Councillor Chris Harris

Stories about developers trampling over the desires of local communities are all too common these days.  I know I publish a lot more about problems here than I’d have to in an ideal world but once in a while a good news story comes along and I want to take this opportunity to share with you the experiences of a group of Chippendale residents in protecting a fabulous community asset they have worked very hard to create.

The asset I’m talking about is the garden on the corner of Regent and Cleveland streets, a site that 80 000 motorists pass every day and that a very good number of them admire.  The garden is an oasis of nature in a concrete city, a haven for birds and crickets and a much needed screen between local residents and traffic.

The garden exists because of almost two decades of hard work by a small but dedicated group of local residents, led by artist Wallace Randolph (pictured here in the garden).  It all began in 1992 when Randolph’s artistic eye saw the straggly, unhealthy trees the RTA had planted on a verge and imagined something better could go there.  For 10 years he and his group planted, watered and cleaned up the garden bed entirely unsupported by Council.  They saved plants due to be removed from nearby building sites and moved them to their garden when they could, but other than these recycling windfalls they paid all the costs of setting up and maintaining the garden for the first decade by themselves.

Official help for the garden first came in 2002 when the then South Sydney Council built a protective fence around the garden to prevent trampling and theft of plants.  This was followed later by the installation of a tap, which meant that finally the residents didn’t have to pay out of their own pockets to water this feature enjoyed by so many.  City of Sydney contractors now look after about one third of the garden with the residents being primarily responsible for the rest but also having some input into the council managed section.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the garden just recently when it looked like the unstoppable march of “progress” might end the garden’s story short of its 18th birthday.  Council had approved an extensive redevelopment of a property on Regent St, despite many objections from local residents, right behind the garden and the only place the developer could find to use as a works zone was the garden itself. 

The residents who look after the garden expressed serious concern to me that they were not properly informed by Council and were completely shocked when they found out that 75% of their garden was to be destroyed with only vague promises that it would be “re-landscaped” once construction was over.

It was at this point that Randolph asked well known unionist and environmental activist Jack Mundey for advice on how best to deal with Council.  Armed with the support of such a legendary figure the residents mobilised and also contacted me.

I advised the local residents to attend and address the traffic committee that was due to deliberate on the construction zone and I went along to ensure that a better plan was developed so that damage to the garden would be minimised. Following the traffic committee I met on site with residents along with my Greens colleague Cr Irene Doutney and staff marked out exactly where the construction zone would be and how much garden would have to be demolished.

The works zone will still be built on part of the garden, but will now affect only around 15% of the southern end of the site.  The protective fence will be reinstated to make sure that the rest of the garden is not damaged during the works.  Once the construction zone is no longer required all plants removed will be replanted or replaced with plants of a similar size.  All the costs will be paid by the developer who will also be required to pay a $20 000 bond in case the City has to do the work.

This is a very positive outcome for Regent St. and I would like to congratulate all the residents on their many years of hard work in creating such a beautiful and much appreciated landmark. They also engeged constructively to reach an agreement that allows development to take place while not compromising the garden of which they are rightly proud.    

It seemed like the battle of the CoFA development was over but the University of NSW has turned its back on the community once again.  In my previous post on this topic I discussed how City of Sydney Council had reached a compromise agreement between Paddington residents and the University about the streets trucks would use during the contruction and when they would use them.  What seemed like a victory for local residents and for good faith negotiations was, however, sadly short lived.

Much to the anger of the local community UNSW have now decided that they are unhappy with the agreed traffic management plan and are applying to the Department of Planning to have Council stripped of it’s power to make traffic management decisions about the site.  This is poor form on the part of UNSW but also serves to highlight the broader issue of the pro-developer bias in the NSW planning system.

The notorious Part 3A powers of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, enacted by state parliament in 2005 when both the Labor and Liberal parties voted in favour of them, allow the planning Minister to usurp a Council’s powers to approve developments.  The effect of Part 3A is that developments that are totally opposed by the communities most affected by them have a much greater chance of getting approved - especially if the proponent of the development is a donor to one of the major political parties.

I will be doing all I can to make sure the Department of Planning does not overturn the months of negotiations that went into developing the current traffic management plan.  But this is only one battle in the ongoing war that my Greens collegues in state parliment have been fighting for many years against a highly flawed and unbalanced planning system.  

Clover Moore should resign from the Barangaroo board. This position with the Barangaroo Delivery Authority (BDA) represents a conflict of interest with her role on Council.

The Greens & other councillors together with many members of the community have major issues with the plans the BDA have for Barangaroo, considering it to be a massive overdevelopment as the artists impression on the right shows.  Unfortunately the Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s membership of the BDA Board is hampering the City of Sydney Council’s ability to represent the community on these issues.

The Lord Mayor has claimed that her role on the BDA has resulted in a number of positive environmental features, such as water recycling, co-generation and zero waste provisions, being added to plans for the development.  However I have serious doubts about these claims.

