Concrete driveways in Kotara

Driveways in Kotara, 2289

Kotara sits about 9 km south west of the Newcastle CBD, cut into a northern and a southern half by Park Avenue and the railway, with Westfield Kotara on Northcott Drive and the 1924 station in between. The Scottish Australian Mining Company sold it as a garden suburb in 1925, but only 52 houses stood by 1940; the suburb was built after 1947 and kept filling into the mid 1980s. Council’s own description of the place is long steep driveways, semi-basement garages on the steeper lots and retaining walls forward of the house. Nearly nine dwellings in ten are separate houses, so the driveway work is the replacement of concrete poured between the 1950s and the 1980s, on grades that were never easy.

A hillside of long, narrow lots

The street pattern of the Park Forest Estate, curving roads and long narrow blocks laid out between 1950 and 1980, was a response to slopes council calls moderate to steep, and many of those houses have a front garage with a long setback and a driveway running to the street. South of the railway the parking is often into a semi-basement garage. Kotara also sits in the upper Styx Creek flood study area, and the Westfield car park flooded in June 2007. Most of the residential streets appear to sit inside the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District, with a strip along the railway outside it. Subsidence Advisory NSW exempts driveways and hard stand spaces under all its guidelines except 4 and 5, so the district matters for a garage rather than for the driveway; a lot’s status is on the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer.

Replacing a driveway that runs downhill to the garage

A long driveway of that age that has cracked into panels or dropped at the kerb is the standard removal and replacement job here, and on a fall the replacement is also the chance to fix what the original got wrong: the transition at the kerb that scrapes, the missing drain at the garage door, the surface that slicks up in rain. Widening for a second car is common on the rectangular lots north of the railway, where a strip beside the original in plain concrete does the job. Infill on the large lots adds shared driveways, poured with the paths and the alfresco. New Lambton next door shares the flat-east, steep-west split.

The crossing on a steep Kotara block

City of Newcastle sets the grades of the crossing through its approval letter together with AS 2890.1, and holds a 1.2 metre band across the crossing at 1 in 40 for a future footpath, which on a steep frontage is where the transition has to be designed rather than guessed. The slab across the verge is at least 100 mm with SL72 mesh, and the formwork is inspected before the pour. The Section 138 guide covers the Type 1 application.

Grip first

On a driveway that drops to a semi-basement garage the finish is chosen for grip: a firm broom on plain concrete or the washed stone of exposed aggregate. Coloured concrete belongs on the level forecourts of the northern lots. Whatever the driveway, council’s drawing wants a plain broom finish on the crossing and does not permit sealer there, so a sealed decorative finish ends at the boundary.

Kotara rates per square metre

Supplied and laid: coloured concrete $115 to $160; plain $95 to $130; exposed aggregate $130 to $185; shed and garage slabs $110 to $150; patios and alfresco $100 to $180; paths $90 to $130; and about $35 more per square metre where the old driveway comes out first. In Kotara the length and the fall of the run move the price more than the finish, along with a pump where the truck cannot reach a rear garage. Try the calculator, read the cost guide, and put the specification and the Section 138 guide to whoever quotes.