The Future of Harold Park and the Heritage Tramsheds
Resolution for Consideration at a Public Meeting
Forest Lodge Public School
6 30pm 7 December 2010
This public meeting of the Annandale, Forest Lodge and Glebe community reaffirms its commitment to the Planning Principles developed and submitted to Council by the Glebe Society on 23 April 2010.
We appreciate that several key principles have been acted on in the current draft controls: the allocation of 35% of the site for consolidated public open space and the provision for land to be made available for 50 units of affordable housing. These are positive provisions in the public interest and the community will be active in ensuring that these are delivered on in the future development of the site.
However, other matters of great concern to the community have been ignored and this meeting requests Council to incorporate the following changes and additions into the final controls. We note this will, in some instances, involve further negotiations with the current owner of the site.
- DENSITY
This public meeting notes the original proposed density for Harold Park was 20% lower than currently proposed (1.25:1) As the City acknowledges, the surrounding density is much lower (0.7:1.) The density should be reduced at least to that originally proposed to respect the character of the area.
- HEIGHT AND LAYOUT
This public meeting resolves that the residential portion of the site be redesigned to respect the character of the site, the surrounding area and the topography of the Johnstons Creek Valley.
This should include the reduction of the maximum height of the buildings to 5 storeys so the whole development sits below the escarpment. We note that, with intelligent design, this is compatible with the proposed density and allocation of public open space.
The public open space should be both consolidated and laid out so that there is no potential for it to be perceived and used as private space.
Council should explore options for replacing the imposed internal street grid with a design more aligned with the topography of the site.
- COMMERCIAL/RETAIL ACTIVITIES
Include a specific control to limit the size and scale of any commercial and retail activities so that they are small scale and in harmony with current activities in Annandale and Glebe business strips and do not exacerbate the traffic problems that will come with development of the site.
- COMMUNITY SPACE WITHIN THE TRAMSHEDS
The space to be allocated to Council control and community use in the restored, heritage Tramsheds be increased from the proposed 500 m2 to 1000 m2 as a reasonable share of the total floor space of 11 000 m2 and as part compensation for the loss of 1000 m2 in the amount of land originally proposed for public open space.
- ACCESS TO LIGHT RAIL AND NORTHERN PARKLANDS
Reinstate the public path between 'The Hill' and the Tramsheds (currently closed) and incorporate access points from the site to the light rail station using the public path.
- SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Socially sustainable infrastructure requirements must be integrated as specific actions within the DCP.
These should include specific provision for housing for seniors in recognition of the unmet need in the area.
- BEST PRACTICE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Council must require the highest standard of environmentally sustainable development on this site including stormwater and waste management and alternative energy options such as trigeneration- consistent with its own policies.
- TRAFFIC IMPLICATIONS AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT
The impact of increased traffic on the adjoining streets has been underestimated. Council must incorporate a commitment to the extension of the light rail system as a prerequisite for this development.
- ADEQUATE FUNDING
Council must ensure that the provision for developer contributed funds is appropriate to the scale of the development and adequate for the creation of high quality public open space for passive and active recreational uses.
- HERITAGE AND INTERPRETATION
Council should require the developer to prepare a comprehensive interpretation plan including naming, signage, memorials, art works, plaques and photographs, landscaping and plantings and the restoration and adaptive reuse of heritage items such as the trams.
NEXT STEPS
This resolution will be forwarded to the City of Sydney Council immediately for consideration in the finalisation of the current draft planning controls for Harold Park. It will have complementary material supporting the various points. This is our last opportunity to have input before the Minister approves the final planning controls for this site. Once this is done the site will presumably be sold to a developer (or developers).
We urge you to send individual responses to the Council.
Our next opportunity to be involved will be when the new owners seek a specific development approval.
Lesley Lynch
President
The Glebe Society Inc
6 December 2010.
One comment. Please add yours.
THE HAROLD PARK URBAN DESIGN STUDY AND RELATED DEVELOPMENT
This submission primarily addresses the Harold Park Urban Design Study and related development proposals. It argues that Glebe and its neighbouring suburbs should ensure increased green space and affordable housing by:
1. Greatly reducing car parking availability and associated commercial development at the proposed Harold Park site
2. Fixing dysfunctional road and related waste management systems to assist them operate more rationally and effectively to gain the key environmental, social and economic goals of Glebe inhabitants and investors.
Students in relevant faculties of architecture, design and planning would benefit greatly from more involvement in related practical problem solving, as discussed later.
Related discussions of regional health, communications and research policy direction at Sydney University are below and attached.
