Plans to redevelop a historic gas works on the Lower North Shore have been turned up as the developer seeks to more than triple the height of the project.
PDS Engineering, the development manager of what was an 11-storey project for the site at 290 Pacific Highway, is now seeking permission to build 220 apartments in a 38-storey tower.
The scheme proposes that 10 per cent of the units would be affordable.
The Housing Delivery Authority put the project on the State Significant pathway earlier this year, bypassing council planning processes.
The council assessment route has long caused a headache for the developer, who has struggled with an “unsound” heritage item on the site.
PDS filed plans with the North Sydney Council for a 61-unit, 14-storey project on the site in 2022 on behalf of a private equity firm.
After being refused for the project, it reworked the proposal as an 11-storey development of 52 units and four levels of basement parking.
The HDA decision to fast-track that project has allowed it to up its game, PDS executive chairman Sameh Ibrahim said.
“We’re now working on a 38-storey scheme as a whole new fresh DA,” Ibrahim told The Urban Developer.
The developer has faced challenges largely due to the North Shore Gas Works building on the site.
PDS had submitted a modification application that said the two-storey Art Deco-style building was “structurally unsound and is at risk of imminent failure and collapse”. An Emergency Development Control Order approving temporary bracing works was issued by the North Sydney Council in February 2025, the developer said.
However, more extensive demolition and construction works were required to ensure the approved building could be advanced, it contended.
But the Land and Environment Court blocked demolition of the building, saying PDS has not demonstrated that the existing building could not be repaired.
The new plans for the site take the LEC decision into consideration, Ibrahim said.
“We will retain the heritage item as-is and build around it, predominantly next to and behind it,” he said.
“Despite the outcome, we have a bigger and better proposition for the site.”
At last count, the HDA has added 261 proposals amounting to more than 91,000 homes to the pathway since its inception in December.
Of those, 94 projects have had Secretary Environmental Assessment Requirements issued and nine Development Applications have been filed.
