[North Eveleigh] No Sept Meeting / Central / Eveleigh Follow up / LAHC / Help Needed

Tue Aug 30 13:59:37 AEST 2022

Dear REDWatch members, supporters and agencies,

No September REDWatch Meeting on Sept 1st

Council’s Central Precinct Public Meeting – September 5th 6pm

What now for North Eveleigh?

1 Read the Council Proposal

2. Ask about the Pedestrian Bridge

3. How should the Overarching Conservation Management Plan work?

4. Support the Save North Eveleigh Action Group

LAHC Consultants and follow up.

REDWatch Website under stain and needs (non-urban) renewal

Help Support REDWatch
Please note – this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue underlined word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a document or to get more information.
No September REDWatch Meeting on Sept 1st
REDWatch held three public events in August. These included a follow-up on LAHC’s planning for Waterloo Estate, then a REDWatch hosted public briefing by Transport for NSW (TfNSW) on the Paint Shop Precinct and then our well attended public meeting on The Paint Shop Precinct.
With Council holding its own public meeting / TfNSW briefing on the proposals to develop around Central Railway station on Monday 5 September 2022, 6pm to 7pm, the small team of volunteers who make up our Coordination Group felt having another meeting on 1st September was a bit much for both them and our supporters.
So have the first Thursday of the month off after a stellar August.
October is the REDWatch AGM so now is a good time to join REDWatch (see end of this email) and to offer your support for the coming year.
Council’s Central Precinct Public Meeting – September 5th 6pm
Council is holding a public meeting on the just exhibited Central State Significant Precinct rezoning proposal so that TfNSW can present and the community can ask questions. A letter from Clover Moore says this meeting will inform Council’s response to the proposal.
While this project is around Central Station, the issues of its use of public lands, public benefit, heritage, connectivity, height and density are similar to those for the recently exhibited Paint Shop Proposal at Eveleigh. Central will have three connecting pedestrian and cycle connections while Eveleigh gets none. Eveleigh also gets city sized buildings (although not as high as Central) in part because of the heritage areas that should not be redeveloped leaves less land to redevelop and in part because TAHE wants to maximise the income from the sale of the site.
As the meeting is both an opportunity to hear about the project from TfNSW and to inform Council, REDWatch suggests that attendees should familiarise themselves with the planning proposal, to come ready with questions and comments so you can ask them or hand them to TfNSW and Council if the meeting can’t deal with everyone’s feedback in the short time allowed.

  *   You can register for the meeting at https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/central-precinct-public-meeting
  *   You can find out about the proposal and make a submission at https://pp.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/central-ssp
  *   You can see the Lord Mayor’s letter about the meeting at: http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/corridor/220826cos/view

