Metro D-Day

Business owners and residents had strong messages for new Premier Kristina Keneally as letters began arriving outlining the next stage in Sydney Metro’s property acquisition process.

Letters were received in Pyrmont and Rozelle advising that Proposed Acquisition Notices (PANs) would be issued from mid January and properties would be acquired by compulsory means if necessary, even though the Metro project is still to be approved.

In Pyrmont, “Save Union Square” spokesperson Jean Stuart said the new Premier had a responsibility to listen to the community.

“The Pyrmont community do not want to see the heart of their village destroyed for a Metro entrance,” she said.

“We are asking her [Ms Keneally] to listen to the Pyrmont Labor branch, to the members of the Pyrmont community, to all the Pyrmont community groups… and to find an alternative site for the Metro.”

The “Save Union Square” group had identified a viable alternative only 25m from the square which could also potentially be more commercially viable for the Government, she said.

“We cannot understand why Sydney Metro has been so resistant and not produced documentation or costings to say that that is not a viable site,” she said.

“We are not going to go away, we are determined. We will fight until the bulldozers roll onto the square… and we will be there lying down in front of them.”

Australian Opal Cutters is located in the building at 301 Pitt Street, Sydney, which is set to be acquired for the Town Hall Metro station.

CEO Jason Blaiklock said Ms Keneally needed to review the Sydney Metro acquisition process.

“Let’s see transparency, relationships … between the valuers and the Sydney Metro, and actual documents that outline a step-by-process, with our rights in writing,” he said.

“When you’re moving 40-50 businesses, surely you could give them a document … that says this is who you talk to for different language problems, this is where you go for legal aid, this is what these terms mean, these are the timelines.

“I’m shocked that a body as big as Sydney Metro that is so intertwined with billions of dollars worth of negotiation has … settled on this very underhanded, clandestine model of negotiation which keeps everyone in the dark and allows people … six months into the process to still not understand what’s going on.

“So I’d be saying, Ms Keneally you will do better if you brought transparency to this process … it will be a better negotiation strategy to be clear about what the processes are and give very exact timelines and definitions so people know where they stand.”

In the Pittsway Arcade food court next door, Sutatip Numkeatsakul from Malacca Straits Thai said she wanted Ms Keneally to know she only wants to be treated fairly.

“If we have to leave this area, make sure we can survive, with our families. Please make it fair … hopefully she can do something for us,” she said.

“They [Sydney Metro] don’t care how much we’re going to get back… We don’t know much about the law, so they try to give as little as they can.”

Cheng Kuon Phang from Sayong Curry and Laksa said “Everyone in the food court is upset. We can’t do anything, we have no power.”

“I still want to keep my business… if they really want to go ahead with the project, I hope they give good money for where we are going,” he said.

David Hunt from Retravision in Rozelle, which will be forced to move to make way for the Metro station there, said the State Government should build transport where it was really needed.

“Out past Parramatta, that’s where the rail, whether it be light rail, or heavy rail … is badly needed, and I feel that Labor has let people down,” he said.

“Give it to the people who need it the most, isn’t there any justice?

“On the 14th of January we will be gazetted and they’ll try to extinguish, well they will extinguish us under the Railway Act, the Requisitions Act and it hasn’t even got the certificate actually from the Department of Planning yet.”

A press release from Sydney Metro dated 9 December confirmed that correspondence about the next phase in the acquisition process had been forwarded to property owners and tenants.

Confusing Clover

Australian Opal Cutters CEO Jason Blaiklock is scratching his head over why Lord Mayor Clover Moore sent him correspondence regarding effects of the Metro construction on the Chifley Arcade.

In October Mr Blaiklock brought the plight of his neighbours, tenants in the to-be-acquired Pittsway Arcade to the Lord Mayor’s attention and asked her for reassurances on their behalf.

Ms Moore responded on December 1 to say she had received a reply from the Minister for Transport in response to her representations “on behalf of business owners in the Chifley Arcade about Sydney Metro impacts.”

She attached a letter from the Minister outlining several strategies that will be undertaken to minimise disturbances in that arcade while the Martin Place Metro station is being constructed.

Copies of both Ms Moore’s and Mr Campbell’s letters were also distributed to the business owners in the Pittsway arcade, due to be acquired for the Town Hall station.

By Gareth Narunsky