4.12 Hurlstone Park and Ashbury
Part 4 – Place Specific Controls
Hurlstone Park is located on the lands of the Wangal and the neighbouring Ashbury is located on the lands of the Wangal and the Gadigal. Wangal lands extend approximately from the south side of Darling Harbour, around the Balmain Peninsula including Memel (Goat Island), reaching from Iron Cove toward Parramatta in the west, with the Parramatta River lying where the northern boundary approximately falls. Gadigal lands extend approximately from the southern side of Sydney Harbour from South Head to around what is now known as Petersham, with the southern boundary approximately lying in the area that now forms the Alexandra Canal and Cooks River.
Wangal Country in Hurlstone Park consists of features of Hawkesbury Sandstone outcrops, which historically formed cliffs along the river. This area used to have two creeks (unnamed) running towards the Cooks River. Ashbury is largely situated on Ashfield Shale, with natural clayey materials beneath the surface, historically forming part of the area's clay-heavy soil. This part of Country holds primarily a tidal estuary, meaning its lower and mid-sections are tidal saltwater. The topography in Hurlstone Park and Ashbury on the shores of Cooks River is an alluvial valley and low-flat areas, whereas the rest of the area is a combination of undulating to rolling low hills to gently undulating rises. The original ecological communities present in Hurlstone Park and Ashbury are Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest, Sydney Coastal Sandstone Foreshores Forest, Grey Mangrove-Mangrove and along the Cook River Estuarine Swamp Oak Twig-rush Forest. This Country has been used for travelling waterways in nawi (bark canoes), fishing, collecting resources and moving according to the seasons for thousands of generations of Aboriginal Peoples.
This Country remains important and is still used by First Nations Peoples. In the 2021 Census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published that 1.5% of the population of Hurlstone Park and 0.8% of Ashbury identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
Hurlstone Park (and Ashbury) Neighbourhood is a small precinct south of Ashfield at the border of the Inner West and Canterbury-Bankstown Local Government Areas. It is bounded by Hanks Street to the north, Holden Street to the east, Canterbury Road to the west and Princess Street to the south.
The predominant land use is low density residential with industrial and commercial businesses on Canterbury Road. Canterbury Boys High School is in the west of the neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood includes Hillcot Street Heritage Conservation Area. Almost all housing in this HCA is detached single storey Federation Queen Anne brick dwellings with one Inter-war California bungalow. Some properties fronting Hank Street are part of the Service Avenue Heritage Conservation Area. There are several Heritage Items in the neighbourhood including an Inter-War Baptist church at the corner of Queen Street and Griffiths Street. The suburb's verdant character is enhanced by mature trees on private properties, contributing to its leafy environment.
The Hurlstone Park and Ashbury Neighbourhoods will continue to be characterised by predominantly low scaled residential streetscapes with higher densities along key transport corridors. Strategic renewal is focused on the Hurlstone Park Precinct (Area 'A'). Opportunity exists on appropriate sites for Mixed-use and shop top housing providing ground floor active commercial floor space.
Objectives
To protect significant streetscapes and/or public domain elements within the neighbourhood.
Controls
Development, including land uses and urban design is to enhance and achieve the desired future character of the neighbourhood while retaining elements that contribute to that character and meeting all relevant DCP requirements.
Site specific controls apply to the precinct identified in the following list and Figure 4.12.1 below
- Hurlstone Park Precinct applies to the land marked as 'A'
Objectives
To define the desired character of the precinct, responding to its unique townscape and environmental features, through building scale, setbacks, design quality, streetscape, and the public–private interface to deliver positive, transformative outcomes.
To achieve high-quality architectural composition that creates a distinct spatial character and streetscape.
To provide active street frontages and manage amenity impacts on nearby residential properties, including traffic generation, vehicle access, and reducing traffic noise from Old Canterbury Road, while ensuring pedestrian safety.
To deliver residential development with good occupant amenity, including winter solar access to living areas, while maintaining privacy and solar access for existing homes.
To ensure shoptop housing places apartments above ground level and retains commercial uses as the dominant land use.
To ensure commercial developments are fit for purpose:
- a)Maximising commercial floor space at ground level.
- b)Activating street frontages.
- c)Providing adequate ground floor ceiling heights for functional commercial use.
- d)To ensure site services and facilities suit the scale of development, minimise amenity impacts, and locate parking so it is not visible from the public domain.
Controls
Context and Built Form
Design buildings with high-quality architecture and a traditional architectural composition. Allow modern or contemporary architecture only where it achieves architectural excellence and strong composition.
Articulate large, visible side walls to create visual interest.
Position buildings above ground level as shown in Figure 4.12.2, and:
- a)Define Old Canterbury Road spatially
- b)Maximise setbacks from adjoining homes
- c)Orient buildings to both the street and the rear
- d)Transition to a lower scale at the rear
- e)Provide rear open space and deep soil planting
Limit building height to the maximum storeys shown in Figures 4.12.2, 4.12.3, and 4.12.4.
Transition building height at the rear to respect neighbouring R2 Low Density Residential dwellings.
Residential Amenity
Provide winter garden balconies for apartments facing Old Canterbury Road and design living areas with openings to the quiet side of the site.
Locate balconies on the western, quieter side of the site.
Provide deep soil zones at least 3 metres wide along rear boundaries for tree and shrub planting.
Commercial Development
Allocate at least 50% of ground floor gross floor area to commercial uses.
Place car parking below ground for substantial developments to maximise commercial space and active frontages.
Development Servicing
Provide driveways for parking, loading, and waste collection from locations shown in Figure 4.12.5, following early consultation with Council engineers and/or Transport for NSW.
Design access ways to underground parking to minimise noise impacts on nearby habitable rooms.
This section contains objectives and controls that apply to the Heritage Conservation Area listed below and Shown in Figure 4.12.6.
- Hillcot Street Heritage Conservation Area apply to the land listed as C48
The objectives and controls for the following Heritage Conservation area can be found elsewhere in this DCP:
- Service Avenue Heritage Conservation Area (C19) – Part 4.2.5 under Ashfield neighbourhood
Hillcot Street is important to the local area as a consistent subdivision developed shortly after its sale in April 1912, likely influenced by its proximity to a tram terminus. The HCA is representative of an area developed almost entirely in the Federation Queen Anne style.
Key Features:
- a) Subdivision dating from 1912, developed in a short period following its sale
- b) Wide dead-end street with pre-1943 Brush Box street tree planting
- c) Consistent building setbacks allowing for small front gardens
- d) Streetscape of almost entirely Federation Queen Anne style single-storey detached brick houses with slate or terracotta tiled hipped and gabled roofs
- e) Includes a single Inter-War California Bungalow at 3 Hillcot Street, built slightly later than the other houses
- f) Representative of an area developed almost entirely in the Federation Queen Anne style
Objectives
To facilitate development that is consistent with the statement of significance and controls for Hillcot Heritage Conservation Area.
Controls
Note: These controls apply in addition to the general heritage provisions in Section 2.12 of this DCP. Applicants are to address both the general heritage controls and the locality-specific controls below.
Retain the following elements that define the heritage significance:
- a)All pre-1921 buildings
- b)Pre-1943 street tree planting of Brush box within the street carriageway
- c)Relatively wide carriageway in Hillcot Street
- d)Small front gardens
- e)Gable ends facing the street with original timber shingled, roughcast stucco or imitation half-timbered finishes (Federation, Inter-war periods)