ApartmentsClare BurnettThu 21 May 26
Fabcot Plots 140-Home Shoptop at Ramsgate in Sydney’s Bayside
Plans by Woolworths’s development arm Fabcot to develop a site in a southern Sydney bayside suburb into shoptop apartments are in the works, five years after plans were initially rejected.
Described as the “evolution” of a previous scheme, Fabcot and joint-venture partner Time & Place are proposing 141 apartments and retail for a site at Ramsgate in the Georges River Council area, 16km south of the Sydney CBD.
The partners wants to deliver a full-line supermarket, creating 130 full-time jobs, and infill housing on the site at 193 and 197-199 Rocky Point, 66-68 Ramsgate and 2-4 Targo roads.
The application now before the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure details a “new premier mixed use, multi-residential urban development at a key gateway site”.
While the Georges River Council failed to indicate its support in the allotted timeframe, the Sydney South Planning Panel recommended it should be submitted for Gateway determination late last year and it is now under assessment.
Fabcot is planning 16,888sq m of gross floor area (GFA), with 3996sq m of retail GFA and 12,914sq m of residential floorspace consisting of approximately 141 apartments.
The project would consist of 30 one-bedroom, 89 two-bedroom and 22 three-bedroom units.
It would serve an “undersupply” of supermarket floor space and anchor Ramsgate’s transition from a village to a local centre, Fabcot said.
It is not the first attempt Fabcot and Time & Place have planned to develop the site.
The partners proposed a three-tower project of 176 apartments, but was their rezoning plans were knocked back in 2022.
At the time, the Sydney South Planning Panel said traffic management needed to be improved, criticising height and bulk of the project, its interface with adjoining properties, the lack of deep soil landscaping and heritage issues.
Fabcot’s planning application said it maintained the same strategic merit as the previous project, but it has undergone key design improvements addressing council concerns.
In the new designs by architects at Clarke Hopkins Clarke, the supermarket has moved to street level from a subterranean level.
Deleting an internal public square and locating the supermarket on Rocky Point Road gives it a High Street presence, the application said, which would support an expected population growth of 3220 people in the main trade area by 2036.
Fabcot’s updated plans from Ethos Urban cut down car parking spaces from 668 to 445 and reduce the number of driveway crossovers in a three-level basement.
The developer has reduced the overall bulk of the site, and cut storeys from six to four in Building C, and from nine to eight storeys in Building A. Building B remains eight storeys.
It has also added deep soil planting and increased setbacks to prevent the blocks towering over the street and surrounding buildings.
Fabcot is proposing new planning controls to amend the local environment plan to amend height and floor space ratio controls, as well as allocate the site—currently part high-density residential and part local centre— fully as a local centre.
Fabcot has embraced a mixed-use approach to supermarket development in recent years. It recently secured approval for a 97-unit, 12-storey supermarket-anchored project in Neutral Bay, and has plans in the works for 110 units at Waterloo as well as 456 build-to-rent apartments in two 20-storey towers in the Brisbane suburb of Albion.
