0°C | Thursday November 13, 2025 
14 August 2025
Plans are in motion to boost housing stock around the Crows Nest Metro, with five freestanding houses on the Wollstonecraft-St Leonards border slated for demolition to make way for a new 13-storey apartment building, set to include 79 dwellings.
The proposed development, a State Significant Development Application, is located at 8-24 Nicholson Street, within the Crows Nest accelerated transit-oriented development precinct. The site spans approximately 3,011.8 square metres, comprising ten allotments, and frontages to Nicholson Street (around 60m) and Oxley Street (around 46m).
Being just 190 metres from Crows Nest Station, the area is undergoing substantial changes as the NSW Government looks to boost Sydney’s housing supply. The new building will primarily feature residential uses, with ground-floor communal open space and basement car parking.
A pre-scoping meeting between the developer, Planning and Co, and the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure on June 5, 2025, addressed key aspects of the project, including a minor height variation, active frontage requirements, and tree retention/removal.
Further discussions were held with North Sydney Council technical staff on June 18, 2025. Council acknowledged the benefits of rooftop communal open space but raised concerns about potential overlooking and noise impacts related to the minor height variation. Council expressed a preference for increased setbacks along Oxley Street to achieve “green streets,” going beyond the Crows Nest TOD Design Guidelines.
Regarding active frontage, Council did not see the benefit of non-residential ground floor uses, citing the R4 high-density residential zoning. Flooding and overland flow were also discussed, with Council noting the site’s susceptibility to flooding in their mapping.
Planning and Co is engaging with Council to obtain modelling to address this issue, with Council supporting the initial concept’s approach to minimise tree loss.