The Harold Park Urban Design Study is considered not commercially viable and the answer to related problems below is found in substantially reducing cars on the site
The Executive Summary written by the NSW Government Architect’s Office for the Harold Park Urban Design Study and related development proposal recommends that parkland occupy more than one third of the site; that the residential precinct occupy 55% of the site and provide approximately 1200 new dwellings, including a proportion of adaptable and affordable apartments in buildings ranging from 3 to 8 storeys in height. The Office states new buildings will generally be kept at or below the level of the surrounding cliff top buildings with taller buildings located at the centre of the site. The proposed future on-site car parking provision is for 1204 residential dwellings with 1096 car parking spaces. Any ‘constrained on-site parking provision for new development’ requires the corresponding introduction of resident parking schemes in adjoining streets.
Pracsys provided the Economic Report for the Harold Park Urban Design Study. It suggests that the parkland and socially inclusive housing approach outlined by the NSW Government Architect’s Office Executive Summary is not economic. Pracsys states an affordable housing levy normally requires the developer payment of 4% of gross floor area as monetary contribution or built dwelling. Pracsys recommends ‘high amenity, well-connected and diverse new housing options’ for up to 30,000 new residents without any affordable housing as this appears to Pracsys to be the only viable economic position.
One assumes that if the developer has to make extra payment, this money will naturally be recouped from others who will have to pay higher market rates for their housing.
Jamie Parker, Mayor of Leichhardt Municipal Council and Chris Harris, a City of Sydney Councillor, have written a pamphlet on a planning agreement struck on 24.9.2010 between the City and the owners of Harold Park which was supported by all of Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s Party members plus Labor and Liberal Councillors. The Greens voted against the proposal. The Mayor of Leichhardt and others think the density of the proposed development is too great. They claim there is too much parking space, so more surrounding congestion. They are concerned the amount of retail and commercial space available will generate more traffic issues, particularly on weekends. They also call for strong environmental performance criteria for the development, such as requirements for water recycling on site, low carbon power generation and improved waste management.
The Executive Summary points out that a major future transport opportunity of the Harold Park site is the higher potential patronage of the Jubilee Park Light Rail station. There are also regular buses going through many parts of Glebe towards the city. My experience of living in Glebe since 1975 is that people do not need any new places to shop, with the exception of a ‘corner shop’ and takeaway. A great deal of shop ownership along Glebe Pt Road regularly turns over. Many current shops may experience problems with more competition and many people prefer to do all shopping at the Broadway shopping centre.
Because of the above problems it is recommended there be greatly reduced car parking availability and associated commercial development at the proposed Harold Park site.
Current policy and activity on dealing with waste is ineffective and inefficient
The paper ‘A National Waste Policy: Managing Waste to 2020’ (2009), produced by the Department of the Environment, Waste, Heritage and the Arts pointed out that from
2002-03 to 2006-07, municipal waste increased by 34% and if this trend continues Australia may have a municipal waste stream of up to 22.4 million tonnes in 2020 (p. 28). The aim of the National Environment Protection (Used Packaging Materials) Measure is supposedly ‘to reduce environmental degradation arising from the disposal of used packaging and conserve virgin materials through the encouragement of waste avoidance and the re-use and recycling of used packaging materials by supporting and complementary and voluntary strategies in the Covenant and by assisting the assessment of the performance of the Covenant’ (p. 6). It doesn’t work.
An approach to dealing with waste which depends on the householder to drive the avoidance, reuse and recovery of materials by driving the recycling of waste appears doomed to failure. I recently returned to Glebe from a holiday in Japan, where one hardly ever sees a speck of rubbish in urban or rural settings. Road and other signposting in English is the clearest I have ever seen. In Glebe, I often feel I have been living in a rubbish tip since 1973, although admittedly most streets appear to have got much tidier in recent years. One of numerous exceptions, however, is in front of the entrance to the 18 town-houses which comprise St James Court, 11 Rosebank Street, at the dead end where I have lived for fifteen years. The areas in front of our front wall, which are the private property of No. 9 and No. 2 Rosebank Street, and their respective kerbs, appear to have always been treated by many unknown people as their local rubbish tip and this problem has grown considerably with higher turnovers of students, backpackers and others. I have no idea who dumps all the rubbish and I do not hang around outside at night to find out.
Monday 22.11.10, for example, I awoke to find a TV, a record player, a stool, a sack of clothing, a mop and two paint-rollers, two plastic buckets, two crates of books, a child’s scooter, a door, a mattress, flat-pack cardboard for a desk, a shower of pizzas boxes and additional rubbish where birds had picked their way through an open bin, throwing rubbish left and right, to find a treat. The Sydney City Council truck always comes by the following day if I complain about rubbish littering the streets, outside St James Court or elsewhere in Glebe. However, a huge amount of rubbish comes and goes mysteriously and presumably in the night on streets in Glebe, including in the key spots outside St James Court which are of most concern to me. It can stay on the street for weeks. A large abandoned desk lay outside number No. 9 for three days until 1.12.10. Who took it?
