St Leonards build-to-rent tower seeks to nearly double to 541 units

A proposal to add seven storeys and 270 build-to-rent apartments to an already-approved St Leonards tower closed its public exhibition on 17 December 2025 with 384 submissions, according to the project file on the New South Wales planning portal.

The site, between 46-52 Nicholson Street and 59-67 Christie Street in St Leonards, carries an approved build-to-rent scheme of 29 storeys and 271 apartments, cleared by the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure in February 2025. The amendment now under assessment, lodged under application SSD-88113706 in the Lane Cove local government area, would take the tower to 36 storeys and 541 build-to-rent units, with six basement levels, a gross floor area of 39,414 square metres and a floor space ratio of 17.13:1. Summing the portal’s own figures for the two schemes shows the amendment adds 270 apartments on top of the approved 271, which very nearly doubles the approved yield without a fresh application.

The planning portal does not name the current applicant or developer behind the amendment. Submissions on the file refer only to “the developer,” and at least one submission refers to a change of developer since the original 2025 approval, without identifying who now holds the application.

Why it matters

A near-doubling of an already-approved build-to-rent yield, sought through an amendment rather than a new application, tests how far the state significant development pathway lets a proponent revise scale after consent, using the existing approval as the base case rather than starting assessment again from scratch. For planners and rival proponents on the lower north shore, the file becomes a marker for how much uplift an amendment can carry before the department treats it as a new project requiring a fresh application. The dispute over consultation on the file also matters for how future amendments on built-up sites get tested: several submissions dispute the developer’s account that a round of consultation between April and July 2025, including a flyer drop to more than 2,600 properties, drew no negative responses.

The numbers

The approved scheme, cleared in February 2025, stands at 29 storeys and 271 build-to-rent apartments. The amendment under assessment proposes 36 storeys, seven more than approved, and 541 build-to-rent units, 270 more than approved, across a gross floor area of 39,414 square metres with a floor space ratio of 17.13:1 and six basement levels. The amendment’s exhibition period, extended once, closed 17 December 2025 after drawing 384 submissions, a volume that signals sustained local opposition to the scale increase on a site already carrying a live consent.

What’s next

The file now sits at the Prepare Amendment Report stage, the step the planning portal lists as following collation of submissions and preceding assessment and a recommendation. As a state significant development, the consent authority is the planning secretary’s delegate, not Lane Cove council. No determination date is listed on the portal. The amendment adds to a run of build-to-rent proposals moving through assessment across the Sydney market this cycle, several of them seeking uplift on sites that already carry an approved scheme rather than starting from an undeveloped lot.