THE END OF THE LINE
Just hours after submissions to the proposed multi-billion dollar Sydney Metro rail line were supposed to close on Monday night, the local Balmain/Rozelle-Lilyfield branches of the ALP met at the Balmain Leagues Club. Attending the local branch meeting were Transport Minister Campbell’s Chief of Staff and the Place Manager for Sydney Metro. Just one week earlier Four Corners covered a contentious Balmain Leagues Club general meeting at which debate about a proposed Sydney Metro station at the club was banned. As one concerned Party member wrote, in forwarding the meeting notice to the City Hub, “This meeting is not open to local residents; it’s just for local ALP members… good one!!!”
James Packer would be envious: while betting halls are losing mega bucks from Lost Wages to Mac-how (see this week’s Four Corners), in Rozelle, the Balmain Leagues Club has just announced it is coming to the aid of several failing community clubs in the inner west “to bring value to the Tiger brand”. The local club aggressively supported the ALP during recent Leichhardt Council elections and was in financial strife last year. Now their fortunes have turned.
Driving the value of the Tiger assets is a newly proposed train station at the intersection of the Balmain peninsula’s major arterial roads. At the cross roads of Darling Street and Victoria Road, the State government proposes to bulldoze a row of small businesses in purpose built 19th century commercial terraces to make way for an empty lot at the end of the line. Right next door to Sydney Metro’s proposed last stop sits the ever expanding Balmain Leagues Club with its soon to be developed shopping mall arcade replacing a row of local shops.
Who would have guessed they were mining for gold? The state government projects it will cost at least $5.3 billion to burrow from Town Hall to Rozelle right past the Star City Casino with a final stop in the Balmain League Club’s back pocket. How much the dislocation of more than a dozen small local businesses (employing more than 100 people) will cost the local community is anyone’s guess, since Sydney Metro’s three volume EA set (valued at $700 – as noted in the last edition of the City Hub) does not provide an economic impact assessment. According to Leichhardt Mayor Jamie Parker, “no one wants an empty lot at a busy intersection, it will promote anti social behaviour and would be a great loss to the local community. It’s mad.”
Why they need to knock down a row of small businesses to construct a train station entrance is anyone’s guess. In New York, London, Paris and Tokyo metro stations are discreet transport portholes. I should know. Throughout October the owner of one of the chosen Rozelle businesses has emailed me postcard images of train stations from the world’s leading global cities. Consoling herself with a round the world ticket, she has documented train stations from Village to Square. World’s best practice is not to bulldoze buildings to erect a train station entrance: you place a staircase down into the sidewalk and you put up a sign. Full stop.
But talk about a back yard blitz. At the other end of the line, the City’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore has welcomed the opportunity to demolish a number of buildings and dislocate local small businesses to make way for a new train station at Town Hall. For years, successive City Councils have invested millions purchasing the buildings across the road from Town Hall (including the heritage Woolworths building and the art deco Commonwealth Bank Building) with the ultimate aim of blowing them up. Incorporated into the City’s 2030 strategy, the concept seemed pie in the sky, until the State Government announced it needed to bring down an entire city block to make way for a hole in the ground. Faced with the opportunity of realising the City’s long term dream of achieving open space at all costs, the Lord Mayor and Local Member for Sydney embraced the state government’s plans to spend billions on Metro in addition to light rail. While no one knows the economic cost in local jobs and foregone rent to the City, the loss of an entire block of valuable commercial real estate in the heart of the CBD will undoubtedly jack up city rents. Never mind the green house emissions that will be generated replacing the lost building stock. Meanwhile just two blocks away, possums play on Hyde Park’s hectares and the homeless camp in the plaza between Town Hall and St Andrew’s. Sydney Metro’s environmental assessment does not detail why the City needs another empty square across the road from Town Hall.
Midway between Town Hall and Rozelle, Union Square sits at the heart of the proposed new Metro line. In Pyrmont, community resistance has brought about a union Green Ban in response to the government’s plans to dislocate local small businesses to make way for a station. To date the government has received thousands of letters demanding that Sydney Metro find a more suitable site, either incorporating the proposed train station into the new Star City casino development across the road or placing it 25 metres up Harris Street in an empty car park just opposite the Casino. An online survey commissioned by a coalition of local community groups and conducted by a professional marketing company found overwhelming opposition to Sydney Metro’s plans for a train station at Union Square. 92.9% of all respondents stated Sydney Metro should consider other viable locations for the Metro entrance. Constructing a train station at Union Square would disrupt local residents and the area’s many media workers for four to five years and would put a spanner in the works of the City’s proposed new multi million-dollar bike route across Union Street.
It’s not too late to have your say. In response to community demand, the Deputy Director General of the Department of Planning has extended the deadline for objections to Monday 25 October. Submissions of concern should be sent to: diane.fajmon@planning.nsw.gov.au
