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EP. 1399 18m glass ceiling broken, new 4 storey building approved
Brookvale has finally broken through its century-old height ceiling! The Northern Beaches Council has just approved the first 18-metre building in the industrial area, setting a groundbreaking precedent that will transform this evolving suburb.
For property owners in Brookvale, this seven-metre increase from the previous 11-metre restriction is revolutionary. Where development was once constrained to a single factory level with perhaps offices above, the new height allowance enables multiple levels of functional industrial space. The approved building showcases this potential with its striking six-level design – four levels above street level and two below – built almost boundary-to-boundary to maximize usable space.
This approval doesn't exist in isolation. Westfields (formerly Warringah Mall) is reportedly planning approximately 1,500 residential units – roughly five times the size of a typical Meriton development. Together, these developments signal Brookvale's dramatic transformation from an aging industrial precinct to a modern, mixed-use hub. For downsizers especially, new residential options adjacent to shopping, healthcare, and public transport present compelling opportunities to remain in the Northern Beaches area.
The conversation naturally turns to infrastructure concerns, particularly parking and traffic. Rather than restricting business types or development potential, there's growing sentiment that creative solutions are needed – from council-built multi-storey parking facilities to incorporating public parking levels within new developments. These approaches would support business growth rather than constraining it.
What do you think about Brookvale's transformation? Are you excited about the potential for newer buildings and increased density, or concerned about the associated challenges? Share your thoughts with us and subscribe to Morning Minutes for more Northern Beaches property insights and development news.
Congratulations, brookvale New Heights approved. The first building before the Gazelle comes through has now been approved, and we're going to tell you all about it. Brookvale congrats. Stay tuned. I'm the ringleader, so let's go. Let it rain.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Morning Minutes myself, michael Bergio, mark Novak. Episode 1399 New, new heights reach. For Brookvale, 18 metres has been approved, which equals a four-storey building in the industrial area. To put in perspective, the previous height allowance was 11 metres, so this is an extra seven metres of concrete.
Speaker 1:We're cheating.
Speaker 2:Well, I can do that there you are. Look, I've got that marked.
Speaker 1:That is incredible. That is incredible. That is incredible. And you know what People have been waiting for years for this and the first approval goes through and gets approved even before it comes through Gazettal. What a legend of a council making the consideration and concession for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think why does this matter and what type of effects will this have on Brookvale? One? Why it matters if you own a block, it can, it should, can tell you what you can do with your block. You may be able to look to develop it, or maybe, if you're renting you, there could be concerns. Next door could now redevelop. But also the the good for the area is there could be a lot more properties being built, which means newer properties.
Speaker 2:You often hear people make the remarks like about brook bow, there's a lot of old buildings, there's a lot of buildings that need love. And the biggest issue, um, that we could see on the ground and as agents, we get a really, really good view of the feasibility of developing these blocks. Now you sometimes see this in residential, where the house is worth so much it's not worth knocking down the house to build four units. And there are a lot of blocks in brookvale where, yes, you could redevelop it into smaller, smaller factories or strata factories, but you just can't build enough to make it worth its while or that the biggest, the biggest, the hottest commodity at the moment in Brookvale has been industrial units and where you can have a workshop, a gym, a brewery or a factory mechanic.
Speaker 2:but if you redevelop and with 11 meter height limit you, that really only allows for one factory, five to seven metre height downstairs, and then upstairs would either be offices or smaller production suites. With an eight-metre height allowance you can have two levels, potentially three levels of factory space. Because you can build a ramp, because you're getting the extra height, you can sort of sacrifice some floor space to build a ramp to make it usable warehousing space that trucks can, you know, go with some plants.
Speaker 1:This is iconic for Brookvale. This is the first approval, michael, in over 100 years. This is the first approval ever for Brookvale of 18 metres. This is an iconic, iconic decision made by council. By approving this, it's setting, it's opening up the floodgates for all other property owners. It is setting precedents. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what style. Talk us through this DA. What have they got approved and do you think this will be similar to what other landowners will build, or do you think something slightly different? We're seeing a surge in storage units, starting from 18 squares to 35 square metres, or the mini factories. What's here and what do you think we'll see?
