Battle for Bondi beachfront

The Bondi beachfront is about to change thanks to a brace of new developments presently at various stages in the planning process.

Toga Developments has recently held discussions with the senior assessment planner at Waverley Council, Lee Kosnetter, about its proposed complex on 61-67 Hall Street, currently the location of the Hakoah Club.

The plan is to tear down the building and replace it with a mixed-development four-storey complex, incorporating a mix of retail units on the ground floor and residential and serviced apartments on the upper levels.

The club was sold to Toga in October 2007 for $19 million, following a reported offer from development company St Hilliers of $19.5 million.

The proposed redevelopment of the Hakoah Club site comes off the back of a recent spate of large-scale development projects along Campbell Parade and adjoining streets. These include the transformation of the Bondi Motel into luxury apartments (now nearing completion), and similar proposals for the Bondi and Swiss Grand Hotels. Ravesi’s has also secured approval to add 30 hotel rooms and retail shops to its beachfront premises, while towards the southern end of the beach, Noah’s has applied to redevelop into a five-star hotel apartment complex.

And there is the prospect of more to come. On January 25, the Sunday Telegraph reported comments by John Hemmes, father of hotel developer Justin Hemmes, which indicated a readiness to develop the family’s property at 96 Campbell Parade.

Hemmes said the site was ripe for development, as the remaining retail lease on the site expired in March and the adjacent lot was already vacant. The Hemmes family also owns the building behind, which fronts Jacques Avenue, offering what the Telegraph described as “huge redevelopment potential”.

But not everyone is happy about this significant redevelopment push.
“[The developers] try to make it sound like the developments are good for everyone, but in reality the people here don’t want high-rises,” said resident Paul Paech. “The theme is to whack in commercial space and residential upstairs.”

According to Paech, this is bringing about a fundamental shift in the nature of Campbell Parade – a trend that is having implications far beyond the beachfront itself.

“Broadly, Campbell Parade has been really zoned for tourist accommodation over a long period of time,” he said.

“Lots of those places have been grabbed by developers and turned into residential lots.”

The effect, he said, has been to push the tourist accommodation away from the beach and further into Bondi – areas that have traditionally been residential.
And Paech noted that although Toga had reduced the original proposal for 135 hotel rooms down to 113, the development would still occupy 20 per cent of the street frontage.

“The planning documents recognise Hall Street is a village area,” he said. “The Medina Group [Toga] has bought Hakoah in the hope that tourist accommodation will be granted following the rezoning of the area.”

The lease on the Hakoah Club had been extended to allow greater time to find an alternative location.

A spokesperson for Waverley Council said a decision on the original development application was deferred on September 30 to address “concerns about height and bulk” raised by the council’s planning department. A revised application was lodged mid-December.

“There has been ongoing consultation between the applicant and council and the revised application is now being assessed by our planners,” she said.

But resident Roland Coombes said he was unhappy about the lack of community consultation.

“The DA was lodged in the middle of last year, but the notice on the premises only went up a few weeks ago,” he said.

“If this proposal goes through, it will increase traffic and affect views as well. The development goes against Council’s own ideas of what they envisioned Hall Street to be – a mix of culture, character, and shops.”