0°C | Thursday November 13, 2025 
13 February 2024
A height limit of 8 floors would apply to several key sites in Neutral Bay Village and six more generally, under a draft planning study approved for next steps by North Sydney Council last night. However, the proposed plan was greeted with a warning by Coles that it could leave the Grosvenor Lane supermarket site vacant for up to five years without a streamlined process.
The Council nixed a previous plan in early 2022 after it became a major election issue in late 2021, which would have allowed 12 storey buildings in some locations.
As North Sydney Sun has previously reported, Coles owns the site in Grosvenor St currently occupied by Woolworths as a tenant. Woolworths is scheduled to vacate the premises at the end of this year, with Coles planning a new supermarket building topped by a seven storey residential development.
Tim Atkins of Titanium Property Investment, representing Coles, last night told a Council meeting that he “congratulated” the council on the new plan, some two years in the making.
But with a development approval application for its proposed residential and supermarket complex already lodged, Atkins warned that having to wait for the plan’s ratification and reboot the process could add extensive delays.
“We think that we can proceed with our development application and it can be assessed in light of what is in the strategic plan and that we can move forward with the council’s direction in a much faster manner if we can do so. A planning proposal would require approximately an 18-month process, and we see that as a potential to delay the outcomes that the council is seeking,” Atkins said. “As you are aware Woolworths vacate our site in November 2024. Embarking on a planning process has the potential to severely delay the supermarket being opened on the site. If we take the planning proposal process into account and then 18 months is added to the extension, then we have to subsequently apply for a development application under those amended planning requirements.”
Atkins continued: “Then we have to construct the building that could potentially leave the site with no supermarket for four to five years. We do not think that is what the community nor the council wish to achieve in outlining this strategic proposal. Our preferred approach is to address our development application in light of the strategic planning and proceed with a proposal in the timeframe that we are expecting.”
Rival developer Arkadia, which owns a site adjoining Grosvenor Lane and Military Rd, welcomed the Council plan as addressing some of the issues the proposed Coles development might cause for small shopkeepers who share access to the street-level carpark. There have been concerns that the Coles plans would remove access and amenity for the smaller shopkeepers in the area.
Arkadia CEO Ric O’Donnell said that plans to retain the tree line and access to the above ground access in Grosvenor Lane were a “great outcome.”
He was less concerned than Coles was with embarking on a longer planning proposal process for the sites earmarked for development, arguing that it allowed for better co-ordination between stakeholders.
“I think that aligns state government and councils well and gets everyone on the same page. I think in terms of not having a supermarket for five years, they could always extend the Woolworths lease for a few. But I think doing those two things together in terms of having two planning proposals running on site one and site two (The Coles and Arkadia sites), I think that would create a great outcome. I think the steps that the council has taken to try and force there to be a good outcome have been really positive. So thank you very much.”
Woolworths itself, whose plan for a 12 storey residential and retail development in Rangers Rd is opposed by council, did not participate in the meeting last night.