The Green Park Hotel needs a doctor
Image: The Green Park Hotel is suffering while waiting for refurbishments to take place. Photo: John Moyle
By JOHN MOYLE
When St Vincent’s Hospital purchased the Green Park Hotel in late 2020 the local community mourned the loss of a much loved pub and safe LGBTQ+ space, but were somewhat ameliorated by the health provider stating that they intended to establish an Urban Health Centre and Safe Haven Cafe on the site.
Two years on and there has been no movement towards these goals and the building is suffering.
Executive Director, Public Affairs, St Vincents’s Health, David Faktor said “Due to significant roof damage, which has been complicated by recent weather events, St Vincent’s is required to undertake comprehensive roof repairs before internal refurbishment can begin.”
“It’s sitting there on the corner looking like a lousy old hooker,” Duncan McNab, resident, said.
“It took them the best part of a year to lodge the DA, and then they let the place rot until the beginning of the first week of August 2022, and then they lodged the DA and the Council (City of Sydney) turned it around in nine weeks and yet it haven’t happened.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, St Vincent’s lay the blame for any delays firmly at the feet of the City of Sydney when it said “Development applications for the roof repairs and the refurbishment works were both unfortunately delayed by Council for months, and were only approved as of October 2022.
“The consent for refurbishment works in particular were delayed by Council for close to 12 months.”
The City of Sydney and documentation of the DA trail shows this is a misunderstanding of the timeline.
“The DA for the Green Park Hotel was lodged on 29 December 2021,” City of Sydney spokesperson said.
The application then went on exhibition for 21 days.
“The Green Park Hotel application faced the unique challenge of needing to retain its heritage significance, while ensuring it met modern building standards,” the spokesperson said.
“This was in addition to the building’s social importance to the LGBTIWQA+ community.”
St Vincent’s then made some amendments and lodged these in mid-April, but were advised in May that further changes were necessary to address the CoS’s original concerns.
The applicant provided further updates to the plans in July, before making the final requested changes to the application in August.
DAs approved
“In September, we prepared a report on the revised DA for the local planning panel,” the City of Sydney spokesperson said.
“The panel reviewed and approved the DA in October 2022.”
In fact, in October 2022 the City of Sydney approved two DAs for the site, one to change the use of the site to a medical centre and the other for “Alterations to roof of Green Park Hotel building including replacement of roof tiles, roof flashing, gutters, downpipes and awning roof sheeting”.
The General Heritage clause of the DA states explicitly “The fabric and features to be retained by the proposal must be properly protected during the process of demolition and construction”.
“They (St Vincent’s) bought the building in 2020 and after that they announced that they had structural issues, but you would have thought that they would have had a structural survey done,” McNab said.
The Green Park Hotel has been an integral part of the Darlinghurst area for over 100 years.
For much of the last century it was an early opener for workers at St Vincents and the nearby ice-works.
Its clientele changed in the late seventies with the influx of artists, musicians and tradies to the area, and again in the mid eighties when many hundreds of early AIDS patients spent their last days in St Vincent’s Ward 17 South or the nearby hospice.
“This was the pub that we all went to when we were visiting St Vincent’s, talking to our mates and lovers,” McNab said.
“You would go to the Green Park afterwards and have a beer and sort your way through it.
“I think this was the most perfect mental health facility at the time.”
