Councillor Chris Harris

Draft Late-Night Trading Premises Development Control Plan 2007

As reported widely in the media, new draft approval guidelines have been designed to change the mix and type of licensed venues in Sydney. They will soon be exhibited for public comment.

The new rules, if ratified, will be less strict for smaller, ‘Category B’ venues which will be able to extend their trading hours more easily than larger ‘Category A’ venues.

This is intended to encourage smaller, more intimate bars of the kind more common in Melbourne and European cities.

Approval for extending operating hours beyond ‘base’ hours will be granted on a trial basis only. Larger venues will be limited to a one-year trial period before re-assessment. Smaller venues (those with a floor area under 200 square metres) will enjoy a maximum five-year period.

But trial periods mean that late trading approvals for either category become a privilege, not a right, and they give the City the power to withdraw consent if a venue consistently fails to meet its consent conditions. A full legal process is required to achieve this during a trial period. It seems the primary intention is to review eligibility at the end of each trial period.

This has been criticised as ‘de facto approval’ but venue owners on the other hand would no doubt be concerned about the extra paperwork and expense of repeatedly re-applying for consent.

Further, venues applying for extended hours will be granted extensions in increments − two hours extra per approval for large venues, three hours for smaller venues. Read the rest of this entry »

The court case, Matthew Drake-Brockman v the Minister for Planning and others (Foster’s has sold the CUB site to Frasers) regarding the environmental disaster that will be the Carlton United Brewery development has completed.

In two days of debate barristers for both sides argued the case for the importance of ensuring that environmentally sustainable measures were incorporated into the approval process for the site.

With climate change threatening the way we live it was astonishing to hear counsel for the Minister and Frasers argue that “ESD (ecologically sustainability development) should not take primacy over economics” and that under Part 3A the Minister is under “no obligation to take ESD considerations into account.”

Tell that to the future generations when their health, work opportunities and environment are destroyed.

We now await a judgement within the next few weeks.

Below I have included a summary of the arguments in the CUB Hearing including the submission from Francis Douglas QC, counsel for Drake-Brockman.

I would like to thank everyone who took an interest and supported this landmark case that deals with climate change in an urban development. If you would like to read the full submission please email me at charris@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au and I will send these to you.

Cheers 
Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney
Greens Cr Chris Harris Read the rest of this entry »

‘The guy in the torn t-shirt playing guitar on the pavement’ is an indicator of the cultural wealth of a city, which is in turn an indicator of its economic prosperity, said Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class, at a City of Sydney talk a couple of years back.

But despite taking a high profile on high culture, the City seems to be interfering unnecessarily with how these ‘guys in torn t-shirts’ ply their trade..

An update of the City’s busking policy is about to go on public exhibition.

Arguing that more residents have moved into traditional entertainment areas, the draft policy imposes time limits – 9am to 10pm weekdays and 9am to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

Yet anyone who goes out in Sydney knows that places like Kings Cross and Oxford Street hardly get going until 10pm or midnight. And early-rising buskers make better money entertaining morning commuters who are all at work by 9am.

The policy ignores the fact that some busking is silent – like human statues or the Kings Cross Poet who wrote rhymes on request or Kate de Jude the wire sculptor whose raunchy figures deliver an electric tingle or a wetting to cheeky punters. (Pictured: a human statue in Barcelona’s Rambla)

Would-be buskers are expected to pay a fee and get a licence – $10 for three months or $40 for twelve months. Presumably the fee is to cover the administrative cost of charging the fee.

Those caught busking without a license will be fined under the policy. Why fine them? Why not help them. Why can’t rangers just tell them that they need to get a license and even give them a form to fill in with directions to the closest one stop shop.

The policy update allows musicians to sell their cds in two places only, both in Taylor Square.

Why not anywhere else, like Kings Cross for example?

And why have the rule at all? When I asked that question I was told firstly –‘To reduce street clutter’

Really, a few cds in a guitar case are hardly going to bring down the city.

The second reason was that we need to protect the CD retailers in the city. Well, if these guys had a recording contract they wouldn’t be busking and selling their CD’s on the street. The small CD sales that they achieve allow them to survive. CD shops wouldn’t sell their music anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sydney Morning Herald got it right – “Torch? Check. Maps? Check. Sense of impending doom? Check.”

