Gordon · Ku-ring-gai
Home renovations in Gordon.
Gordon has more apartments than houses — 1,546 to 1,448. It is the only suburb in Ku-ring-gai where that is true, and it makes the full apartment renovation the default job here rather than the exception.
NSW contractor licence 397801C · Ku-ring-gai Council area · About 12 minutes from our Hornsby showroom
Gordon by the numbers
3,625
private dwellings in Gordon
48.3%
flats or apartments — more than houses
35.3%
rented
Median age 39
the youngest of the Ku-ring-gai suburbs we service
Apartments — 48.3% of Gordon
The whole apartment, in one programme.
Kitchen, bathroom, laundry, flooring, joinery and wiring done as a single project. In an older Gordon block that is usually the right call, because the services behind the walls need attention as much as the surfaces do.
Older blocks, original services
Much of Gordon's unit stock is decades old. Original stacks, undersized branch pipework and dated switchboards are routine finds.
Where the lot ends
Membranes, slab penetrations and often the pipework are common property. That boundary gets confirmed in writing before demolition.
Rewiring inside a lot
A full apartment renovation is the moment to replace ageing circuits. Doing it later means opening finished walls.
Small building, small committee
Gordon schemes are often modest in size. A clear written scope usually gets approved without a special general meeting.
Approvals
Committee, certifier or council.
Which of the three you are dealing with depends entirely on what you own and what you want to change. We work that out before anyone draws anything, because it sets the honest timeline.
Strata approval is its own timeline
It has nothing to do with council. It runs on when your committee meets, which is why we start it at the first visit.
Houses: check the LEP mapping
Parts of Gordon carry heritage listing or sit in a conservation area, which rules out complying development and points you at a development application.
Tree controls apply everywhere
Ku-ring-gai's canopy protection governs where any extension footprint can go, on any block in the LGA.
Most interiors are exempt development
House or unit, internal work that leaves structure alone generally needs no planning application at all.
Living through it
Time the move around the approval.
The commonest expensive mistake is renting somewhere before consent has been granted.
01
In a unit, assume you move out
One bathroom, one kitchen, nowhere to retreat to. Eight to ten weeks elsewhere is the realistic plan.
02
Use the approval wait
Nothing happens on site during it. Live in the property, order the long-lead items, and only move when work starts.
03
Services before surfaces
Rewiring and plumbing while the walls are open. This is the stage that decides whether it lasts twenty years.
04
Wet areas, then everything else
Waterproofing cure times set the minimum programme. Nothing compresses them.
05
Handover with certificates
Waterproofing certification, electrical compliance and warranties handed over together.
Why do it
What renovating an older Gordon unit buys.
Median weekly household income here is $2,460 and 32.3% of homes are owned outright. A large share of Gordon's apartment work is either a long-term owner improving how they live, or an investor improving what the property returns.
Services are the real return
New wiring and pipework in a fifty-year-old unit remove the failure risk that quietly discounts an older apartment.
Storage over spectacle
Custom joinery changes how an apartment lives far more than a premium benchtop does.
Know the building's ceiling
Every block has a top sale price. In a unit that ceiling is much firmer than a house's, and worth knowing first.
With 35% rented, a lot is investment
If it is a rental, durability outranks luxury. Tell us and we will specify for turnover rather than for you.
Houses — 45.3% of Gordon
And the freestanding half.
1,448 separate houses, a good share of them older stock in or near conservation areas. Everything the units cannot do — move walls, change the plan, extend — is on the table here, along with everything an older house hides.
Older fabric, more surprises
Lath and plaster, hardwood framing and original services. We hold a named contingency rather than quoting optimistically.
Layout is genuinely changeable
Unlike the units, a Gordon house usually gives us subfloor access and room to move walls.
You can often stay
Seal a working zone, keep a kitchen and bathroom live, and hand rooms back progressively.
Credentials
Licensed for strata and for houses.
NSW contractor licence
397801C
Renova Holdings Pty Ltd
Builder
99764S
Alireza Kamalzadeh
Contractor
395823C
Arshia Kamalzadeh
HBCF eligibility
To 15 Oct 2028
Approved to $150,000 per apartment building
Dwelling, tenure and income figures from the ABS 2021 Census QuickStats for Gordon, NSW (SAL11724). What sits inside your lot and what belongs to the owners corporation is determined by your strata plan — general guidance is published by NSW Fair Trading. Verify licences on the NSW Government public register.
Gordon questions
Older buildings, whole-home scopes.
Is it worth rewiring an older Gordon apartment?
If the walls are coming open, almost always. Original circuits in a fifty-year-old block are frequently undersized for how people live now, and retrofitting later means opening finished, tiled walls. It is the least visible money in the project and among the best spent.
How long does owners corporation approval take?
It depends on when your committee meets and whether the scheme allows delegated approval between meetings. Some schemes turn it around in weeks; others wait for the next scheduled or extraordinary general meeting. We supply the scope document at the first visit so the application is lodged as early as possible.
When should we move out?
Not until consent is granted. The most expensive mistake we see is people starting a lease elsewhere while the application is still with the committee. Nothing happens on site during approval, so stay in the property, use that time to order long-lead items, and move when demolition is genuinely booked.
Can we take out a wall in the apartment?
Sometimes. Non-structural partitions inside your lot can often be removed with consent. Anything structural or on the lot boundary is generally common property, needs engineering, and often requires a general meeting rather than a committee decision. We establish which yours is before design.
Our house is near a conservation area. Does that matter?
Only if your specific address is inside it or individually listed — it is mapped by property in the Ku-ring-gai Local Environmental Plan, not by street. Internal renovation is usually unaffected either way. Where it matters is external elevations, roof form and windows, and it also closes the faster complying-development pathway.
Start the approval before you start planning.
Send us the address and whether it's strata. The scope document is the first thing we produce, not the last.
