Brotherton v Sydney City Council [2004] NSWLEC 475

Land and Environment Court of New South Wales

CITATION : Brotherton v Sydney City Council [2004] NSWLEC 475 APPLICANT Anerys Brotherton PARTIES : RESPONDENT Sydney City Council FILE NUMBER(S) : 10425 of 2004 CORAM: Murrell C KEY ISSUES: Development Application :- Subdivision - impact on character of area and adjoining property LEGISLATION CITED: South Sydney Local Environmental Plan CASES CITED: DATES OF HEARING: 02-05/08/2004 EX TEMPORE 08/05/2004 JUDGMENT DATE :

APPLICANT Mr I Hemmings, barrister McMahons National Lawyers

LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES: RESPONDENT Mr S Patterson, solicitor RESPONDENT Wilshire Webb

JUDGMENT: THE LAND AND ENVIRONMENT COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Murrell C

5 August 2004

10425 of 2004 Anerys Brotherton v Sydney City Council

JUDGMENT

1 This is a verbal judgment for an appeal that I heard on Monday of this week. The appeal commenced on site for the property known as 4 Rippon Way, Rosebery. 2 The Court had the opportunity of hearing from a number of objectors on site. Some seven people gave evidence to the Court on the view and their objections were with respect to the character of the area and concerns about development of a dwelling house on the smaller rear lot that was proposed in the subdivision. 3 The application is for the subdivision of an existing allotment of land, that is some 854 sq m and 13.6 m at the street frontage and 10.5 m at the rear with side boundaries of 71 and 76 m. The property next door is No. 2 which has an area of 780 sq m and the property on the other side at No. 6 has 1166 sq m with 15.24 x 76 m boundary. 4 The area is one that is described as a low density area and in that regard there was evidence from council's heritage specialist in terms of the history of the area which I will refer shortly. The subject site is zoned Residential 2(a) under the South Sydney Local Environmental Plan and the objectives of the zone include: · "to preserve the amenity of existing low density residential areas and to nominate localities where future residential development of comparable density is likely to occur; · to ensure building form is in character with the surrounding built environment and does not detract from the amenity enjoyed by nearby residents of the existing quality of the environment; and · to provide opportunities for non-residential development". 5 The LEP contains few controls. The minimum lot size for Rosebery, Centennial Park and Moore Park is 230 sq m which is distinguished from the rest of what was previously known as the South Sydney Local Government Area where the minimum allotment size is 135 sq m. The date of the LEP is 1998.