Unfortunately it’s the final item in the list that is driving the ‘Go-Bag’ campaign as Clover Moore teams up with Attorney General Phillip Ruddock make sure we are now both alert and alarmed.

In the lead-up to APEC and a Federal Election, a terror scare campaign from the coalition government hardly comes as a surprise.

But what is surprising is Clover Moore’s unilateral decision to chip in $100,000 of public money not on producing Go-Bags but on advertising them.

There was no consultation with other Councillors, who first heard about it through the media. Meanwhile the Lord Mayor staged a photo op flanked by uniformed police and emergency personnel.

“I think it’s appalling that the Lord Mayor should consider, let alone commit the council to spending ratepayer’s money to support a Howard government fear campaign” says Chris Harris.

“Exactly what is the danger we’re supposed to be facing? Is it a tsunami, a biological attack, planes ploughing into the Town Hall? I’d suggest that sunblock, sticky tape and spare keys would offer little protection in any of these emergencies.

“What would be helpful would be to have a fast and efficient public transport system able to be mobilised to evacuate people quickly should a disaster occur.

“The council has and promotes safety campaigns that tell people to lock their houses when they leave, to install smoke alarms and not leave valuables in their cars. These are important messages that help people deal with a real threat – but a Go-Bag?

“The questions I want answered are, what are we fleeing from? Where are we going to? How are we going to going to get there? And what are we supposed to do when we arrive?

“What is more galling is that only a month ago I moved an amendment at council to reduce the entry fee for children at the new Ultimo pool from $4.50 to $3.00 .

“The Lord Mayor and her team voted against it. The Lord Mayor then used her casting vote to defeat my amendment. This initiative would have cost the council $64,000. And here we have the same Lord Mayor making a unilateral decision for council to spend $100,000 on advertising a Go-Bag that helps fund a Federal government fear campaign.

“I certainly do not support Go-Bags and I condemn the Lord Mayor for voting against the community one day and then the next day using their money to advertise a scare campaign with little reason other than an attempt to gain publicity.”

The City of Sydney last week agreed to support the community’s fund raising effort for the litigation against Foster’s and Planning Minister Frank Sartor over the CUB site in Chippendale.

Cr Chris Harris, who is actively supporting the case, had requested that a $20,000 grant be made to FOCUS - a Chippendale community group - to help meet the $40,000 estimated costs.

After debate, the majority of councillors decided that council match the Legal Aid grant together with funds raised by the community up to a limit of $20,000, subject to some legal provisos.

The vote was 7-3 with only the three Labor councillors (including Assistant Environment Minister Verity Firth) opposing. (See resolution passed, below)

“This is great news for Chippendale,” said Cr Harris.

“The litigation is a last-ditch attempt to have the community and the environment considered in a long-term project that will triple the population and car ownership in this charming inner Sydney suburb.”

“It is a real message to Frank Sartor that his takeover of the site using the unpopular part 3A planning laws is anti-democratic and that the concept plan that he approved is unsustainable.”

Outstanding Legal Counsel

Strong Legal Counsel for the community has been confirmed. Francis Douglas QC is one of Australia’s leading barristers. Junior counsel Jason Lazarus is a rising star in the legal profession and an expert in Land & Environment Court matters.

Cr Harris has written to Frasers, the developers who recently purchased the site from Foster’s, requesting a meeting to discuss what the developer needs to do to create an environmentally sustainable development.

Fundraising event

Supporters of the case can help kick it along at a fundraising event to be held on 11 July at the Guthrie Theatre, UTS (6.30-8.30pm, Lebanese finger food, drinks available for purchase, $30 contribution, enter off Harris Street).

Speakers will include Ian Kiernan AO from Clean Up Australia, Green bans legend Jack Mundey, Chippendale resident and sustainability expert Michael Mobbs, Cate Faehrmann, Executive Officer of the Nature Conservation Council and Caroline Pidcock, past president of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Around $5,000 in public donations has already been received and further pledges indicate that the fund raising drive will reach its target before the case on 25 July.

Recycle your dead mobile phone and help raise some money for the CUB case

Local reside Amy Kelly will collect all previously loved mobile phones at the fundraiser event and recycle them. Each phone will raise $5 towards the case.

Contact Amy Kelly on  0405 978 756.

Read the rest of this entry »