Droga has notched another big win—David Droga, that is, rather than his eponymous advertising agency.
Droga had been going through a court battle with Waverley Council over his plan to build a five-bedroom on the Tamarama headland above the Surf Lifesaving Club and overlooking the coastal walk.
This week, the superior court ruled that Droga and his wife Marisa could build the house which Waverley Council had previously described as “menacing”.
The Council had objected to the Drogas’ planning application for the house, built on the site of a Californian bungalow known as Lang Syne and owned by radio comedian Harry Griffiths and his wife Dimity.
The Drogas appealed to the Land and Environment Court after the council failed to make a determination. After a mandatory conciliation in early December did not reach a result, the matter went to a hearing and judgment was handed down this week.
Architect Luigi Rosselli told The Australian Financial Review that it was a victory for common sense. Roselli also said that the new house would break up the monotony of “slab, glass, slab, glass” houses along the headland.
“The most amusing contention was from the urban planners for the council and also the town planners for the council was that the building didn’t belong to the place,” Rosselli.
“They said: ‘It’s not similar to the other houses’. You cannot keep on repeating the errors of a lot of domestic architecture along the coast of this slab, glass, slab, glass.”
Court commissioner Tim Horton said the Waverley Council was too concerned with maintaining the status quo.
“It seems to me that council’s experts give particular prominence to maintaining the existing streetscape character of Gaerloch Avenue, at the expense of considering the degree to which the proposal may enhance those aspects of character over time, which is an aspect of the zone objectives with which the council contends the proposal is at odds,” Mr Horton said in the judgment.
The house will open onto a central court in which 10 cocoon-shaped structures of different heights will give the house privacy from the walking path. The council opposed these hollow cocoons – with a variety of uses, such as sitting space and a toilet – saying they would overshadow the coastal walkway.
Tim Williams, an urban design expert for the council described the development as “menacing” to the walking path, a description the court dismissed.
“The proposal is not a form that can be reasonably described as looming menacingly over the Coastal Walk, even when the fall in topography to the north-east is taken into account,” Horton wrote.
Work on the Drogas’ new gaff will start following an archaeological dig on the site that could take up to six months.
