Pymble Ladies College - Grey House Precinct

Traffic
The college’s project will additional Year 5 and Year 6 students as well as 90 children from ELC.
The additional students and staff will generate even more traffic between Pacific Highway and Livingstone Ave. The current traffic is already very congested at the peak school hours.
Heritage Impact
The heritage conservation area of Pymble Ave will be dominated by this massive and tall building. The look of the building does not fit into the existing surrounding establishments. It is not respectful for the area's culture and history.
Tree Removal
I am strongly against the proposal of removing a lot of large mature healthy native tree to give way for the project site. It is a very not respectful proposal to the community. The college needs do more to protect and care for the environment.

The school plans to cut 27 tree to give way for the Grey House Precinct development, some of the tree have high retention value and they should be protected instead of being cut off . It will affect the health of the surrounding tree canopy.

The current traffic on Pacific Highway is terrible close to Livingstone Ave during school peak hours. The school's Master Plan of increasing student and staff numbers will increase traffic flow and available parking in the surrounding streets around the school.

The surrounding buildings close to the proposed building are mainly 2 storeys high. This 5 storeys Grey House Precinct does not match the current terrain of the existing surrounding Heritage List Buildings in the area.

Please see the attached file for details.

Please find attached Ku-ring-gai Council's submission for Pymble Ladies College - Grey House Precinct.

Reasons for objection:
Motor vehicle access to Pymble Ladies College (PLC) is only available via Avon Road, Pymble. The same applies to 1 Avon Road where there are now some 170 apartments. There is high traffic intensity on Avon Road, Pymble on school days, particularly from around 8am to 9am and 2.30pm to 3.30pm as the Road becomes congested with vehicles driven by parents dropping off or collecting some of the 2,200 students attending PLC. Invariably, the traffic is stopped for up to 30 minutes in both directions on Avon Road by vehicles that queue to enter and leave PLC grounds. Often the stationary traffic banks up to the Livingstone Road/Pacific Highway intersection on the eastern side and the Beechworth Road/Pacific Highway intersection on the western side.

It should be noted that hundreds of Pymble private residences serviced by Avon Road and Beechworth Road are bordered by natural bush (including many eucalypts) that is subject to high fire risk in the fire season. Should fire emergencies coincide with the PLC school opening and closing periods described above, fire brigade appliances would be prevented from reaching the fire site. This could result in substantial property damage and possible loss of life.

PLC administration appears indifferent to the traffic problems described above. Otherwise, given its very expansive grounds, one would expect PLC to provide adequate temporary parking at school drop-off and pick-up points to avoid or at least minimise the traffic holdups.

The proposed redevelopment would only add to the traffic problem. It would result in even more vehicular traffic to/from PLC, and consequently exacerbate the already severe traffic congestion.

It is considered that PLC re-development must not be allowed to proceed until such time that new additional road access to PLC is provided via West Pymble and/or Turramurra. If this requires resumption of private land to gain such access, then so be it.

My comments are in the attached file.

Yes, I object to this project. Please see the attachment.

The attached document explains aspects of my concerns and constructive suggestions especially regarding implications for traffic and congestion as a result of the development. I prefer my name to be withheld from publication at this time, however, I am happy to communicate further with the professionals assessing the project and with the staff at Ku-ring-gai Municipal Council

As a professional who works in a senior level at WSP in business cases and transport planning and related matters, DPIE and their consultants may wish to consider these comments. I have reviewed the Stantec traffic and construction report and have following concerns. I have resided on Avon Road for more than 11 years. Further, these are reinforced by my experience in witnessing what happened with the 1 Avon Road development over several years.
- During this construction, all the heavy vehicles would bank up on Avon Road and the narrow roundabout at Pymble Avenue and Everton Street, which combined with peak hour traffic and school students crossing at pedestrian crossings created extensive delays for all traffic. All related routes around PLC e.g. Arilla, Avon, Mayfield, Beechworth would have traffic banked up.
- The construction workers would come early morning and take up all the available commuter and long term parking on Avon Road and any other roads, due to which for 2 years residents had almost no parking near the station.
- due to extensive use of 2 hour parking restrictions, this meant residents had no parking or they had to drive, which is against Government policy of increasing public transport usage and reducing carbon emissions.
In order to avoid a repetition of this situation, several changes have to be considered carefully if this development was to proceed.
The Stantec report with public transport mode share of 30% is too high as most of these workers have equipment and do not use public transport especially to a location like Pymble. Where is the data source for 30% and 1.8 vehicle occupancy?. Further, they rarely share so the occupancy assumption of 1.8 is too high. I suggest redoing the numbers of traffic movements with a mode share of 90% by own car / truck and perhaps 1.2 vehicle occupancy. This will result in substantially higher traffic volumes for construction.
The only feasible manner the construction traffic impacts can be mitigated are as follows:
- CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC IS ONLY ALLOWED AFTER 9:30 AM AS A CONDITION OF APPROVAL TO SEPARATE SCHOOL AND COMMUTER TRAFFIC FROM CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO AVOID THE CHAOS THAT PREVAILED FOR 2 YEARS DURING CONSTRUCTION OF THE LARGE 1 AVON ROAD DEVELOPMENT.
- based on 90% mode share and say 1.2 car occupancy or figures like this, the construction workers will take up lot of parking. Financial incentives can be provided for contractors to use public transport but measuring and tracking this is difficult. Arrangements need to be made for contractors to park at another location further away in Pymble (as there are several streets outside the 1 km zone where there is adequate parking e.g. on Beechworth Road) and they can walk the short distance (ONLY FEW HUNDRED METRES AT BEST) or with equipment be transported by mini bus to / from Beechworth Road.
- PRESERVE THE 1 KM ZONE AROUND PYMBLE STATION FOR RESIDENT AND SCHOOL STUDENT / PARENT PARKING
- Temporarily increase parking on Avon Road to both sides. You cannot have so many additional contractors coming daily for 2 years. We were not in favour of parking on Avon Road being converted from parking on both sides to one side parking only. This has only worsened situation as there is less parking in a normal post COVID situation for school students, parents and residents, add in contractors who will come in early morning before school traffic or along with school and commuter traffic and you have a recipe for chaos.
PLC like many private schools are continuously building major new facilities as they have large funds available from legacy investments, student fees, Government grants and investments as well as debt. Whether these grand and ambitious projects are really needed is a matter of debate.
I have also attached a previous SSD Report for PLC - refer to pg 22 which says that 1 car space per 8 year 12 students should be provided on campus. However, the PLC school website says no student should or can park within PLC. In this manner, promises are made during application time for SSD and never followed up. There is extensive student parking on Avon Road pre Covid with no resident visitor and commuter parking available.
The noise and air quality also had detoriated when in 2013 PLC had another major project on.

See attached

Attached submission

Attached objection

Attached objection file

Attached objection letter

Attached submission

Attached objection

Attached objection

Attached submission

Attached objection

Attached submission