Woolies plan for Warnervale

Background
Located 4.5km north of Wyong, the WTC proposal comprises:
• 25 000m² of retail space, 8,000m² of commercial space and 8,000m² of bulky goods retail,
• 1,700 dwellings to house between 4,000 and 5,000 people; and
• A new railway station, transport interchange and commuter car park adjacent to the town centre.

The station proposal is designed to accommodate long distance commuter trips to Sydney, and shorter trips to Newcastle, Wyong and Gosford. It will be designed to allow for two additional tracks in the future. The forecast is for the station to cater for 1,600 customers daily and up to 6 trains per hour. The WTC incorporates land bound by Sparks, Hiawatha and Hakone Roads and an area of land west of the railway line.

Where should town centre be located?
The WTC proposal runs with the "Top of the Hill" proposal after much conjecture on whether the town centre should be located at the top, middle or bottom of the hill. The "Top of the Hill” location is adjacent to the station and on land owned by Woolworths.
The Minister for Planning Frank Sartor called in the WTC as a potential State Significant Site back in June 2006. A planning consultant was engaged by the Department of Planning to assess the merit of the top, middle and bottom of the hill options.
The consultant recommended the top of the hill despite the fact that Wyong Council had previously recommended the middle of the hill as the best option. The top of the hill appears to have been chosen due to a desire to encourage the use of public transport and to create a compact town centre with medium density and shop top housing.

Concerns for "Top of the Hill" proposal
A fundamental concern with the top of the hill location is that the access road into the town centre appears to be too steep for buses pedestrians and cyclists. The main street follows the contours of the ridge line but the access road climbs up a steep hill and will not be easily accessible for the elderly, parents with prams and children. The success of a retail area is dependent on ease of access and convenience. The prospect of pushing a pram up a steep hill is not going to be attractive to a mother with kids in tow. Take a walk up one of the side streets that run off Hunter Street in Newcastle to get an understanding of how steep the access into the town centre will be.

Another puzzling feature of the design is that the town centre spans over both sides of the railway line. The main focus will be on the eastern side of the railway line, but a further 2 hectares of land has been set aside for business purposes on the western side of the line. The prospect of competing supermarkets and business uses on either side of the railway line will inevitably result in one side prospering and the other side struggling to fill vacant space.

The Wyong Council report on the proposal at the 13 March Council meeting noted that "the proposal contains 628 dwellings within 3 storey buildings, likely to be in the form of ‘walk-ups’ without lifts. This is nearly 40% of the total 1,700 dwellings.’’ The Council report also identifies that "with 1,000 dwellings and nearly 2,000 residents anticipated to live in the immediate vicinity of the town centre, there is no outdoor, flat, cleared, open area where residents and visitors can kick a ball, fly a kite or generally participate in unorganised activities."

Major risk
A major risk associated with the proposal is that if there is limited take-up of the residential units, Council will not be able to retrieve enough s94 contributions to finance adequate infrastructure for the town centre. Furthermore, commercially zoned land that does not contain residential uses will not be required to pay any contribution towards the upgrade of state roads or the biodiversity offsets.

The nearby suburb of Wadalba has been rezoned for medium density housing and shop top housing since its inception, yet not one unit or shop top housing development has been constructed. The WTC will be serviced by a train station and will be more attractive for people seeking to live in units. But you have to seriously question whether there will be strong demand for unit development over the short to medium term.

The Department of Planning needs to carefully consider the economic viability of the town centre and take on board the advice of Wyong Council and local developers. After having had control of the WTC for almost 2 years, Wyong Council and its residents are well justified in expecting a more economically viable and socially responsible proposal than the current exhibition.

A few kilometres west of the WTC is the proposed Wyong Employment Zone (WEZ). The WEZ comprises 340 hectares of land for general industrial uses. On completion, the WEZ is expected to generate employment for around 6,000 people. The WEZ and the WTC are separated by rural-residential lots identified under the Wyong LEP as a ‘future urban’ zone. There must be a good reason why the town centre and the WEZ are not linked together by rezoning the ’future urban’ land to standard residential lots – but I am not aware of it. A more practical approach would be to rezone all land north of Sparks Road now, rather than in the future, to immediately bolster retail support for the town centre and to provide housing in close proximity of employment lands.

Another concern about the WEZ is that the industrial zone boundaries are fragmented and angular. The proposed zoning map has created islands of industrial land surrounded by conservation land and physically separated from Sparks Road and other industrial users. Obviously every effort should be made to encourage sustainable development and conserve ecologically significant land. But the proposed zone boundaries are impractical from an industrial users view point.

Successful industrial estates maximise efficiencies. Warehouse and distribution centres must be rectilinear in shape to provide adequate truck turning areas and to enable construction of "big box’’ warehouses for optimal storage.
The WEZ zone boundaries have obviously been designed to appease conservation objectives without consulting with industrial development experts. As with the WTC, the WEZ will only succeed if it is economically viable.

By Ian Stewart,
Stewart Planning Group

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