Maroubra Residents Oppose 7-Storey Tower’s Sneaky Bid For Approval

Maroubra residents are furious after discovering a seven-storey tower that would require the eviction of 15 households may be quietly trying to gain approval.

The new residential building, proposed for 8–30 Yorktown Parade, Maroubra, would disregard the site’s current three-storey limit and shadow neighbouring Coral Sea Park to build 84 apartments just a short walk from Maroubra Beach.

This fresh round of concern comes after locals obtained a copy of a Homes NSW engagement report, which revealed that another seven-storey tower in the neighbouring suburb of Pagewood was approved in August after being described as having “general community support”, despite only 19 individuals (of a whopping 2,980 households) attending the drop-in feedback session.

Now, Maroubra residents are warning the same agency responsible for the Pagewood development may be mobilising similar tactics to sneak the so-called “Coral Sea Park tower” through the approval phase.

Maroubra Residents Say One Feedback Session Is Not Enough

According to a coalition of concerned Coral Sea Park Estate residents, only one public session on the Coral Sea Park tower is being organised: a drop-in at Lionel Bowen Library on Wednesday 16 September, 4.00–6.30 pm. They caution that this single two-and-a-half-hour window on a weekday afternoon, across school pick-up and working hours, was designed to be difficult to attend.

Athan Giannikos, a resident of Coral Sea Park Estate, has warned that if the Pagewood tower is anything to go off, developers will use a lack of attendance to prove the community approves of the Coral Sea Park tower, or is at the very least indifferent.

“Nineteen people out of nearly three thousand, and they wrote to the Minister that it meant the community supported [the Pagewood tower],” wrote Giannikos. “That is the standard of consultation behind every one of these towers: one letter, two weeks’ notice, one afternoon, and then silence gets reported as support.

“Most people around this park still don’t know there is a meeting. If you are quiet, you are a yes. If you turn up and object, you are “concerns”. We are telling every household we can reach: be in that room on Wednesday, because empty chairs get written up as approval.”