Goodman seeks fast-track for 2150 homes opposite its Macquarie Park data centre

Goodman Group is proposing 2,150 homes in five towers of 45 to 60 storeys at 3-5 Talavera Road, Macquarie Park, opposite a $1.4 billion data centre it owns, Mingtiandi reported. On 14 October the NSW Housing Delivery Authority supported declaring the scheme a State Significant Development, and the planning minister has the final say.

The authority is chaired by Michael Coutts-Trotter, secretary of the Premier's Department, and concluded the project met its criteria and was of state significance as a major residential development. Goodman Property Services lodged it through the authority's pathway as shoptop housing, and it is not asking for a rezoning. Tom Gellibrand, who heads Infrastructure NSW, noted at the authority's briefing that current zoning already allows mixed use on the land, according to the transcript. The land currently holds an office building called The Park and the Park View Business Park, which mixes warehouse and office space.

Project Apollo, the 135MW facility at 4-10 Talavera Road, was approved by the state on 2 September, and a 1.2 hectare public park is planned between it and the towers. Its consent covers 36 rooftop evaporative cooling towers that can use up to 1.5 million kilolitres of water a year, plus 66 diesel generators of 2.8 megawatts each, restricted to 187 hours annually apart from unplanned outages. Noise limits are set at four neighbouring receivers, among them apartments, townhouses and a hotel, but not on the tower site. A noise study by SLR Consulting for Goodman placed the newly rezoned mixed-use land about 600 metres or more from the centre, and found four other approved or proposed data centres between 300 and 1,200 metres away.

The housing plan emerged roughly five weeks after Goodman dropped Project Mars, a 90MW data centre at Lane Cove West. That application attracted 374 submissions, nine in support, which The Urban Developer described as a record for a NSW data centre application. Goodman withdrew it six days after telling a Senate inquiry hearing that it had not secured a social licence.

The City of Ryde objected to Apollo and requested a cumulative risk assessment covering the clustered data centres. The council has not seen detailed plans for the towers, and mayor Trenton Brown warned that state-run pathways let big planning decisions be made "without proper strategic oversight." Asked how the data centre might affect residents, Goodman pointed to its role providing digital infrastructure on infill city land and described itself as a long-term owner, developer and manager.

If the minister makes the declaration, Goodman can file a full application, which the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure would assess on its merits. Goodman has not disclosed what the towers would cost. Goodman previously sold a Talavera Road site to Meriton in 2016 for a reported $200 million, and Meriton is building towers of up to 60 storeys there. Data centres represented 73 per cent of Goodman's $14.5 billion development work in progress at the end of March.