Celesteem wins Warrawee flats consent in Ku-ring-gai court appeal

The Land and Environment Court has granted consent for a residential flat building with an affordable housing component at 4 and 8 Cherry Street, Warrawee, after developer Celesteem appealed Ku-ring-gai Council’s failure to decide the application. For North Shore developers, it shows a deemed-refusal appeal can turn a contested bonus-height proposal into a consent once the design is refined in conciliation.

The decision, [2026] NSWLEC 1690, was handed down on 14 October 2026 by Acting Commissioner A Starr. The applicant was Celesteem Turramurra Development Pty Ltd. The judgment does not name a parent brand, so we use Celesteem as the operating name.

Why it matters

Celesteem lodged development application eDA0470/25 on 4 September 2025. Ku-ring-gai Council had not determined it when the company filed its Class 1 appeal against deemed refusal on 12 December 2025.

The site is 2,672 sqm. The proposal claims the 30 per cent in-fill affordable housing bonus under the Housing SEPP, with 15 per cent of gross floor area allocated to affordable housing and managed by a registered community housing provider.

The bonus lifts the height limit from 22 m to 28.6 m. The building as proposed reaches 30.185 m, which is 1.585 m, or about 5.5 per cent, over. The court upheld the clause 4.6 request for that height variation.

It also upheld a clause 4.6 request for clause 6.6(2) of the Ku-ring-gai Local Environmental Plan, which sets lot requirements for residential flat buildings in residential zones.

Council received 67 submissions during notification from 25 September to 27 October 2025. We have not named any objectors.

The case was resolved at a section 34 conciliation conference. The parties agreed on a decision, and the court accepted it. Acting Commissioner Starr wrote: “The decision agreed upon by the parties is for the grant of consent to the Amended DA.”

The numbers

The drawing list shows three basement levels, a ground level and Levels 1 to 8. Floor space ratio is 2.75:1, against a maximum of 2.86:1 with the bonus.

On the site area, 2.75:1 works out to about 7,350 sqm of gross floor area, and 15 per cent of that is about 1,100 sqm of affordable floor space. Those are our calculations from the judgment’s figures, not numbers the court states.

Parking totals 76 spaces: 68 spaces plus 8 allocated to the affordable dwellings. The judgment does not state a dwelling count or construction cost, so we have not reported either.

During conciliation, the amended application refined the elevations, unit layouts, forecourt layout and landscape. Upper-level setbacks to the west were increased, privacy screening was added, and height and bulk were reduced. Shadow diagrams, a streetscape character analysis and a built form comparison were added.

Celesteem must pay Ku-ring-gai Council $26,500 in thrown-away costs within 14 days. The orders tie those costs to the amended application.

What’s next

Consent is subject to the conditions in Annexure A to the judgment. Construction certificate, community housing provider arrangements and any start date are not in the decision, so none is confirmed.

For developers, the pattern is the useful part. A bonus-height proposal sat undecided, went to the court on a deemed-refusal appeal, and came out with a consent after the applicant cut bulk, added screening and pushed upper levels back from the west boundary. The cost of that route here was the amended-application costs order.

The judgment is specific to this site and this application. It does not set a council-wide position on the affordable housing bonus, and Ku-ring-gai has not commented in the decision beyond agreeing the terms.

Another bonus-driven approval is covered in Arada’s 33-storey Campsie proposal. More NSW development coverage sits on the Sydney hub.