Woollahra Municipal Council | Throughout the design process, Woollahra Council also solicited the opinion of the local community. After lodging the development application (DA), they undertook roughly three months of community consultation. “When there is change, particularly in a city centre close to residential properties, there will always be concern about the impacts of that change,” Allan says. “We were not immune from that process. There were very active resident groups who raised concerns to the Council, and we had to work through their issues and demonstrate what the real and actual impacts of the development would be.” To do that, Council participated in a number of ‘resident workshops,’ where they and Woolworths walked members of the community through their plans and listened to their thoughts. Council made some amendments to the scheme. Now that the project is “all but complete,” Allan says there has been a “very positive response from the community.” “In fact, I think many people were surprised by the quality and success of the project,” he says. “There were some skeptics who thought it would take away their views or that it would lead to unacceptable traffic congestion in the local area – and none of those concerns have
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