The Glebe foreshore park is cleaned well except for its beaches. Some are often full of rubbish. The worst beach is the one where mangroves have established themselves reasonable well. The nature of the rubbish on the beach is such that I guess that people in boats come and remove it occasionally but I assume they do not look behind the mangroves so never see the related rubbish trail that most people walking through the park and their dogs see on a daily basis. I asked a man taking rubbish from the park if it seemed stupid to him to always have a clean park and dirty beaches. He said he had many parks to clean and is not paid enough to confront or manage this. His company has the current park contract for two years, and this situation has been going on much longer than that. I suggested to the man that he put forward a way of valuing his labour which includes cleaning beaches as well as parks. I am sick of picking up rubbish on beaches.
The Used Packaging Materials Measure is no substitute for much better product and service management. It demands that too many end users undertake a widening variety of recycling efforts for an increasingly packaged, variable and increasing range of products. The householder has no control over secret product or service production, processing, storage or transport procedures. The overwhelming percentage of householders remain too ignorant, poor, rich or busy to take any notice of recycling requirements which are often extremely unclear, and it may only need a few to ruin it for the rest in the system. Some of us gave up cars to save money, encourage public transport and reduce pollution, yet are treated as recyclers as if we still should own them. There are at least three different groups hired to remove rubbish in Rosebank Street, Glebe, which is still dirty.
The Sydney University Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning Graduate Exhibition and Catalogue entitled ‘Archipelago’
I went to an end of year exhibition at Sydney University and bought the catalogue ‘Archipelago’ which describes the work of students in the Master of Architecture, Bachelor of Design in Architecture and Bachelor of Design Computing. This huge event was made possible by the NSW Architects Registration Board, Bates Smart, BVN Felton homes of distinction, Group GSA, Lend Lease design, Woods Bagot, Hassell, Luigi Rosseli and the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning Alumni Council.
My view is that students had produced many beautiful drawings or models, supported by comparatively lyrical writings to address concepts they presented. However, this commentary gave the viewer little or no idea of the practicality of such drawings in regard to their capacity to serve government regulatory requirements; to address engineering and construction constraints; related materials and labour availability; or any other commercial realities necessary to make any project attractive to potential investors. Students and residents of the City of Sydney could benefit greatly if students assisted the Council in solving many practical problems which exist in our surrounding environment.
The City of Sydney Sustainable Sydney 2030 Plan includes the introduction of locally generated energy using various low-carbon energy generation technologies such as co-generation, tri-generation and renewables. In the longer term, some of the fuel for this network will supposedly be sourced from local waste. (I pray I am alive to see it.) The NSW Auditor General’s 2008 Report on Recycling and Reuse of Waste, including commercial, industrial, construction and demolition waste, by the NSW Public Sector and its contractors also requires renewed consideration in related urban and rural contexts.
The terrific Productivity Commission (PC) draft report ‘Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs)’ should be adopted and one assumes that rural and urban research directions are ideally often coordinated together. The PC notes the abolition of the Land and Water Australia RDC in 2009 and suggests a new RDC entitled Rural Research Australia (RRA) be set up which is intended to sponsor non-industry specific research and development to promote more productive and sustainable resource use by Australia’s rural sector. RRA’s remit is expected to broadly encompass land, water and energy use, with coverage of its activities determined in the light of further input. I received the PC draft report on the Vocational Education and Training Workforce on my porch this morning. Pray God these reports are sensibly related. (In academia that would be a first?)
Recommendation: Allow students to work with City of Sydney on solving problems related to large and small community proposals, such as those suggested below:
Draft Proposal 1
Link management of roads and waste together better in Glebe to gain greener, more socially inclusive and cheaper management and related research and development (R&D) outcomes, using the Harold Park Urban Development as a model project
Draft Proposal 2
Dig up kerbs and road in front of St James Court, 11 Rosebank St, Glebe for the distance up until the crossroad with St James Lane and the pocket park opposite. The aim is to discourage all traffic except for that of residents of 2, 9, 11 and their related workers in the final section of Rosebank Street, which ends in our building. Plant trees where there used to be kerb to discourage rubbish dumpers. Consolidate older, comparatively dysfunctional and expensive household waste management systems at a new point, where St James Lane meets Rosebank Street. Current parking for householders and workers at 2,11 and 9 must still be accessible. Signs currently limit parking in this stretch of road.
I would be grateful for any information about how to pursue the above proposals.
Yours truly
Carol O’Donnell, St James Court 10/11 Rosebank St., Glebe, Sydney 2037.