Councillor Chris Harris

Hot on the heels of their destruction of the habitat area at Orphan School Creek with the freshly laid concrete zig zag path, the Clover Moore Party are at it again across the road in Johnstons Canal with more habitat destruction.  The proposal is a bike path that links the shared pathway emerging from Orphan School Creek as it crosses Wigram Rd at Forest Lodge.

Two pathways have been outlined by City staff. The one favoured by Clover Moore Party councillors  proceeds along the eastern side of the canal between Wigram Rd and a bridge across the canal about 150 metres away. This area contains about 5 metres of council land immediately adjacent to the canal and joins seamlessly with the backyards of 22 terrace homes that front Minogue Crescent. Currently there is a dirt ‘goat track’ that is used by the occasional recreational cyclist, mothers with little kids in prams and people walking their dogs. These uses have happily coexisted with the local residents for years but all that is about to change.

The Lord Mayor’s concrete and steel brigade have voted to build a 2.5 metre wide concrete path with regular 3.5 metre light poles. This new commuter cyclepath will be lit up like a carnival, it will attract a lot more cyclists and totally destroy this idyllic little haven. The impact on the residents will be considerable.

When I visited the site with Greens colleague, Cr Doutney, we saw corellas feeding their young, sulphur crested cockatoos munching the freshly mown grass seed and multiple varieties of birdlife – night time brings out possums & other native animals.

There is a perfectly good alternative route for this section of the cycleway just metres away on the other side of the canal. Booth lane is a very seldom used laneway that hosts a Housing NSW development on one side of the road and a private multi unit development on the other. Both of these have adequate on site parking for residents. The laneway contains 8 parking spaces that could easily be converted into a two way cycleway that terminates at Taylor St. Taylor St is a very wide & quiet dead end street that leads straight into the park where the shared path cycleway will continue down to the parklands around Roselle Bay.

Clover Moore councillors refused to consider the alternative ‘on road’ route but have decided instead on habitat destruction, increased conflict with cyclists and the loss of the peaceful glade enjoyed by the 22 homes along Minogue Cres. This choice is totally unnecessary.

Leichhardt Council will shortly be spending around $700,000 on Taylor St to convert it into a model sustainable street. What better addition to this project than the inclusion of sustainable transport. The traffic movements on Booth Lane and Taylor St are very low and it would be an ideal and easy path for both recreational & commuter cyclists with little potential conflict with cars or pedestrians

Residents of Minogue Cres, who have not been properly consulted, turned up at council on 22nd February to express their view and were refused an opportunity to address councillors when the Clover Moore Party voted as a block to deny them the right to speak. Once again Forrest Lodge residents are being ignored.

Thanks to local resident Alexandra Brunner for images of the site as it is now in it’s unconcreted state.

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

The NSW Department of Housing is planning to build a facility to provide permanent accommodation to around 50 homeless people on Pyrmont Bridge Rd in Camperdown (site pictured on the left).  Based on the successful Common Ground model from New York, formerly homeless people will be housed alongside low income key workers in a building where facilities to help them get back on their feet, such as medical clinics, drug and alcohol counseling, employment services and 24 hour security, will be located on site.  As well as a large number of highly successful projects in the USA a Common Ground style residence now exists in Adelaide and plans are underway for new developments in Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as here in Sydney.  While most organisations that provide homes for the homeless require their clients to undertake drug and alcohol counseling or other such programs prior to being housed, Common Ground has a “housing first” philosophy.  Under this approach clients are given a home and then begin such programs as they move in, dramatically increasing the success rate of the programs as clients are not constantly worrying about where to spend each night. Not only does Common Ground provide basic dignity, security and a way forward for the homeless, it also comes with a lower price tag, and is therefore a better use of tax payers money, than less permanent solutions like crisis accommodation.

While there has been some concern amongst local residents about how this development will affect their neighbourhood, I welcome the project and will be working with my fellow Greens to make sure that it achieves the best possible outcomes for the community – both for those to be housed by it and for those who live nearby.  

The Greens have already achieved some positive changes in the way the project will proceed.  A small area of vacant land will need to be used to allow Common Ground to be built on the site, a fact that has upset many locals as it is one of the only accessible areas of green space nearby.  We discussed this matter with Housing Department staff and secured a commitment that if the development goes ahead there will be no net loss of green space, with an under utilised car park nearby being converted to a park in conjunction with the City of Sydney Council.  Housing NSW initially planned to erect a wall to divide the park into separate areas for residents of separate buildings but have pledged to remove this from their plan since we highlighted the unacceptable “us and them” dichotomy this would create.

There is still more work to be done however and the Greens are continuing to liaise with Housing NSW to highlight the plight of the public housing residents of the Joanna O’Dea building, adjacent to the Common Ground site.  This building, also owned and managed by Housing NSW, is in poor repair and the residents, many of them elderly, have a range of ongoing concerns about security and maintenance.  It would be a most inequitable situation for Housing NSW to build a brand new building with advanced security next door while ignoring the needs of the Joanna O’Dea residents and we will thus be making sure that their concerns are met while the building of Common Ground goes ahead.

By listening to residents and by talking with the state Government we are working to make sure that this important project results in the best outcomes possible for those whom it will house as well as those who will be sharing their community with them.