What now for North Eveleigh?
Firstly a big thank you to everyone who put in a submission and engaged with each other about the TfNSW proposal for Redfern North Eveleigh’s Paint Shop Precinct. It was great to see the turnout for the REDWatch public meeting and all the work that was done off people’s own bat around the proposal. The late entry of the Council models in the discussion racked up over 7,000 views on the REDWatch Facebook page<https://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/>!
Transport for NSW (TfNSW) and the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) will now work through the issues raised and respond to those issues. Hopefully TfNSW / TAHE will decide some changes are needed and DPE will not approve the exhibited proposal.
REDWatch has posted some submissions to give a flavour of what people think. On the website you can also see the REDWatch Submission on Paint Shop Precinct<http://www.redwatch.org.au/220825redw/view> which opposes the proposal and requests TfNSW / TAHE to consult further with Council and the local community before coming back with a new planning proposal.
While we are waiting to see what comes out of the planning ‘sausage machine’ there are three things to consider while you are waiting, as they are not directly connected to the rezoning.
1 Read the Council Proposal
Council has tried to deal itself into the discussion by proposing an alternative approach. The Council proposal does respond to many of the issues raised by the community but there have been concerns from locals that the height of the high-rise is still too great.
Concerns have also been expressed about the lack of an opportunity for residents to meet with Council and inform its response and alternative proposal. It should be noted that while some Councillors attended the REDWatch meeting, there has been no direct engagement between REDWatch and the local community, with Council about the Council’s alternative plan.
In fairness to Council, a four week exhibition period does not allow time for people to understand the TfNSW proposal let alone time for Council to formulate an alternative plan and consult on it.
Now is probably the time to raise any concerns you have about the Council alternatives so this can be taken up in any future discussions that might result between Council, TfNSW / TAHE and DPE about the site.
Concerned residents should look at the City of Sydney Paint Shop Precinct Submission<http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/statesignificant/northeveleigh/TfNSW/paintshoprezone/220825cos/view> to view the alternative plan and make any comments to the Lord Mayor, Councillors or to Julie Prentice, the Senior Specialist Planner handling the proposal within Council on 9265 9333 or email jprentice at cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au<mailto:jprentice at cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au> as mentioned in the Lord Mayor's letter to residents.
2. Ask about the Pedestrian Bridge
The pedestrian bridge has been excluded from the proposed master plan. To get it included is not likely to be solved by the planning proposal. We need to send a message to Rob Stokes, Minister for Infrastructure and Active Transport that the bridge needs to be delivered irrespective of the Redfern North Eveleigh rezoning. We need to ask why it was not included when three bridges have been proposed for the Central railway line section.
The NSW Government has promised a bridge back in 2006, had one in its 2008 master plan and has been raising funds for a bridge over the railway line at Eveleigh through developer contributions for the last 15 years? So why is there no bridge?
The Contribution Plan set up in 2006 to collect developers’ contributions on all Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) zoned sites included the short term delivery of the “Design and construction of a new pedestrian and cycle-bridge between North Eveleigh and ATP.” (2006: Page 15)
The wording was changed slightly when the proposed bridge was moved towards the station in the 2008 master plan to the “Design and construction of a new pedestrian and cycle link between North Eveleigh, ATP and Redfern Railway Station. The bridge will also be part funded by the Australian Technology Park.” (2011: Page13).
The latter bit about ATP part funding the project added weight to Mirvac’s view that it was getting the bridge as part of its deal to purchase the ATP. The RWA Contributions Plan is now administered by Infrastructure NSW which took over UrbanGrowth NSW and the RWA's responsibilities including collecting funds. The 2011 wording is still in the current plan on the Infrastructure NSW website<https://www.insw.com/media/2242/rwa-contributions-plan-1-may-8.pdf>.
Why is there no current commitment to the Eveleigh pedestrian and cycle bridge given it was promised in 2006 and developers were legally required to contribute towards it? And what has happened to the money collected towards it?
If you have not already done so, you can add your weight to the Build the Bridge Campaign<https://actionnetwork.org/letters/build-a-bridge/> or write to Minister Stokes<https://www.nsw.gov.au/nsw-government/ministers/minister-for-infrastructure-cities-active-transport> asking about the Eveleigh Bridge and the developer contributions that were made towards it.
3. How should the Overarching Conservation Management Plan work?
The Redfern North Eveleigh exhibition is the first time the community, and if they have been truthful with us, major land owners and occupiers have seen the Overarching Conservation Management Plan (OCMP). This plan was initially produced by UrbanGrowth NSW in conjunction with the Heritage Office. When UrbanGrowth was dissolved, responsibility for the plan passed to Infrastructure NSW which has no ongoing coordination role across the former Eveleigh Railway Workshops.
With no NSW Government body taking responsibility for the area, the Heritage Office needed to use TfNSW’s own heritage consultants to do an update of the OCMP. This was just for an update of the OCMP rather than anything to do with its implementation. Asking the consultant for an entity with a development interest in the site is hardly best practice given the potential conflict of interest.
REDWatch made a comment about the omission of a study relating to the gas works to TfNSW but was advised it was outside the area of the current planning proposal. There is, in REDWatch’s view, a need to come up with a body to have carriage of the updating of the OCMP and its implementation that does not have a landowner / lessee relationship to the sites being exhibited that are covered by the OCMP. Such a coordinating role would take broad oversite of the OCMP and also be able to compel the stakeholders’ involvement in site wide coordination.
The only thought REDWatch has is that this is a role that Council, as the body with an interest across the whole of the site, might be able to take on. REDWatch is interested in thoughts and input on this, especially from people with experience in heritage.
4. Support the Save North Eveleigh Action Group
The Save North Eveleigh Group was formed during the exhibition period around the redevelopment area. In its recent email it says: “there will be many stages to this development and there is plenty to get involved in down the track to make this space something that will work for the community and hopefully enhance the heritage and culture of this significant site”.
The group is looking at follow-up action from the exhibition and from Council’s alternative proposal. Of the Council proposal they have said:
“Surprisingly, rather than presenting strong opposition to the height and scale of the the proposed 18-28 story high grade residential/commercial towers in the rezoning proposal, the City of Sydney proposal includes provision for two 20-24 story high large floor plate commercial buildings, extending from Redfern Station to the Fan of Tracks. The City of Sydney submission re-directs residential housing away from the rail line and into multiple 4-9 story buildings along the Wilson Street frontage. In total, the City of Sydney proposal suggests the development of approximately 112,500 sqm of additional non-residential and residential floor space across the site”… “The Save North Eveleigh Action Group will be reaching out to the City of Sydney and the councillors that voted in favour of this proposal to seek clarification as to why they believe commercial towers of this scale are an appropriate development within the Paint Shop Sub-Precinct and appropriate to be built on what is currently public land. We will report back any further information.”
You can contact Save North Eveleigh at savenortheveleigh at gmail.com<mailto:savenortheveleigh at gmail.com>, join the Save North Eveleigh Action Group Facebook Page<https://www.facebook.com/SAVENORTHEVELEIGH/?> follow the Save North Eveleigh Action Group Instagram Account<https://www.instagram.com/savenortheveleigh/?> and follow the Save North Eveleigh Action Group Twitter Account<https://twitter.com/SaveNEveleigh>.
LAHC Consultants and follow up.
With the LAHC focus for Waterloo moving to delivery it has brought on three consultants to help progress the new focus areas of Precinct Outcomes, Relocations Planning, Future State of Human Services (including Social Sustainability initiatives), Place Making and Outcomes for Aboriginal People.
The consultants that you hear reference to or happen across are:

