Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report - Blue Mountains City Council

Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy
Preferred Sites of Beverly Lane or the Old TAFE
The Beverly Lane site was seen to work the best of all the sites, for the criterion of redressing
the present ‘imbalance’ of retail strength in the south western corner of the Town Centre at the
Coles Supermarket, which disadvantages retail shops both on the eastern side of Katoomba
Street and near the Top of Town. Development of a supermarket on Beverly Lane would ‘rebalance’
retail concentration to both sides of Katoomba Street, positioning at least the lower
end of Katoomba Street quite favourably between these ‘anchors’.
On the other hand, the Charrette recognised the need to make a shuttle bus system work
between the Town Centre and Echo Point, in order to induce car- and bus-bound visitors to
patronise the Town Centre as well as Echo Point, and to reduce parking impacts at Echo Point.
To make such a system work, the Charrette recognised that about 300 additional parking
spaces would be needed in the Town Centre, ideally at the Top of Town where main visitor
attractions are concentrated, to accommodate visitors during the approximately twenty peak
visitor days of each year. A dedicated structure for 300 spaces might cost about $3 - 4.5
million, an amount for which there was no known sufficient public source. Thus, it was seen
as important to find a user that would need that many spaces, in the Top of Town. A
supermarket occupying the southern portion of the Old TAFE Site, if designed properly, might
be such a use, whose development could help subsidise this badly needed visitor parking
capacity for the Top End of Town and the shuttle system, which would complement a proposed
Cultural/Visitors Centre for the northern end of the Old TAFE Site. This is explained further in
Section 10.1.
Thus, not knowing within the time constraints of the Charrette whether one or the other option
could actually be achieved, the Charrette Team proposed either of these sites as a possible
supermarket development. This Report contains project design briefs for both sites, within
which development interest and feasibility could be tested, and meant to ensure safety and
compatibility for neighbours of those sites, if such a development were to be built on either
site.
Site South of Waratah Street
A site on the south-west corner of Katoomba and Waratah Streets was put forward as the
appropriate site for a supermarket, prior to the Charrette. However, this site was not
supported by the Charrette, or the recent BMCC Draft Local Environmental Plan 1997, as it was
seen as:
further extending the already very long retail street of Katoomba Street;
not providing enough synergy with the existing core convenience shopping area;
because the site’s steep topography was likely to result in a very high exposed wall
structure along the north edge of Edwards Street, a residential street;
and because it would likely result in the demolition of the historic Bible College building.
Refer to Section 11.2 for more specifics on this site and for the Charrette alternative design
proposal for that area.
The Gateway Site
The Gateway site supermarket shopping centre location and the design being put forward
during the Charrette by its proponents were seen by the Charrette Team as detrimental to the
Town Centre. The design was essentially a large enclosed shopping centre, with underground
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