Cool reception for amended Barangaroo plans

Lend Lease’s revised plan for Barangaroo South has drawn criticism from Councillors and the community.

The plans released last Thursday reduce the number of commercial towers from four to three, as well as the reach and height of the controversial hotel on the harbour.

“The Lend Lease plans released yesterday are just a laugh in the face of community consultation,” Liberal Councillor Shayne Mallard said.

“The developer shouldn’t be playing the tune here – it should be the community, it should be Council and it should be the people.

“They’ve reduced it slightly, nowhere near enough, they haven’t responded properly and there’ll be another reiteration where they say they’re still listening. This has been a whole PR spin which is very undemocratic.”

Co-Founder of ‘Friends of Barangaroo’ and Independent Councillor, John McInerney said there was “still a long way to go.”

“This is just a typical Lend Lease scenario – put in a ridiculous proposal and allow the plan to get beaten back,” he said.

“We will continue to press for the removal of the hotel from the water as well as a reduction in the bulk and scale of this overdevelopment.”

His colleague Marcelle Hoff said she didn’t believe the changes in the Lend Lease plan had come about from listening to the community.

“It was an ambit claim, and the scaling back is part of the negotiation that will come about as a result of that,” she said.

“And the scaling back at this stage isn’t sufficient.”

“It seems like the classic tactic: Propose something that is ‘totally outrageous’ so that the public will settle for something that is just plain ‘outrageous’,” Greens Councillor Chris Harris said.

“They aren’t actually reducing the amount of commercial floor space at all, just spreading it more widely across the site.”

Cr Harris also continued to criticise the planned hotel, to be built on land reclaimed from the harbour, which has been scaled back in the new plan.

“The notion of reducing the size of the pier and the height of the hotel doesn’t address the issue,” he said.

“Whether its 159 metres or 219 metres really misses the point. They need to get that thing off the water and get it back on shore, and respect the public space along the water.”

President of the Barangaroo Action Group, Dr Ian Campbell agreed that Lend Lease was merely scaling back to its preferred plan and hadn’t listened.

“There’s so many cases in NSW where Lend Lease and the Government together have done exactly this sort of thing, and the pattern’s the same,” he said.

“In a nutshell, a bad design with a little bit of tinkering is still a bad design.”

Dr Campbell criticised what he called a “corrupt process”.

“The whole idea of having a worldwide public contest, independent judges, pick the winner and then there’s been a four year process behind closed doors to [then] overturn it and give it back to one of the defeated contestants, which is Lend Lease.”

A spokesman for Lend Lease refuted the claims, saying the group had listened to the people through community forums and engagement with a range of interest groups that included Friends of Barangaroo and the Barangaroo Action Group.

“We were selected as developer of Barangaroo South on the basis of a competitive tender process, which required each bidder putting forward a concept design for the development,” he said.

“The competitive bidding process was managed under strict confidentiality … [and this] prevented us from consulting with outside parties and the community until the bidding process was completed. Since our appointment, we have been actively involved in consultation with community and interested stakeholders and their feedback is reflected in our revised designs.

“We will continue to engage with all stakeholders through the many future stages of our design and delivery work, at increasingly detailed levels.”

A rally to oppose the plans will be held from 11am this Saturday at 47 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay.

“What I’m asking people to do … everyone in the city or anywhere who supports this battle to get a decent outcome on Barangaroo, would perhaps hang from their balcony a royal blue or red towel, pillowslip, tablecloth, sheet – anything, to indicate that they support the cause,” Cr Hoff said.

“I’m calling it a small act of civil disobedience, but also a display of solidarity.”