Speaker 1:well, if you, if you go to that side profile, ladies and gentlemen, you can reference the tree, um, when you see the tree, it helps you back back one. Yep, if you see that tree, you can reference ground level where that is, and you got another, another. So you got four levels from from the street upwards and you got two levels from the street downwards to the ground. So that's six levels of bulk there. And what's interesting, if you tap, tap onto an overview from the top, um, what you'll actually see is it's pretty much boundary to boundary. They've pushed back on the front boundary where the tree is, but they've built up to the boundary on most of the property. So, very different to residential where you sort of come in, up in, up in up, like your terrace upwards. This is just one big ice cube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, I dropped the phone. Here we go, let's get the front here we go, so you got pit water right left sydney road.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is big guys and girls. This is big like. This is the highest allowance we've seen for industrial. On the whole of it all the beaches of just a hundred thousand properties um 18 meters is just prolific it's, it's not just.
Speaker 2:It's not just this unit, but there's uh. Westfields, formerly known as beringa mall, have put through 1500 residential units so they got approved for about.
Speaker 1:They were going through the master plan for about 700 or 800 units and they've just ramped through now 1,500. They're going to be putting through an application for it, you know. To give you an idea of how big that is for people on the northern beaches, meritan had 360 units. This is it's five meritons.
Speaker 2:Okay, we can't even fathom that, like some suburbs only have 1500 properties yeah, I think there's only 16 in commercial at the moment there's only 1600 properties and, I'm pretty sure, apartments. It's very similar, so they're virtually doubling the size of brookvale in density in one development plus, now they're going to 18 meters.
Speaker 1:Where's everyone going to park everyone's and how's the traffic going to work? Everyone Everyone's wandering Birch. That's the two things people always ask parking and traffic.
Speaker 2:And that's where I just and I was having this conversation with my physio, where I hated how developers get the bad rap when it comes to parking or certain types of businesses I know in Brookvale they're looking to change the zoning policies, with certain types of businesses being able to operate and the biggest reason is for parking. And it's like why should certain businesses be punished? Because basically the council hasn't rectified the parking issue? They should just build a 10 storystorey car park with 1,000 car spaces and let all businesses thrive, let all development thrive and rather than saying that business is too successful, it brings too many cars, let's pull it back, Because then what happens?
Speaker 2:Then you get no one going to that area and then the suburb starts to die and it's like, ok, well, you can park there, but no one wants to be there. So I think, instead of we, the people saying, oh, bloody developers, oh, the gym business or childcare business takes up all the car spaces, why don't we put the pressure back on council and say, well, how about that? Like there's a? There's a council car park in brookvale, behind the tab, which is just ground level? Council could go ahead and say let's build a 10-story car park and that would accommodate all the parking requirements and we can have all businesses thrive.
Speaker 2:Because I'll tell you what any business owner who goes who would celebrate the restriction of another business being able to operate, for example, a gym. Let's say you're a window shop next to a gym and your customers can't park because of the gym clients. How many customers have you gotten from that gym being there and all the gym members going past every day to their gym saying, oh, windows, windows. And then the day they need windows or they're at a barbecue and friends say I need some new windows, that that gym member goes oh, there's one right next to my gym. I recommend you go there. So I think we need to always be looking for solutions for the parking rather than trying to restrict development or businesses. For example, councils could say all right, the height limit is yeah, it's the wrong way around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, councils could say, all right, the height limit's 18 metres, but we're going to give you 24 metres and you have to build one level of parking for public use at the ground level of your development. Developers will build whatever's needed to get the approval. So, yeah, and I think 1,500 apartments will be phenomenal for Westfield. Think of how many downsizers who are in the larger homes and they don't want to sell because they may be close to their neighbourhood shops. They've got everything at their fingertips and they don't want to buy into a larger development, maybe on the beachfront, where here they can buy into um westfields where you're going to have cold woolworth doctors all at the fingertips and public transport. So I think it could be amazing it's going to be good.
Speaker 1:So, guys, congratulations to Brook of Arlitt for the high. It's very, very exciting for our clients.
Speaker 2:You just break out, Mark, but I know you're saying congratulations to Brook of Arlitt population Exciting for the new DA approval and the new buildings to be built and let's hope we get some cool new businesses come through.
Speaker 1:thank you everybody absolutely, and jeff jeff hughes got a comment there. Give jeff a bit of it maybe they should be saying that oval or even manly hopeful.
Speaker 2:Exactly right, they've been talking about rebuilding brookvale oval for a decade. Rebuild it and build five levels of parking underneath. So it's um.
Speaker 1:So it goes back to take a parking levy and from all the development that's going to happen and just start a car park underneath yeah, and it goes with what I'm saying instead of hammer hammering, the private user get count.
Speaker 2:Put the pressure on council to come up with solutions within development progression rather than just stagnation.
Speaker 1:We all good big time. Sorry, I'm a big crunchy. I don't know what's wrong with the uh with it, but you everyone take care. Thank you see, miss.