This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
HPG Australia’s $700 million mixed use project in Sydney Park is finally set to be realised after the developer agreed to reduce the number of apartments, size and setback.
A limited release of sales for One Sydney Park was launched to the market four years ago after the City of Sydney’s Central Sydney Planning Committee gave the green light for 390-apartments and commercial uses across eight buildings of six storeys at the south-eastern edge of the 44-hectare park in Alexandria.
City of Sydney then rejected the scheme in 2020 stating that it would negatively impact on Sydney Park and that it felt the detailed plans “differed greatly” from the original concept.
HPG has now reached an agreement with the City of Sydney Council in the NSW Land and Environment Court to reduce the number of apartments to 356, while the building mass has been pushed back from the park and the perceived overall height of the buildings is decreased with planting and landscape screening the upper levels.
There is also a “greatly increased” setback to the upper levels of each park-side building, with the greatest setback in the northernmost park-side building, “where visual sensitivity is at its highest”.
HPG had appealed the decision on the grounds that the detailed designs for the site complied with Council’s planning parameters and met all the recommendations set by the City’s own design competition panel, who had unanimously endorsed the MHN Design Union, Silvester Fuller & Sue Barnsley Design submission.
The land that One Sydney Park will be built on was formerly owned by Goodman.
Development director for HPG Australia Barney Oros expects to appoint a construction company and commence site works before the end of the year.
“We have deliberately stayed under the radar since launch and the Court process commenced, but now that we have planning certainty we are looking forward to communicating with the wider community the significant benefits we will be bringing to a disused industrial park,” he said.
The architects stated in the proposal that their vision is to create a place that resonates and extends the ecology of the adjoining parkland.
“A blurring of the boundary between built form and the park landscape is achieved by dissolving the built edges of the apartment buildings fronting the park,” the architects note.
“Where adjacent to the parklands, or visible above the existing trees, the building form takes on a deliberately de-materialised quality. The mass of the building is intentionally blurred, emulating the character of the surrounding tree canopies.”
HPG has also announced Japanese artist, Fujiko Nakaya will be engaged to deliver a public art piece that will “provide a sensory transition between Sydney Park and the public plaza within the development”. Fujiko Nakaya has gained stardom for her work with ephemeral fog sculptures.
