Hunter Street is 3.2 kilometres long from end to end and seemingly ripe with potential high-rise redevelopment sites.
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But that has not stopped a war breaking out between the owners, developers and residents of three adjoining apartment blocks under various stages of construction.
Non-profit service Interrelate is attempting to squeeze a 14-storey tower onto a site 20 metres wide it owns at 495 Hunter Street.
The project includes 87 apartments across one tower facing Hunter Street and another fronting King Street.
On either side are the nine-storey Worth Place Apartments to the east and Hunter developer GWH's 19-storey Sky Residences under construction to the west.
Interrelate lodged plans for a 15-storey building in late 2017, and the proposal has been through one round of community consultation, a public-voice session at Newcastle council and design modifications to try to address the concerns of council staff, design experts, nearby residents and GWH.
The developer lopped one floor off the building as part of a redesign in October which also shifted it away from the Worth Place Apartments.
These revised plans will be the subject of a second public-voice session at the council on Tuesday night.
A submission from Urbis consultants, acting for GWH, said the recent design changes had moved the proposed building closer to Sky Residences.
"Our review of the amended plans has identified significant adverse consequences for the amenity of neighbouring property to the west," Urbis said.
"We have identified issues with building setbacks and separation distances to No.509 Hunter Street over all levels above the podium which will result in unacceptable impacts on the amenity of future residents of the adjoining residential tower."
GWH director Jonathan Craig said in a separate submission that approving the new building would set a "major precedent" which development companies, including his own, would exploit on constrained sites across the city.
"Based on this precedent the city will become inundated with crowded apartment towers, with many unsuitable sites being developed and Hunter Street becoming a wall of buildings," he said.
He said the proposed separation of the two buildings between the ninth and 13th floors was 10.6 metres, significantly less than the 24 metres required by state planning laws.
A staff report to councillors says the city's Urban Design Consultative Group, which advises the council on development matters, does not support the amended project because the "inadequate and unacceptable separation" between the buildings remains unresolved.
The Worth Place Apartments owners' corporation is also lining up against the new building, which it said would have a significant negative impact on neighbouring apartments and property values.
"We believe that this development will also constitute an extreme over-development of the Civic precinct at this time, with the much larger adjacent Sky Residences development already approved and underway and hundreds of apartments currently under way in the Marketown, Honeysuckle, Merewether Street and Newcastle East precincts," the Worth Place strata committee wrote in a submission.
"We also believe that if this development goes ahead it will set a precedent for such infill sites causing the same issues for many other existing residents of our city."
The Newcastle Herald approached Interrelate for comment.
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