Clover bulldozes habitat hopes

“It’s a scandal!” Forest Lodge residents cried at the Lord Mayor, who had won the battle to pave Orphan School Creek on Monday night.

Just moments before, their long-awaited hopes for a wildlife habitat at Orphan School Creek in Forest Lodge were destroyed as Clover Moore cast the deciding vote to run a large concrete pathway through the once lush area.

“What you have given the children of Sydney is concrete paths, not habitats,” yelled resident Susan Stringfellow of Moore’s plans to enlarge the playground and give children more access to the inner city bushland.

Just hours before, protestors staged a sit-in at the building site, refusing to let plans go ahead for the path, which said say would become Glebe’s new skate ramp. But as the crushed residents regrouped outside the Council chambers, they did not have another plan of attack.

“We need to consider our options,” said Forest Lodge activist Peter Robinson.

Rumours even drifted that the City deployed security guards to stop locals entering the site.

Residents said they were unaware that the City changed its plans for the Orphan School Creek site, promised as a wildlife habitat for over a decade, but which now includes a broad ‘switchback’ path dividing the site, and a larger playground

Protestors waved large signs inside the meeting reading ‘Put the forest back into Forest Lodge’ and ‘Clover’s environmental legacy: a giant concrete block.’

Five residents spoke their case to the Lord Mayor, saying the City never sought proper consultation to change the plans for the site.

At a meeting with residents on Friday, Sydney City CEO, Monica Barone, admitted the proposed switchback path was never pictorially shown to residents.

The City said that, in compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act, the path was required so that people of all abilities, and parents with prams could access to the area.

But wheelchair-bound resident Anne-Marie Howard said the incline and the length of the path combined would make it impossible for her to use.

“I can’t use this path. It’s not going to help me at all,” she said.

Moore defended the plan, saying that a decision was made for the interest of the “greater good,” to which residents, unanimous in their cause, replied “whose interest?”

Last Friday over 100 people gathered outside the gates of the Wood Street location last Friday to demand that work on the site be ceased and the proposed three-metre-wide concrete path be redesigned to resemble something closer to what the residents originally envisioned.

“This [path] will totally degrade the habitat value of the land. As soon as you start dividing the area up it will be destroyed,” said Sydney City Greens Councillor Chris Harris.

“We want to re-establish this unique habitat in the densely occupied inner city…and we can‘t do that with a path through it” said activist Andrea Robertson.

But not who all gathered at the protest were in favour of these community initiatives. One vocal resident interrupted the proceedings to say she would prefer “a bigger park than a couple more possums.”

Moore said the changes to the plans were not “massive” and that she had received a number of emails from parents in favour of a bigger playground. She said the City would plant 90 large trees and 600 lower to mid-level plants.

But resident Michela Noonan said that was very different from the original plans. “Grass augmented by low and mid level plants does not a forest make,” she said.

“Please don’t promise us a forest then change it without letting us have a formal and rightful imput.”

Residents of the City Quarter complex on Booth Street Camperdown, who directly overlook the site, are also frustrated by Council’s concept for a ‘green space.’

“Council has sold us out. We want the native habitat we were promised when we moved here,” says Ms Robertson.

“The solution is really simple,” said Councillor Harris. “Just remove the pathway and leave the area to the native animals and birds.”

Some protestors said that reoccupying the site was an option.

“Just a table, a few chairs, and an umbrella will stop that concrete being poured,” said Councillor Harris.