St Catherine’s School in Waverly lodges $63 million Development Application

St Catherine’s Anglican School in Waverly has come under fire for a $63 million Development Application they are seeking to dramatically renovate and expand the school.

Waverly council has urged the Department of Planning to not consider the project unless an additional 200 car spaces are made available through the development.

The current DA only allocates an extra 19 spaces, while it will allow for the enrollment of 230 more students and a sufficient number of new teachers.

The biggest changes that are proposed are for a state of the art 500 seat theatre and an aquatic center that will be open outside curricular hours and on weekends.

Resident’s group Save Charring Cross have slammed the DA and called on locals to contact the Department of planning directly to let them know their concern.

They made public their submission to the Department.

“Since the St Catherine’s school began their oversized developments over the past few years, the traffic congestion has become horrific. There are long delays from all areas around the school causing major traffic congestion,” the submission reads.

“The community is going to be greatly impacted and it will have a devastating effect on what is left of the Waverly and Charring Cross village-type area.”

The Principal of St Catherine’s,  Judie Townsend told The Daily Telegraph that a parking facility was out of their means.

“Like all schools we have problems with parking … but putting in underground parking is really prohibitively expensive,” she said.

A recent survey by the school showed that some 60% of students are dropped off by car every day for school.

Ms Townsend said the problem is not isolated to the school.

“That goes to the heart of the discussion. It’s about re-educating the community about using public transport. That’s a community problem not a school problem,” she said.