Sylvania shop-top apartment

A new apartment over an existing hair salon in Sylvania’s local centre, with the salon brought up to current access standards — a development application with Sutherland Shire Council, then construction certificate documentation.

The site. 305 m² zoned E1 Local Centre under the Sutherland Shire LEP 2015, on a main road, with nil setbacks on three sides and a 1:1 floor space ratio. Shop-top housing is what the zone is for; the constraints are the ones a main road brings — traffic noise on every front-facing window, fire separation to the neighbours on both sides, and a residential entry that has to be separate from the shop.

The design. The shopfront and awning stay. Above them a two-bedroom apartment sits behind a splayed, timber-lined façade set back from the street line, with two balconies, a study and a lightwell planter bringing daylight into the middle of the plan. Downstairs the salon gains ramps and a platform lift, an accessible toilet and a store. Acoustic glazing to the road, fire-rated walls to both boundaries, and a gated side passage for the apartment’s own front door.

The approval. Development consent from Sutherland Shire Council. Construction certificate documentation followed, with the access and BCA reports as the items the certifier looked at hardest — on a commercial job they are the approval, not an attachment to it.