4 to 0the panel’s vote to refuse, following the council officers’ recommendation
16residents proposed, two to each of eight private rooms, with two tandem car spaces
78submissions on the application, including letters from two members of parliament
What was built, and what was asked
A private certifier issued a complying development certificate for the site on 22 April 2024, an approval issued without a development application. It allowed the old house to be demolished and a Class 3 NDIS group home built in its place: nine bedrooms, three of them high physical support accessible villas, five robust villas and one unit for overnight staff, with two parking spaces.
The council’s assessment report says construction was substantially completed. It also says some of it departed from the approved plans, including setbacks, parts of two elevations and window locations, and that mandatory inspections did not take place, so no occupation certificate has been issued. Council issued a building information certificate for part of the altered work in September 2025. An application for one covering the whole building was lodged on 4 September 2026 and is still being assessed.
The development application, lodged in late 2025, asked for consent to occupy the building as co-living housing, a form of shared rental housing with its own standards in the state’s Housing SEPP: private rooms around shared living space. This proposal had an off-site manager contactable 24 hours a day and monthly inspections. The report records that the building itself would not change; the works were landscaping, fencing and moving the bins.
Why the panel said no
The panel gave sixteen reasons. The first was decisive by its own terms: the proposal fails a
Housing SEPP requirement because the land is not within an accessible area, a
term about walking distance to public transport that runs often enough, and so, the panel said,
consent must not be granted. The applicant had relied on the bus route along Ocean
View Drive. The officers’ report answered that
the presence of a bus route and nearby bus stops does not, in itself, establish that the required walking-distance and service-frequency criteria are met
.
| Standard | Required | Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| Location | In an accessible area | Not within one, the panel found |
| Indoor communal living area | 34 m² | 24.0 m² |
| Communal open space | 194.9 m² (20% of the site) | 101.0 m² |
| Car parking | 4 spaces (0.5 a room outside an accessible area) | 2, in tandem |
| Landscaping | 243.6 m² (25% of the site) | 202.2 m², the applicant’s figure |
| Private room size | 25 m² at most | Rooms C and D 1.7 m² over, room F 4.7 m² over |
| Solar access to communal living | 3 hours, 9am to 3pm, midwinter | About 1 hour on the report’s figures |
The applicant lodged written requests to vary most of those standards. The panel found none of them made the case, and for the parking shortfall there was no request at all. The remaining reasons are about the building’s layout, which the panel called a legacy of its design as a group home: the communal outdoor area is fragmented and sits against individual rooms, and the only communal living area is reached along an uncovered external path. The two parking spaces cannot be used independently, and none is for a person with a disability.
The panel also found the application
does not adequately assess the social impacts of changing the use of the approved NDIS group-home accommodation to general co-living housing
.
The application’s plan of management described the rooms as open to residents of all
abilities, possibly including people in specialist disability accommodation. The officers’
report noted that nothing in it secured any of the rooms for them.
Who spoke
Four people addressed the panel in support of the officers’ recommendation to refuse, and the applicant’s town planner spoke for the application. The 78 written submissions raised, among other things, the number of residents for a low-density street, parking on a busy road, noise and privacy, management by an off-site manager, and the loss of a home built for people with disability. We have not named the speakers or the applicant; the decision does not turn on who they are.
Our view
Our view, labelled as such. On the facts in the minutes, the refusal is straightforward. Co-living has its own standards because a house of up to 16 unrelated tenants needs space, parking and light that eight supported villas and a staff unit do not. A building designed for one cannot become the other by a change of name, and the application proposed no change to the building. The panel said as much: a real conversion would need a different layout and fewer rooms.
What the decision leaves is a new building on a residential street, designed for people with high support needs, standing empty two and a half years after it was approved. Any use of it, as a group home or as anything else, still needs the building’s own certification resolved, and a building information certificate for the whole building is before council as a separate application.