HYG's 56-storey Chatswood tower, 344 homes, on exhibition

A 56-storey tower with 344 dwellings is on public exhibition at 845 Pacific Highway, Chatswood, and it depends on a change to the height rules in Willoughby City. The proposal is lodged as a state significant development, SSD-96776964, and has not been approved.

The Urban Developer reported the developer as HYG. Exhibition runs from 29 September to 27 October 2026, so anyone wanting to comment on a tower of this scale has about two weeks left.

Why it matters

Chatswood is the Lower North Shore’s densest commercial centre, and this proposal would add one of its tallest residential towers. The NSW Planning Portal describes the project as a 56-storey shop-top housing development, which means homes above ground-floor retail and commercial space.

The application does more than seek consent for a building. According to the Planning Portal, it also amends the Height of Building control and introduces shop-top housing within Willoughby Local Environmental Plan 2012. In practice the tower cannot proceed as drawn unless the planning controls for the site change first.

That makes the decision a test of how far the State Government will go in lifting height limits around Chatswood’s transport hub. The Minister for Planning, through the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, is the consent authority for state significant development, not Willoughby City Council. The council is the local government area where the site sits.

The numbers

The Planning Portal record lists:

• 56 storeys of shop-top housing
• 344 dwellings
• 15% affordable housing
• Willoughby City as the local government area
• Exhibition from 29 September to 27 October 2026

The Urban Developer, which reported the project on 9 October 2026, gives different numbers: it describes the tower as 54 storeys, with 70 affordable dwellings, or 20% of the total, on levels 2 to 8. It also reports that a concurrent rezoning proposal seeks a height of 288 metres, a 17% increase on the current control. Those are the outlet’s figures; the state record says 56 storeys and 15%.

The Urban Developer also reported the following, which we attribute to the outlet:

• A build cost of about $203 million, though its headline rounds this to $200 million
• A site of 2,063 sqm
• PTW Architects as the designer
• 961 sqm of retail space in a single-storey podium
• 10 basement levels with 263 residential car spaces
• About 1,228 construction jobs
• A shift from build-to-rent to build-to-sell when the plans were re-lodged, with 156 market-rate and five affordable units cut from the original scheme

What’s next

Submissions on SSD-96776964 close on 27 October 2026. After exhibition, the department collates submissions and the applicant responds to the issues raised, which can lead to amended plans. A recommendation then goes to the decision-maker.

Willoughby City Council and nearby residents are likely to focus on height, overshadowing and the amount of affordable housing, the issues that typically draw objections to towers of this height. Whether the height control is changed at all is the threshold question, because the shop-top use and the extra storeys both sit in the proposed LEP amendment.

For developers and agents watching the corridor, the outcome will signal how receptive the State Government is to very tall towers at Chatswood. More activity along the Lower North Shore is tracked on our Sydney market page.