Mayor scathing of new Tigers development proposal

The Mayor of Leichhardt, Rochelle Porteous, has responded scathingly to Rozelle Village Pty Ltd’s latest development proposal for the old Tigers Leagues Club in Rozelle.

The Mayor told the Inner West Independent that the development application is much larger than the original plan that was rejected in 2010.

The current DA is a two tower complex, with an effective height of more than 20 storeys.

It includes a 16 storey residential tower on top of a podium which is up to five storeys high.

It is five to six storey’s larger than the previous DA.

The first Preliminary Environmental Assessment submitted by Rozelle Village Pty Ltd sees a doubling of the car parking spaces from 467 in 2010, to up to 1000.

“While the applicant has purchased a small amount of additional land, the increase in the scale and impact of this development on Rozelle and Balmain is disgraceful,” Cr Porteous said.

The Greens Mayor pledged to actively campaign against the development proposal in its current form.

“The community wants a quality development which acknowledges and respects local residents and their amenity and bring positive benefit to the area.

This proposal does none of that and I expect the community will be very active and very effective in opposing it.

I intend to help them in any way that I can and I expect most Councilors will be joining me in opposing and campaigning against this development.”

The Mayor also expressed concern over the increase in commercial and retail floor space which she said threatens the local economy, especially noting potential traffic issues.

“The massive amount of retail space proposed is unacceptable and will impact very negatively on the local businesses currently operating on Darling Street and Victoria Road,” she said.

“Traffic modeling for the previous application predicted gridlock for surrounding streets on Saturday mornings if retail space reached 10,000 m2.

The current proposal is for 20,000 sqm, making gridlock look a certainty.”

According to the Rozelle Village Pty Ltd’s DA application form, Rozelle Village has an estimated capital investment value of more than $217 million and would create 1259 construction jobs as well as 635 ongoing full time operational jobs.

The development would also give a new home to the Balmain Leagues Club, 200 apartments, a new major supermarket as well as retail and commercial shop fronts.

The project’s Preliminary Environmental Assessment states that the new proposal looks to address community concerns over the previous rejected DA.

“In response to valid and valuable consideration by the local community over the planning process, the proposed development has been reinvented.

This has included expanding the site to permit a significantly different traffic management plan and building a team to guide the process to commercially achieve the best practice in sustainability and social outcomes.”

The local State Member for Balmain, Greens MP Jamie Parker was more cautious in his initial response.

The Greens MP called on the NSW Department of Planning and the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Brad Hazzard, to extend public exhibition from 30 to 60 days.

“What’s important now is that the community provides their feedback on the development,” he said.

“A development of this size and complexity needs more time for people to adequately respond.”

A Department of Planning and Infrastructure spokesperson told the Inner West Independent that “once the department has reviewed the proponent’s draft environmental assessment and deemed it to be adequate, this will be publically exhibited for a minimum of 30 days.”

“After the exhibition period, the proponent will be required to respond to the issues raised in submissions.

The department will then complete its assessment of the proposal and the project will be referred to the independent Planning Assessment Commission to determine.”

“Given its advanced stage in the assessment process, the Tigers proposal is being assessed as a transitional Part 3A proposal.”

Greens Mayor Rochelle Porteous was unhappy that despite repealing the Part 3a Planning Act early last year (Part 3a removed local councils in the approval stage of large projects), the fate of the Rozelle Village proposal was still in the hands of the Planning Assessment Commission, whom she alleged was hand-picked by the Minister.

“It is unacceptable that state government controlled panels determine major developments with direct impact on our residents,” Ms Porteous said.

By Alex Pittaway