Triple Eight's Carlingford tower awaits more information

A proposal for an 18-storey apartment tower at 241-245 Pennant Hills Road, Carlingford, lodged by the Carlingford Unit Trust and backed by Triple Eight Corporation, is sitting at the assessment stage, with the NSW planning portal listing the state significant development application, SSD-84699461, as “More Information Required” after 10 public submissions.

Why it matters

The portal records the proposal as a part 3, 14 and 18-storey mixed-use development combining 139 residential apartments, commercial uses and a childcare centre, with 26 of the apartments set aside as in-fill affordable housing. apartments.com.au, which first reported the proposal, says Triple Eight Corporation owns the consolidated 6,331 square metre site and that the affordable component is structured under the SEPP (Housing) 2021 incentive, which requires at least 15 per cent of gross floor area to be delivered as affordable rental housing in exchange for additional height and floor space.

apartments.com.au reports the incentive allows a 30 per cent uplift in height and floor space, and that the site sits about 250 metres from the Carlingford Light Rail station, near the junction of Pennant Hills Road and Jenkins Road, the kind of transport hub where the state government has encouraged extra density.

Because the application is a state significant development, it is assessed by the state rather than City of Parramatta council; apartments.com.au reports it sits with the NSW Government’s Housing Delivery Authority. “More Information Required” means the application has not reached a determination of any kind. The portal’s status is a request back to the applicant, not a rejection, and the project remains a proposal rather than an approved scheme.

apartments.com.au’s report includes further detail from the applicant’s own documents: six commercial tenancies, a gym and a 98-place childcare centre at the base of the buildings, 263 car spaces across basement levels, and 2,680 square metres of communal open space split between the rooftop and podium levels. The project’s design report, prepared by Kennedy Associates Architects and cited by apartments.com.au, states the development “will deliver a significant addition to the wider Parramatta region.”

The numbers

The planning portal lists 139 residential apartments in total, with 26 apartments allocated as affordable housing under the SSD application. Ten submissions are on the portal’s public register, and the application’s current status is “More Information Required,” meaning the state has gone back to the applicant rather than progressing the file toward a recommendation. The portal does not publish a capital investment value, a lodgement date or an exhibition closing date for the application, and none is stated here.

What’s next

The application cannot move toward a determination until the applicant responds to the department’s request for more information, a standard step in the state significant development process. Once that response is lodged and assessed, the file would proceed toward a recommendation and, eventually, a decision on the application. Nothing on the public record indicates how long that response is likely to take, or what additional material the department has asked for.

Submissions visible on the portal include objections from nearby residents to the tower’s height, overshadowing and loss of privacy. It is one of several NSW apartment tower applications in state assessment, including Holdmark’s three-tower Burwood precinct.