  *   Urbis – assisting with Communication and Engagement and future state Human Services
  *   Hatch Roberts Day – assisting with the Place Making framework
  *   Murawin – assisting with the Connecting with Country framework

REDWatch Website under stain and needs (non-urban) renewal
If you have skills in website development and are prepared to volunteer some expertise to REDWatch then please contact me.
The REDWatch website was put together in 2005 on a Plone / Zope / Centos platform. Plone has moved on and we are now having problems with the operations of the site, with it going down at the most inconvenient times and adding material has become much more laborious.
Our current thinking is that we need to build a new site with similar functionality to our current site possibly using WordPress or similar. We don’t want to lose what is already there, as we keep needing to refer to this material when a new development comes up for one of the key “urban renewal sites”. So we are thinking that we take an html copy of our current site and treat it as an archive that can be referred to on our new site.
We don’t receive funding and rely on donations so we don’t have funds to employ someone to build a new site without undertaking a fundraising push. So we are hoping to draw on the expertise in our network to help us plan what needs to happen to make a new website. Then we need to find a way of delivering the new website.
Help Support REDWatch
REDWatch operates across the suburbs of Redfern Eveleigh Darlington and Waterloo (REDW) to encourage community participation in their communities and to push for developments to work for the surrounding community and not just the government or developers. If you know someone who want to join this email list they can do so online at Join REDWatch Supports Email<http://lists.redwatch.org.au/mailman/listinfo/supporter> or the North Eveleigh Email<http://lists.redwatch.org.au/mailman/listinfo/NorthEveleigh>.
You can support REDWatch further by following us on our Facebook page<https://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/> and website<http://www.redwatch.org.au/> and sharing information with your friends and neighbours.
If you want to financially support REDWatch’s this is how to make a donation<http://www.redwatch.org.au/redwatch/support>. Thank you very much to those who made a donation at and after the public meeting.
If you would like to become a member of REDWatch you can find information about the organisation and a membership form on our website under REDWatch Incorporated & Membership<http://www.redwatch.org.au/redwatch/incorporation>. There are also currently vacancies on the REDWatch Coordination group for those seeking greater involvement.

Regards,

Geoff
Geoffrey Turnbull
REDWatch Co-Spokesperson
Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490  Mob: 0418 457 392
email: spokesperson at redwatch.org.au<mailto:spokesperson at redwatch.org.au>
web: www.redwatch.org.au<http://www.redwatch.org.au/>
FB: www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/<http://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/>

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