I'm looking at buying a 3 bedroom house which is zoned R4 on 450sqm. It's on a main road, but in a great suburb and very close to the train station, which means about 12 minutes from Central Station in Sydney. The council's local control plan has a diagram of this house amalgamated with two houses either side of it into an apartment building as the 'desired future state'. This sketched apartment block is 4 levels high, with approximately 12 units. The FSR is currently 1.1, however, the state government has released a report which recommends this to be increased to 2.1. The height restriction is 17 metres. The purchase price will likely be just over $1.5m. My ideal situation would be to get a DA approval on just this block. I would try and get the FSR increased as there is a similar sized block around the corner that managed to get 12 units approved through the land and environment court. I would then look to sell without constructing. The major issues are: - It is very close to the train line (the next house is adjacent to the train, about 25m) - Council not wanting to deviate from their density plans by allowing one block to construct in isolation, leaving the block next door as an 'orphan' adjacent to the train line - There are other high density projects in the area, with a surplus of apartments in the short term I was hoping to get people's thoughts.