In recent months there has been media attention, and many letters from concerned residents, about the plan by the City of Sydney to build a skate park on a site under the Western Distributor at Millers Point (pictured right).  This is a proposal that I wholeheartedly support, and I want to take this opportunity to explain why I hold the position I do and to hopefully allay some of the concerns that local residents have.

I support the creation of the skate park because skateboarding is a healthy, sustainable outdoor recreational pursuit, the kind of thing we should all be trying to encourage young people to partake in. It is already very popular in the City of Sydney, as shown by the numbers of skaters congregating in Martin Place, Cook and Phillip Park and in other city spaces on a weekend.  Young people use our public spaces in this way simply because the City of Sydney has failed to build dedicated skating facilities. To me this is totally understandable however I’m aware that not all the users of these areas feel the same and there is the potential for conflict.  Hence my desire to give skateboarders their own space in the CBD.  In any event, the City of Sydney has an obligation to provide free or low cost facilities for young people and I note that the City spends tens of millions of dollars each year on parks and other passive recreation facilities for every other demographic.

While there are a number of skate parks on the edges of the city already, in Glebe and Waterloo and other areas a little further afield, the majority of these are primarily bowl or ramp parks and are used for a different style of skating to what the street skaters in cities  practice.  The proposed Millers Point site would be designed with the urban terrain features that street skaters seek out and would allow them to participate in their hobby without the potential to come into conflict with pedestrians.

Three major concerns have been raised by residents about a skate park at this site, which is underneath the southern access freeway to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Firstly noise, which is a legitimate concern but which I feel many residents are more worried about than they need to be.  There are many popular skate parks in Sydney that are much bigger and much closer to residential buildings than the Millers Point skate park would be. Cammeray (pictured above) and Five Dock skate parks are two examples that immediately spring to mind and neither of these results in large numbers of noise complaints according to council staff.  These two skate parks are also located adjacent to roads much quieter than the Millers Point site – I live in one of the buildings overlooking the site and its hard to imagine that the sound of skaters would be even audible over the sound of the 160 000 cars per day that pass along the road below which the proposed park will be located.

Another concern that residents have is pedestrian safety.  However the net effect of this skate park will be to make collisions between skaters and pedestrians unlikely as it will give street skaters a dedicated place to skate that is not part of a pedestrian thoroughfare.  The park will also be located next to a dedicated cycleway running all the way from Town Hall which will give skaters easy to access the park along pedestrian-free paths.

The final concern expressed by many is that of anti-social or illegal behaviour.  This is an area where skaters are often unfairly stereotyped.  I have received many letters making statements to the effect that “while most skaters are law abiding and responsible, a number aren’t” and that because of this irresponsible minority, the park should not go ahead.  I think you will find an irresponsible minority in any group in society, but this usually doesn’t result in the entire group being branded and marginalised because of it.  For example, there has been plenty of news coverage in the last few years of violent or unsavoury behaviour by elite swimmers and football players, yet I don’t recall any incidence of residents objecting to a new pool or football field being built on the grounds of anti-social behaviour by those who use it for its intended purpose.

Graffiti is a specific example of an antisocial behaviour that many residents worry will be introduced into the area if a skate park is built.  However graffiti is not necessarily connected with skating and is fairly easy to control.  Graffiti artists generally only want to paint on relatively prominent surfaces (large walls above about waist height) and respect the work of other artists, very rarely painting on top of pre-existing artworks.  The proposed skate park will be mostly low terrain features that graffiti artists wouldn’t want to paint on and I will be suggesting that Council seek out local young artists to create innovative public artworks, consistent with the area’s usage, on the more prominent walls (as has been done with Cammeray skate park).  Perhaps a modern age Michelangelo could even paint the underside of the freeway – with the RTA’s permission of course!

The presence of skaters will actually make the area a safer place.  Currently the proposed park site is rather empty outside of peak hour and this has the potential to make it unsafe.  If the area has something to attract groups of people it will gain the benefit of passive surveillance and lose the isolated feeling that can make parts of big cities unsafe. 

I have spoken to Councillors and staff from councils that have popular skate parks, such as Waverly’s Bondi Skate Park (third image from top), Canada Bay’s Five Dock Bowl (second from bottom) and our own Fernside Park at Waterloo (below), and they report that the atmosphere around them is almost always positive.  Children as young as four, skating under the supervision of their parents, share the space with older children and teenagers and a vibrant sense of community is created.  I would suggest anyone worried about the presence of a skate park in their neighbourhood spend half an hour watching one of these places on a weekend and see for yourself how far removed they are from the noisy hubs of anti-social behaviour that some believe them to be.

So in conclusion, I will be urging City of Sydney to move forward with this project, however the park will still likely not be opened until early 2011.  Until we have decent facilities like this park in place for our young people we will continue to observe the thrills and spills of our local skaters in Martin Place and elsewhere in the city.

Thanks to skateboard.com.au for the images.

Post Script:  Shortly before I wrote this article, the local “City News” paper published a story on the plans for the skate park and the residents reaction to it, linked here.  A week later a letter from a resident critical of my position on the skate park was also published in city news here.  The following week the same paper published this response from me.