Pymble Golf Club has forged ahead with future-driven plans for a mid-rise housing complex on its land, circumventing council and securing approval for the required rezoning from the state government.
Golf has been played in the upper north shore since the 1920s, when areas like St Ives were still used for cattle grazing. In 1924 a company registered as Pymble Golf Club Ltd was formed for the purpose of taking over 90 acres from the Golf Links Estate and forming a golf club.
A century on, PGC was, like many other clubs, considering measures to secure its financial future and settled on constructing a housing complex overlooking the golf course, on around 10,000sqm of land on the edge of its property.
The location is within walking distance of St Ives Shopping Village and local amenities, and currently home to two heritage-listed cottages, the clubhouse and a carpark.
Plans, aiming to create 78 dwellings across four buildings, would require the land to be rezoned to high-density residential, which allows such a development height limit of up to five storeys, or 17.5 metres.
It would see the cottages relocated and clubhouse demolished, with both to become integrated into the new residential area and new parking space built underground.
The course would not be affected, and its 18 holes all retained.
The club’s submission cited intended outcomes that included contributing to the area’s mandated housing target, and the creation of a mixed-use development with recreational and housing opportunities.
Community concerns about the proposal submitted to council were mainly about flood risk, traffic congestion and a lack of ‘affordable’ housing in the upmarket precinct.
Ku-ring-gai is aiming to deliver 7,600 new residences by 2029, as part of the National Housing Accord, and the goal is for 10 per cent of dwellings in the area to be defined as affordable housing.
The local planning panel denied the request for the rezoning, and the club took the matter to the state, appealing to the government’s strategy to increase density in suitable suburbs.
Approval sees less than three per cent of the club’s land, mostly carpark, rezoned to facilitate the roughly 170 residents that may occupy the apartments.
Ku-ring-gai Council will soon meet and consider the state’s guidelines on planning and design, likely to centre on the required setbacks for the residential structures and spacing from the heritage cottages. Streets around the development are expected to see high pedestrian traffic and will probably be reclassified to 40km/h zones.
Pymble Golf Club declined to comment on the project at this stage.
