Jamie Durie’s six-storey waterfront mansion renovation has come grinding to a halt due to some very pesky neighbours.

The celebrity landscaper, 54, is working on his lavish Avalon Beach property in Sydney’s northern beaches and construction is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

But he now says a crane on the site won’t be removed until after Christmas, revealing a pair of rare birds have built a giant nest on top of it.

During an appearance on Channel Seven’s The Morning Show on Wednesday, Jamie said the birds have laid two eggs which are set to hatch any day now.

‘The whole neighbourhood’s talking about this,’ he told hosts Kylie Gillies and Matt Doran.

‘It’s a very difficult site that we’re building a house on, and of course, we had to build a crane to lift all the products and so forth.’

The camera then cut to a live stream of an osprey bird nesting on the crane.

‘This is a live stream of Ozzie and Odette, our little Osprey pair — that’s what my kids have named them,’ Jamie said.

‘There’s two eggs sitting under her right now, and they are about to give birth this week… That’s on the top of my crane on my house.’

The hosts were shocked, with Kylie suggesting Jamie ‘should have packed up the crane by now’.

‘Well, the house will be finished in four weeks. But the crane’s got to stay up until after Christmas,’ Jamie exclaimed.

‘Who’s footing the bill for that?’ Kylie asked, to which the TV personality responded, ‘Well, me, of course.’

‘As if we’re going to push their habitat out to create our habitat … We’re learning how to live in harmony,’ he added.

Construction is only four weeks away from completion at the stunning location, one year after Durie managed to get his proposed build for a $2.7 million home approved.

The multi-level cliffside property is covered in scaffolding and some walls of the home have been erected.

The landscaping guru was granted approval in April last year by the Northern Beaches Council over his development application (DA) for the waterfront property, despite receiving more than 50 objections from angry locals.

His plans to knock down a 1960s cottage and replace it with a sprawling six-storey mansion for his family was first met with opposition from neighbors who objected to the removal of 17 native trees.

Neighbors then had an issue with whether the home’s construction would impact the ecosystem of a local microbat colony.

The horticulturalist said in his 25 years of working in the industry, trying to get his renovation plans over the line was the biggest challenge he’d faced.

‘I can tell you right now, if you want to lodge a DA in Avalon it will be the most harrowing thing you have done in your life,’ Durie told The Daily Telegraph at the time.

‘I have spoken to close to 20 to 30 people in the last six months who have decided not to lodge their DA because of the circus this has created.’

Community members were also unhappy with Durie’s plans on the grounds that the dwelling would be out of character for the area.

‘It is a gross overdevelopment in this location given the character of the area and the adjoining properties,’ one person told the council.

Durie previously clarified 1518 native and endemic species will be planted on and around the property.

‘We’ve rectified the issue and I have sent a letter to all the neighbors and the council explaining what’s happening and so hopefully they will see with our new plans,’ he said on Today Extra in 2021.

‘I hear them loud and clear and rest assured, we’ll be putting plenty of plants into the ground.’

Neighbor John Sheehan, a former acting judge of the Land and Environment Court, described the proposal as ‘fatally flawed’ and was concerned it would have ‘serious and irreversible impacts on biodiversity values’.

Another neighbor said the proposed dwelling was out of character with the adjoining dwellings which respect the topography and the vegetation of their sites.

‘It is a gross over-development in this location given the character of the area and the adjoining properties,’ their submission stated.

‘It must be redesigned by an architect to reduce its site coverage, to retain all the significant trees, to pull back from the waterfront in order to stay well within the foreshore building line, and to reduce its excessive size.’

Another expressed grave concerns the development will set an alarming precedent for future development in the area if approved.

Local heritage and preservation bodies also objected to the development with concerns that it’s out of character for the area, will threaten wildlife and ‘would overwhelm its environmentally sensitive block’.

Pittwater Natural Heritage Association said the initial proposal would have a detrimental effect on the movement of wildlife in the vicinity and does not reflect the ecological and aesthetic values ​​of the area.

‘Council should take into consideration the cumulative effect that developments such as this would have on the canopy trees which are critical to the character of the Avalon area,’ their submission stated.

‘If this and other such developments are allowed to continue then, over time, the tree canopy which gives Avalon its character will disappear.’

The Avalon Preservation Association added: ‘The current trend of proposing very large dwellings on environmentally sensitive blocks and consequently destroying much of the native vegetation on the block while a small effect taken individually, constitutes ‘death by a thousand cuts’ when taken as the new standard.’

Once completed, the property is set to be Durie’s new family home with fiancé Ameka Jane, their three-year-old daughter Beau and their one-year-old son Nash.