Industrial landlord turned data centre developer Goodman Group has proposed apartment towers reaching up to 60 storeys on the same street as one of its data centre.
A state panel has recommended the plan for 2150 homes at 3-5 Talavera Road, Macquarie Park be fast-tracked through the planning system. The planning minister will have the final say.
The towers would rise near Goodman’s 135MW Project Apollo data centre at 4-10 Talavera Road, a $1.4-billion facility approved on September 2. A 1.2ha public park is planned between the two sites.
The authority, chaired by Premier’s Department secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter, recommended the minister declare the project a state significant development. It found the proposal met the authority’s criteria and was of state significance as a major residential project.
Goodman Property Services filed the proposal under the Housing Delivery Authority pathway. It comprises shoptop housing across five buildings of 45 to 60 storeys. No rezoning is being sought.
An office building and the Park View Business Park warehouse are on the site.
The approval sets noise limits at four nearby locations, including apartments, townhouses and a hotel, but none on Goodman’s tower site. It caps use of the data centre’s 66 back-up diesel generators outside unplanned power outages at 187 hours a year.
The proposal emerged five weeks after Goodman abandoned its 90MW Project Mars data centre at Lane Cove West. That scheme drew a record 374 submissions for a NSW data centre application, nine of them supportive. Goodman withdrew it six days after telling a Senate inquiry hearing it had not secured a social license.
The City of Ryde objected to Apollo and asked for a cumulative risk assessment of the data centres clustered in the area. The council had not yet seen detailed plans for the towers and Ryde mayor Trenton Brown warned that state-led pathways allowed major decisions without strategic oversight.
Goodman sold a Talavera Road site to Meriton in 2016 for a reported $200 million. Meriton is developing towers of up to 60 storeys on it.
Data centres accounted for 73 per cent of Goodman’s $14.5 billion development work in progress at the end of March.
