of people."
Council voted in favour of the development, with Cr Curran the sole dissenting vote.