WILLIAMTOWN could become home to a tavern, bottleshop, three food outlets and a 50-room hotel after an application worth almost $11.5 million was lodged with Port Stephens Council for the work.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Plans show the project lodged by the Knightsbridge group and dubbed an "integrated tourist development" - could be built at 2 Lavis Lane, adjacent to the recently built McDonald's.
If approved, the development would create 65 direct jobs during construction and between 48 and 95 full-time positions once operational.
It is a project central ward councillor Steve Tucker has put his support behind telling the Examiner any development that would encourage jobs and create growth in the area was welcome.
"I can't see anything wrong with it," he said.
"It [Williamtown] needs a bit of infrastructure."
But another central ward councillor Geoff Dingle has raised concerns about the project's location outside the council's already established Defence and Airport Related Employment Zone which saw land around Newcastle Airport rezoned more than three years ago with the purpose of accommodating aerospace growth.
A Statement of Environmental Effects (SOEE), which is on public exhibition at the council until January 16, states that the development application is not consistent with the latest Port Stephens Draft Local Environment Plan (LEP) 2012.
But a "tourist facility" is permissible under the 2000 LEP and that the project should "be determined based on the LEP in force at the time of lodgement".
The SOEE also stated that the Williamtown site was an ideal location for such a development and that a liquor Licence Application would be made to the office of Liquor Gaming and Racing to trade until midnight.
Included in the application is a request to subdivide the land from two lots into four and to build a complex of food shops, a tourist information complex, a tavern with bottle shop and restaurant as well as a tourist hotel with 50 rooms, dining area, conference room and pool.
A car wash, playground, rest area and car and bus parking are also in the plans.