Councillor Chris Harris

The major parties remain wedded to coal-fired electric power, pinning their last hopes on the ‘clean coal’ theory. But even if collecting, transporting and burying coal’s greenhouse emissions one day turns out to be possible and affordable, the stuff still has to be mined and transported.

On a round trip from Kooragang Coal Terminal to Mt Arthur mine, near Muswellbrook, each coal train burns at least 3,200 litres of diesel (about 1,000 litres empty on the down and 2,200 loaded on the up) and around 40 litres of engine oil, for a net load of 7,800 tonnes of coal.

There are also currently about 70 coal ships queued up waiting to get into the port, predicted to rise to 90 by April.

In contrast, the sunlight delivered to a solar thermal power plant arrives free, every day.

But what about the economic consequences of phasing out coal power generation? Read the rest of this entry »

Sydney’s transport future is the issue du jour now Chris Stapleton and the ‘10,000 friends of Sydney’ have started releasing their strategy.

I support the Stapleton vision because it’s far superior to the government’s feeble Transport Plan.

However it limits itself to current funding levels. That’s a straightjacket in some respects, for instance in settling for frequent buses to serve Sydney’s northwest instead of the planned heavy rail link to Rouse Hill.

Buses would be far less greenhouse-efficient than electric trains, especially if Sydney’s power was being generated by the Solar Thermal plant I have proposed.

The Greens Transport Vision proposes Public Transport Bonds to finance a fully fledged system for Sydney, built on solid spines of metro and heavy rail with buses mostly deployed to fill the gaps.

Yes, this means debt, but this kind of debt carries a far lower interest burden than private finance and can be repaid over several generations just like the 75-year-old Harbour Bridge was. This is not an unfair burden on our grandchildren as they will be enjoying not only the economic benefits of a world-class system but an environmental dividend as well.

Sydney developers appear to have found a new way around size and parking restrictions for new unit blocks.

First they ‘change the mix of units’ in a proposed block, losing some or all of the small, affordable units in favour of expensive three-bedroom units. Then they request a drastically increased number of parking spaces because the buyers of such units will ‘require’ two spaces each.

This in turn pushes the site beyond its allowable floorspace.

The result: Sydney ends up with more cars and less affordable housing - a double whammy to sustainability - and the developer ends up with more profit.

This was the scenario for two Development Applications (DAs) before Council last week, one in Onslow Street Elizabeth Bay, the other on the old Children’s Hospital site in Camperdown. Read the rest of this entry »

Differential pricing of parking permits according to the size of the vehicle would be a great idea for Sydney.

And the RTA is now accepting submissions about providing dedicated parking spots for car-share schemes.

Charging fuel-guzzling vehicles more forparking permitshas been working well in North Sydney and it’s yet another small thing we can do to minimise climate change.

Large cars use more street space and inflict more damage on local roads, which council has to pay for, so there is fairness in a differential rate. Council’s road maintenance spend is more than ten times the income from parking permits. Read the rest of this entry »

Residents of City North are up in arms about government plans for East Darling Harbour, AKA The Hungry Mile or ‘Barangaroo’ as it is to be called.

“Kent Street residents are angry that the Concept Plan exhibited late last year seemed to have taken a course of steroids as many of the buildings had become larger and taller than those shown in the Design Competition winning entry,” said Chris Harris.

“This means many residents would lose much of their western views and afternoon winter sun.”

Tall buildings on the southern end of the precinct particularly appear to flout the guidelines of the Central Sydney Plan which sensibly calls for a stepping down of building heights from the central ridgeline to the waterfront. Read the rest of this entry »