A PLANNED $23 million redevelopment of the former Dairy Farmers site on Bentinck Street has been given the green light and has the potential to become one of the jewels of the Bathurst CBD.
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At least, we all should hope so.
We've already seen one false start at the site after Bathurst Regional Council approved plans back in 2013 for a massive redevelopment that would have seen the construction of a residential development boasting 40 apartments, two retail premises, a cafe and commercial premises.
The approved plans also proposed the demolition of two buildings on the rundown site at the corner of Howick and Bentinck streets but, significantly, the retention - and stabilisation - of the landmark Dairy Farmers tower and old office building.
As it happened, the demolition of the old buildings was completed while the tower remains standing and the old office building at the front of the site has been restored and repurposed.
That's as far as it got, though, so councillors likely felt some degree of pressure last Wednesday night to give a new developer a chance.
What's there now is an eyesore and the community is eager to see something - perhaps, anything - better.
The new plans include serviced apartments, commercial offices and a piazza to be built on the landmark site and there is plenty to like about that.
But the one issue that could come back to bite us is the question of parking.
Council's own planning formula requires 67 parking spaces on-site at the development but the plans allow for only 61.
Developers will pay council $110,000 to compensate for that shortfall (again, according to council's own rules) but is that really a like-for-like swap?
The parking shortfall will exist long after the $110,000 has disappeared from council's account. And if council is confident its parking formula is right and fair then no amount of compensation should allow developers to miss the target.
Unless (or until) a multi-storey parking station is built in the CBD, pressure on parking in that area is only likely to increase in years to come so we hope council - and residents - don't come to regret those six missing spaces.
Six may not sound like many, but every park is priceless when you're the one who can't find a spot.
