Councillor Chris Harris

To nobody’s surprise, Planning Minister Frank Sartor last weekend approved the concept plan for the Carlton-United Brewery site in Chippendale.

Bitterly opposed by the local community, the $800 million high-rise development will treble the population of the small suburb. While most agree Sydney needs more housing stock, critics of this project say it is rampant overdevelopment, designed not for quality of life and environment but for the profits of big developers.

There will be 1,690 apartments over 11 blocks. The tallest tower, eye-to-eye with the reviled UTS tower, will match it at 120 metres.

These apartments will house up to 2,800 residents. In addition there will be up to 4,800 workers each day occupying the commercial spaces. That’s 7,600 people, equal to several small towns.

The development will be so tall and dense that most of the open space will be sunless in mid-winter. Tall buildings generate wind tunnels in the canyons they create, so it is likely that outdoor living will be impractical in winter.

Even the showpiece park in the site’s centre will be 80% in shade by 2pm in mid-winter (see picture), while in many of the blocks, 40% of apartments will receive little or no direct sunlight.

Then there is parking and traffic. This supposedly environmentally sensitive project will host 2,320 parking spots. Now, only four out of ten dwellings in Chippendale own a car. An independent study for City of Sydney recommended a ratio of .57 spots per apartment, recognising the site is public-transport-rich.

But even before Frank Sartor grabbed planning control of the site, the Central Sydney Planning Committee doubled that ratio (with, interestingly, the support of Clover Moore).

That’s when I resigned in disgust from the Committee.

Not to worry though, all those extra cars will have minimal impact on city streets according to Mr Sartor’s department. You see, according to surveys they have done, having extra parking spots on a site does not increase traffic!

Their traffic projections therefore assume only 482 peak-hour vehicle movements in and out of the site. Apparently the remaining 1,838 cars will just sit there all day. And one wonders why they need 686 public and commercial spaces to cater for such a low traffic flow.

A similar study for the City of Sydney concluded that more spaces indeed generated more traffic, but that was ignored. It’s funny how traffic estimates in Sydney always suit the intentions of the government, like the supposed 90,000 cars per day that were going to use the Cross City Tunnel, a 3x overestimate.

But even on their own estimates, the Department’s Traffic and Transport Assessment predicts an average 62 seconds extra delay for traffic along Broadway and an average 24 seconds extra delay in Regent Street, largely down to two extra signalised intersections feeding the development.

These delays will also affect public buses, already dysfunctional in the city at peak hour. There is no assessment of the impact on surrounding areas from displaced traffic, and no estimate of the extra pollution from 62 seconds extra idling from the 18,000 vehicles per day which already use Broadway.

And if it turns out that the Department has conveniently underestimated the site’s traffic generation, the consequences will be even worse.

Not to worry though, while the city fumes in gridlock, the developers will have made a motzah from flogging off all those extra parking spots.

This, along with similar problems with East Darling Harbour, is a real tragedy for Sydney. These sites were our last opportunities to create a world-class city.

The Greens would have liked to see state-of-the-art sustainability built in — full recycling of waste and stormwater, solar electricity generation, green rooftops, practical bicycle accommodation and energy-efficient buildings designed to minimise air-conditioning and heating load. On top of the environmental benefits, these measures would reduce ongoing costs for the occupants.

Now this city is condemned to fall further behind competing cities in Australia and overseas.

This will have negative economic as well as environmental consequences, and history will judge this era as harshly as that of the 1960s with its legacy of ugly, uncontrolled development.