Progressive property owners are now including trigeneration, full water recycling & capture & zero waste approaches in major new developments. Recent examples of this approach include the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority’s “Workplace 6” building on Darling Island and Fraser’s Properties Carlton United Breweries site in Chippendale.  I think the state government, desperate to try to show some green credentials, would have included these initiatives in the project whether or not the Lord Mayor was on the board.

The Lord Mayor has also claimed that her influence on the BDA Board resulted in a light rail connection that integrates Barangaroo with the rest of the City being added to the plan, however, as with her environmental claims, I have doubts about how much of a contribution her presence on the board has made.

Firstly, a possible light/heavy rail link to Barangaroo was flagged by the Government long before the Lord Mayor joined the Board in December 2008. Secondly the BDA are proposing a light rail line running from central station to Circular Quay somewhere on the western side of the City – possibly down Sussex St.  There is no proposed integration with the CBD, the shopping precinct of Pitt St mall or Town Hall. The transport proposal is totally inadequate. 

Both my Greens colleague Irene Doutney and I think that we must have a low fare service that intimately links the old eastern and new western sections of the CBD.  It would be like the 555 shuttle buses but would not have to contend with traffic on crowded city streets.  So far, Clover’s involvement hasn’t delivered an integrated transport plan for Barangaroo.

And if a final example of the Lord Mayors ineffectiveness on the board were needed it can be seen in these two documents from the Barangaroo Action Group - a comparison of the building size in the southern section of the site under the original award winning plan and the BDA’s new plan.  Clover herself describes the buildings in the new plan as “too big”, a statement which I completely agree with, yet the plan was released during 2009 while she was on the board and she seems to have been completely unable to stop it.

It seems that the BDA are using Ms Moore’s position on the board to create the impression that the City of Sydney is supportive of what will be a gross overdevelopment of this iconic site.  Since the Lord Mayor joined the BDA board Councillors have not received a single briefing about what is proposed at Barangaroo – confidential or otherwise.  The first time that I had a chance to see what was proposed was at a public presentation by the BDA in the City Recital Hall on 23rd February 2010 and the first time we debated it as a council was on 15th March 2010. That’s a full sixteen months that the other councillors have been kept in the dark about the BDA’s plans.

Ms Moore should resign from the BDA immediately. This would then allow the City of Sydney to better use its resources to advocate in a very public way and demand that the design be revised to reduce the scale of the development, delete the intrusion into the harbour, return the whole of the foreshore to public use and to provide a proper public transport link that would genuinely integrate this beautiful site into the rest of the City.

The City of Sydney Council could be a powerful voice for the community on this matter.  Instead we are being gagged because Ms Moore has to be cautious about not wanting to seem too critical of a project she has helped develop.

The prospect of twenty seven months of construction noise and dozens of trucks per day on your street would make the most stoic of residents unhappy.  And when your street is one of the quietest and most beautiful tree lined avenues in inner Sydney (pictured), unhappy doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Such was the mood of a group of Paddington residents, until an extraordinary meeting of City of Sydney Council’s traffic committee endorsed sweeping but sensible amendments to a controversial traffic management plan for the redevelopment of the College of Fine Arts (CoFA) site. 

The amendments restore the plan to a form that sees a general degree of acceptance from local residents who understandably want to minimise the impact that the construction will have on their neighbourhood.

When CoFA first proposed major redevelopment of its Paddington site the community were supportive but had concerns about the impact of construction on their quiet residential streets.  However the preparation of a traffic management plan, the approval of which rested with the City of Sydney, saw all construction traffic using the relatively major thoroughfare of Greens Road. This was a compromise most could agree on.

Unfortunately, in February this year CoFA submitted an amended plan that directed large numbers of trucks off Greens Rd. and onto the quiet residential streets of Albion Ave, Selwyn St, Josephson St. and Napier St. The community weren’t happy that the plan they’d negotiated in good faith had fallen by the wayside.

The new plan resulted in a long list of concerns from local residents including noise, loss of parking spaces, damage to streetscapes and the safety of pedestrians and cyclists. 

It was clear from the hundreds of emails that my Greens colleague Cr Irene Doutney and I received that the new plan wasn’t acceptable to the community.  So we called on Council to hold the extraordinary meeting of the traffic committee and have this new plan appropriately amended so that it reflected the spirit of the original negotiations.

During the meeting the passions of local residents were high but in the end CoFA representatives agreed to the amendments that will make the new plan similar to the original.

Under the amended plan trucks involved in the construction will enter & exit the site from Greens Rd via the Napier St. road closure. Trucks will only be able to use Selwyn and Josephson streets in a small number of predefined situations, with residents to be notified ahead of time when this is to occur.

The Greens have also requested that a member of council’s planning staff attend Construction Liaison Committee meetings which have been set up to resolve day to day issues that arise as the project progresses.

It is important that the City engages fully with the local community to protect the ambience & charm of some of inner Sydney’s most beautiful streets.  I think this is a case where this has successfully happened and it goes to show that, even in cases of major developments, positive outcomes can be achieved when parties get together and talk to each other.

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.