Councillor Chris Harris

The Barangaroo Authority conducted a presentation of the design ideas of British architect Richard Rogers at the City Recital Hall on 23rd February. The presentation visuals showed attractive buildings and public spaces that interfaced with the water at the city’s western edge with a light rail service passing down Hickson Rd.

One key component of the design, repeatedly referred to as ”the public pier”, was in fact the platform for a 213 metre private hotel located on half a hectare of the harbour that will have to be reclaimed (image created by the Sydney Morning Herald as viewed from Pyrmont Bridge). The proposed hotel juts 150 metres into the harbour and effectively blocks half the waterway separating Barangaroo & Darling Island.

The presentation contained many worthwhile ideas but there was virtually no mention of the hotel from Mr Keating or the two architects who presented the design. It seemed as though they were trying to slip it through without anyone noticing.

Once a questioner raised the hotel issue Mr Keating responded by saying that the building was a response to ‘1960s’ industrial vandalism’, would be an “exclamation mark” for the western city and that the reclamation of part of the harbour would “break up the monotony of the shoreline”.

It seems to me that mother nature created a beautiful canvas when she shaped Sydney harbour and it appears pretty arrogant to suggest that we humans can improve that with a massive private ‘for profit’ enterprise in the shape of a hotel to “break up the monotony”.

The hotel is a savage intrusion on Sydney Harbour and creates a precedent that will enable future premiers, in cahoots with their political mates, to construct a pier with a giant building anywhere in the harbour that takes their fancy. Just imagine a future “public pier” with a 200 metre hotel at the end of White Bay or Pyrmont Point . There is no reason that this could not happen if the Barangaroo Authority gets away with this. For those who have invested a million or two dollars in a harbour waterfront apartment I’d have to say ‘be very afraid’ of a precedent like this.

Mr Keating also called the Sydney Morning Herald “intellectually corrupt” and acting with “shocking arrogance” when the newspaper published an impression of how this proposal would look from Pyrmont Bridge.

The proposed built form will completely overwhelm the northern view of the harbour from Pyrmont and will compromise the beauty of the stunning waterway for all except those who approach from the West in a helicopter. The Herald has exposed the government’s spin with the published image and I hope that the public loudly condemns what is clearly a massive over-development on this last iconic piece of post industrial harbour.   
 

At a council meeting of the City of Sydney on 22nd February Clover Moore Party
members and the Liberal councilor voted in tandem to donate public ratepayer funds to two private enterprises setting up in the City’s laneways.

The first donation to set up a new bar was approved outright.  The second grant, to the Moran Arts Foundation Ltd, was recommended by staff but has been deferred so that the structure of the business and its connection to the Moran Family can be investigated. The grant was made under the Laneways Business Development Program - a program initiated in August 2008 in a 5-4 vote at Council.

I opposed the policy when it was proposed in 2008 and the reasons for that opposition have not changed. The recommended grants were for $30,000 each with the funds being available for setting up the business and matching funds being provided by the entrepreneur. These cash handouts to individual  business people are nothing more than corporate welfare. The grant was opposed by myself, my Greens colleague Cr Doutney & the Labor councillor.

The proposal to approve $30,000 for The Moran Foundation shows just how poorly targetted this policy is. A wealthy family such as the Moran family should not be receiving funding from a public authority to set up a new small business enterprise.  It is clear that they are more than able to set up the new business from their own very substantial resources.

The use of $30 000 of public funds to set up a private ‘for profit’ bar also reflects poorly on the City’s priorities when you consider some of the grant applications that have been refused in recent community and environmental grant rounds. These include:

•  AIDS Council of NSW (ACON) was denied $4,980 to provide courses in health, well being and life skills to women with HIV.
•  Glebe/Leichardt Police and Community Youth Centre (PCYC) was denied $10,000 to provide 10 places for at risk young people to do their School Certificate by correspondence at PCYC.
• Adults Surviving Child Abuse (a group that provides information and support for child abuse survivors as well as those who provide services to support them) was denied $20,000 to provide psycho-educational workshops to health professionals and survivors of child abuse.
• Streetwork (a group that works with young people at risk of violence, homelessness, abuse and addiction) was denied $9,570 for youth advocacy at Glebe Children’s Court.
• Bell Shakespeare Company was denied $15,000 for the Shakespeare in the CBD short performances program.
• Biodynamics Sydney ( a permaculture organisation) were denied $8,160 to run workshops on using gardens as carbon sinks.
• Diabetes Australia was denied $20,144 to implement programs to educate the non-English speaking background community on magaing diabetes.

I would consider that all of these projects are more worthy than propping up another gin mill in a city already awash with establishments providing alcohol 24 hours per day.  If the City wants to enliven laneways it should do it by creating local events that will attract people to these laneways.

The Greens call on the Clover Moore Party to close down the the Laneways Business Development Program and to allocate the budgeted funds to community and environmental grant programs