Residents rally to reclaim Rushcutters

Local residents are petitioning to save Rushcutters Bay Park from over-development by Sydney City Council.

Construction is underway to double the amount of paths in the park, widen main paths for council truck use and replace asphalt paths with concrete ones.

The council website calls it: “an upgrade that will increase useable green space and improve safety, while maintaining the heritage and amenity of the park.”

Developments include a kiosk, three amenity buildings, alterations to the historic Grandstand, seawall steps, synthetic grass tennis courts and water-harvesting infrastructure.

Resident Dixie Coulton has been canvassing for signatures to prevent what she terms “the excessive use of concrete” from destroying picnic areas.

“I went at 7:30 in the morning, people were coming out in droves – we got 60 signatures just like that,” she said.

Council signs along the construction perimeter read: “We’re greening Sydney and building a sustainable future,” however graffiti has largely replaced the word “greening” with “concreting”.

Resident Robbie Hall attended several of the plan meetings, including an initial one chaired by Clover Moore and the council landscape division.

“The discussion was essentially around the road access and better lighting. There were some drawings shown, and from my memory we said “no, we don’t particularly like that – we just like a simple park, and that represents lawn and trees,” she said.

At a 2006 focus group for the proposed upgrade, three responses supported the new paths, while seven stated the paths would create a “concrete jungle” reducing the amount of grass and places to sit. A further two respondents opposed all but one of the paths.

A public intercept survey in 2000 asked 330 park users what aspects they would like changed.

The highest response was “make no changes”, at 13 percent, followed by “new lighting” at nine percent.

The only responses relating to paths, supported upgrades to existing paths: six percent, and creating a path around the oval: two percent.

The survey report concluded: “respondents are generally happy with their Park and are by no means expecting to see major changes to the Park, apart from those that will achieve improvements to the Park environment.”

“They’ll have these talk-fests, but then they don’t listen to what the residents say, because they’ve already planned it anyway,” said Ms Hall.

Council says the project is “within budget” at $8.6 million, more than double the $4 million presented for community approval in 2006, however the final cost has not yet been determined.

Construction begun in August last year and is now scheduled for completion in September, after delays of several months.

Contractors are operating under a lump-sum contract, whereby an expense breakdown is not required and time extensions incur additional charge.

They say delays were the result of council taking up to three weeks to approve developments, however Council Director of City Projects, Michael Leyland, says progress has been stalled by groundwater quality and the reneging of approval for an underground water tank.

“Final cost is not determined as yet, but some latent condition costs for termite damage rectification and ground conditions affecting the water reuse tank are anticipated,” he said.

Defective paths built by the contractor are being removed at their own expense.

Upgraded paths are now scheduled to open in April, the kiosk is scheduled for June, tennis courts in July, and the remainder in September.

Petition signatory Anthony Phelan hopes that residents will stop the construction of a path on the park’s northern end: “This is a very favoured picnic spot, but now with this big path, more concrete going straight through the middle of it: nobody’s going to sit there because people are going to be walking past.”

“Can we just keep some little vestige of what the park used to be? Some little quiet area like this that’s left, that everybody uses?”

by Lawrence Bull