0°C | Monday October 27, 2025 
24 October 2025
The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure has raised extensive concerns with Woolworths’ proposed mixed-use redevelopment at 1–7 Rangers Road and 50 Yeo Street, Neutral Bay, directing the developer to address key non-alignments with the Neutral Bay Village Planning Study and a wide range of technical non-compliances before further assessment can proceed.
In a detailed 22 September 2025 letter to developer Fabcot, the department said the project—comprising a new Woolworths supermarket, residential apartments and a public plaza—required a full response to public submissions and an extensive package of additional information. The tone of the response also showed a degree of deference to Council planning objectives that defies the usual caricature of a state government riding roughshod over local concerns.
The department said the current design “does not align with the envisaged layout” endorsed by North Sydney Council in 2024. It cited the creation of a 4.85 metre blank wall fronting Military Lane that “limits the ability to provide a meaningful pedestrian through-link from Military Lane into the plaza,” noting uncertainty about connections to the adjacent 183–185 Military Road site. Officials called for the egress corridor to be relocated to Military Lane and for shopfront GRO4 to include windows to activate the laneway. They also required Woolworths to demonstrate that its proposed enclosed escalator would not constrain adjoining development potential, reduce usable plaza space, or obstruct wayfinding sightlines once neighbouring projects proceed.
The department said the proposed public plaza was being “partly relied upon” to meet the project’s residential communal-open-space requirement—an approach it rejected on the basis that the area primarily serves retail tenants. Developers must now provide a separate plan delineating private and public areas and exclude outdoor dining zones from open-space calculations. Planners also requested design revisions to include public-use elements such as interactive water features, play areas and shaded seating consistent with the Neutral Bay Village Study, and sought clarification on whether the plaza would be dedicated to Council or managed privately under a strata arrangement.
Officials directed Woolworths to update shadow diagrams to show the effect on neighbouring lightwells at 9–11 Rangers Road and demonstrate compliance with Apartment Design Guideline requirements that prevent a more than 20% worsening of solar access. They also raised privacy and amenity issues for apartments B401, C401 and C403, which face habitable rooms next door, and criticised the lack of direct access for some residents to waste rooms—requiring new internal connections. Other Apartment Design Guideline breaches included excessive apartment depths beyond 8 metres, unclear cross-ventilation performance, unacceptably located car-park air intakes on private terraces, and rooms without windows whose purpose was unexplained. The department also questioned the adequacy of natural light for west-facing units due to aluminium privacy screens, urging their removal or replacement with box windows to improve solar access and façade articulation.
The letter noted uncertainty over whether the basement supermarket qualifies as a ‘neighbourhood supermarket’ under the North Sydney Local Environmental Plan, which caps such stores at 1,000 square metres. Woolworths must now clarify the proper land-use characterisation under planning circular PS 21-008 and confirm that no land subdivision is proposed. Further clarification was required on ground-floor setbacks along Rangers Road, potential encroachments of awnings over the public boundary, and the consistency of façade treatments with adjoining developments.
The department’s internal traffic advisor found the project’s transport analysis deficient and directed Woolworths to re-run its SIDRA modelling with justified traffic-distribution assumptions and to provide queue-length, phasing and survey data. It said the scheme exceeded North Sydney Council’s maximum residential parking rates by 26 spaces and failed to provide adequate bicycle and motorcycle parking. The developer was told to reduce car spaces, increase active-transport provisions and ensure electric-vehicle-ready infrastructure. Additional requirements included sight-distance and gradient assessments for the Yeo Street access, headroom clearances for delivery areas, swept-path analysis for all vehicle movements, and alignment with the Council’s Public Domain Style Manual and Design Codes.
Woolworths must also respond to North Sydney Council’s 8 September submission and provide a certifier’s statement addressing Ausgrid’s concerns about the existing substation on site. The department’s team leader for housing delivery assessments, Suzannah Byers, said no further assessment would occur until Fabcot lodges a comprehensive response via the NSW Major Projects Portal.