[REDWatch Central to Eveleigh] City of Sydney MOU with UrbanGrowth NSW

[Geoff Turnbull]

Dear Central to Eveleigh Stakeholders

This is just a brief email to advise you that Council's Planning and
Development Committee on Tuesday 22nd July will be considering Memorandums
of Understanding (MOUs) between the City Council and UrbanGrowth NSW. The
MOU in relation to the Parramatta Road Corridor has provoked debate in some
of the other 10 council areas that cover this UrbanGrowth Corridor. In
Ashfield after a lot of agitating from the community changes to the MOU were
negotiated before a majority of Ashfield Councillors finally agreed to sign.
Leichardt Council has so far refused to sign the MOU.

Major concerns voiced have related to the extent of actual power Council's
actually have in making the final decisions. UrbanGrowth bring Councillors,
Mayor and employees into the process but UrbanGrowth end up making the final
decisions. If councils don't sign up they do not get an input into the
process. While the current MOU is an improvement on the one rejected
initially by Ashfield the question that remains is will this MOU provide a
better outcome for the City than has been achieved previously with other
Government bodies such as Barangaroo. What this MOU will do differently that
will deliver a different outcome to the problems associated with earlier
MOUs is not addressed in the Council Officers Report.

Below are the links to the Council Officer's report and to the texts of the
draft MOU's. 


Item 4 


Urban Growth NSW Major Urban Renewal Projects - NSW Government Memorandum of
Understanding
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/208043/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04.pdf> 

PDF 95.7 KB 

Download
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/208043/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04.pdf> 


Attachment A
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/208095/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04_ATTACHMENTA.PDF> 

PDF 1.3 MB 

Download
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/208095/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04_ATTACHMENTA.PDF> 


Attachment B
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/208096/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04_ATTACHMENTB.PDF> 

PDF 1.1 MB 

Download
<http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/208096/14072
2_PDC_ITEM04_ATTACHMENTB.PDF> 

Attachment A is a broad MOU covering Council's dealings with UrbanGrowth
across the entire Local Government Areas (LGAs) including currently declared
sites such as Central to Eveleigh, Green Square, the Bays Precinct and the
Parramatta Road Corridor.

Attachment B is a specific MOU covering the Parramatta Road Corridor which
covers 10 council areas. The City of Sydney is the only council in the
Eastern Precinct and some differences with earlier versions of the MOU
probably reflect this difference.

The officers report expects other Site Specific MOUs to follow.

We are alerting you to these MOUs going to Council so that you have the
opportunity of taking up any concerns you may have with Councillors. We
apologise for the short notice but the MOU's have not been put out for
community input by Council and we were only alerted to them today.

Following years of dealing with the Redfern Waterloo area being managed by
the RWA, SMDA and now UrbanGrowth without reference to City of Sydney
Council, REDWatch is keen to ensure that UrbanGrowth NSW works closely with
the City of Sydney in the future in reality and not just in theory. We need
to ensure that UrbanGrowth areas are dealt with in a wider Council context
and that the Council's skill and experience is also bought into the final
decisions and that proposals come out of a collaborative approach, which
includes local residents, Council and UrbanGrowth NSW. 

REDWatch is also concerned to ensure that dealings between Council and
UrbanGrowth are as transparent as possible so that the community is aware of
what is happening and is able to discuss issues and raise concerns as they
arise with both bodies without the MOU being used to limit that engagement.

The questions to ask when reading the documents is will the MOUs facilitate
these outcomes or provide more barriers to these outcomes being achieved.

If you have comments to make please contact your Councillors ASAP and
consider attending the Committee meeting at 4pm on Tuesday to voice your
concerns before the Council Committee.

Regards,

 

Geoff

Geoffrey Turnbull

Spokesperson

REDWatch

Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490  Mob: 0418 457 392

email: mail at redwatch.org.au 

web: www.redwatch.org.au 

 

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