The following is a full transcript of a letter sent to Mr Robert Domm, General Manager, Sydney City Council. It is a formal document that details, point by point, the reasons our original objections to CoFA's DA and the viable alternative that could satisfy the needs of both CoFA and the local community.
21 May 2004
Mr Robert Domm
General Manager
Sydney City Council
Town Hall House, Sydney.
Att: Stuart McDonald, James Lidis, and Stanley Fitzroy-Mendis
Re: DA1431-02 by Cracknell Lonergan for 1-37 Greens Road, Paddington:
Dear Mr Domm,
1. My 18 month assessment of DA1431-02 in the light of S 79C(1) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, and my assessment of the best interests of UNSW, the City, and the State, lead me (on behalf of the Paddington-Darlinghurst Community Working Group) to recommend a “win-win-win” scenario for UNSW, the City of Sydney, and the State of NSW, as follows. I ask the Sydney City Council to: -
1A. Request the UNSW Deputy Vice Chancellor Resources, Dr Alec Cameron, to withdraw university sponsorship of DA1431-02 by Cracknell Lonergan, in order to expedite the start of integrated consultative planning for the staged future re-development of the campus and for the abutting and surrounding public domain administered by the Council; and
1B. Assess and Refuse (see précis of assessment and reasons below) DA1431-2002 by Cracknell Lonergan for 1-37 Greens Road, Paddington; and
1C. Request the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources and the Minister for Planning formally to concur in the Council’s Refusal of this Cracknell Lonergan DA 1431-02; and
1D. Initiate action to prepare and integrate: -
(i) A proposal for a possible Stage 3 of Council’s 1975-2004 RTA-approved “Precinct 15 Local Area Traffic Management (LATM) Scheme”, including carriageways, on-street parking, shared traffic zones, and pedestrian zones, along the north and east boundaries of the UNSW campus, to illustrate how the accessibility of the campus along those boundaries might be improved for all transport modes, so as to enable assessment by Council of possible enlargement, expansion or intensification of existing uses, or of new uses, on the campus; together with
(ii) A proposal for a possible Council Public Domain Plan for the Council-controlled reserves abutting and surrounding the campus, to illustrate pedestrian and shared traffic zone pavings, furniture, streetscaping, landscaping and public art, so as to open the campus to and from the Oxford Street Business Zone to the north, and to Greens Road on the east, while reducing impacts on the amenity of the Residential Heritage Conservation Zone behind the campus, to the west and south of the campus; and
(iii) A “masterplan” (as defined by the LEP) illustrating options for the staged, future, re-development of the resources of UNSW on the Paddington campus, to be evolved by UNSW, to maximise the potential future accessibility of the campus from the north and east by all feasible transport modes, and to minimise impacts of proposals (including impacts during construction) on the Residential Heritage Conservation Zone behind the campus to the west and the south.
Précis of my assessment over 18 months to date:
2. For 18 months since DA1431-02 was first lodged, I have studied carefully all that has been drawn, written, and said about it, by the Architect-Applicant, by the proponents, by Council Environmental Assessment Officers, and by others. I have also sought independent professional and technical advice on:
(a) accessibility for older non-students, and for the mobility-impaired;
(b) the practical, physical and economic, aspects of managing a large public-facility-complex, of attracting visitors to support it, and of managing the traffic and other impacts generated;
(c) environmental, traffic and transport planning analyses, traffic and parking management, and public domain planning; and
(d) environmental law. I listened to hundreds of people contributing to public discussion, by email, in letters, at many local public meetings, and via our Community Working Group’s Website: - www.urbanvillage.org
3. With Council Environmental Assessment Officers, and with the Paddington-Darlinghurst community, I have waited patiently over 18 months for the Architect-Applicant and/or his proponents, to inform us how the proposal could function in the best interests of the University, as a workable, new public-traffic-generating complex integrated with: -
(a) Existing and/or proposed new traffic and transport mode management schemes and/or infrastructure;
(b) The abutting and surrounding public domain controlled by Council;
(c) The Oxford St frontage Business Zone on the north; and
(d) The Residential Heritage Conservation Zone on the rear of the campus to the west and south.
The Architect-Applicant has consistently, continuously, adamantly, declined to engage in any discussion of any issues. The local proponents demonstrated a long-maintained unwillingness, and recently an inability, to address any issues relevant to S 79C(1) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.
4. During May 2004, I re-assessed DA1431-02 in the light of all of the above. I summarise my re-assessment and recommendations below.
5. DA1431-02 envisages a major new public-visitor-attracting, multi-function-centre, a cultural icon, hailed by the two proponents to be: - “for significant national and international shows which wouldn’t fit into the Art Gallery of New South Wales or the Museum of Contemporary Art context, but are too complex wfor any smaller commercial or regional gallery to take on” (UNSW Developments Issue 15). The DA focuses around a dramatic external Entrance Reception Area Feature (a tilted glass & metal light-box) that would attract visitors and tourists to the Entrance Reception Area on a cul-de-sac.
6. DA1431-02 is either for a new use on the campus, or for an expansion, enlargement, and intensification of some existing public-visitor uses on campus. The existing Ivan Dougherty Gallery (IDG) has two rooms of Net Lettable Area (NLA) in public assembly/exhibition space, about 133 square metres. The current Curator of the existing IDG says that the IDG has as many as 11,000 visitors a year.
7. The DA1431-proposed new Museum building, alone, would have a Gross Floor Area (GFA) of 1,500 square metres, with a Net Lettable Area (NLA) of approx 62%, or 936 sq m, including 5 separable Galleries (447sq m + spaces between them), Seminar & Common Rooms (93+186= 279sq m), an Entrance Reception Gallery with a weather-protected outdoor Entrance Reception Area (90+120=210sq m) under the tilted glass and metal light-box. In addition to that 936 sq m NLA, there would be an indoor/outdoor Cafe (90sqm) and a new Courtyard Performance Space (550sq m). The renovated, existing, Indoor Performance Space (seats 200) and Exhibition Gallery (EG01-04) would add approx 350 sq m NLA in Public Assembly uses. The total Net Lettable Area for public assembly/exhibition/reception uses, including renovated existing, and proposed new, NLA, would be in the order of 1,900 sq m NLA.
8. Most people would welcome such iconic new complexes if properly located and served by essential infrastructure so as to be easily accessible equally by all visitors and tourists from anywhere and everywhere, and if properly accessible by secure, logistically feasible and controllable, service and delivery systems, with service corridors direct from loading docks to lifts in each major building.
9. The DA1431-02 proposal would be the third largest such cultural complex in NSW, after the AGNSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art at Sydney Cove. The MCA Galleries have a Net Lettable Area of 2,389 square metres (certified March 2000 by the City of Sydney Special Projects Unit). The MCA has had more than 300,000 visitors a year, presumably growing each year. DA1431-02 thus proposes, by a significant multiple, an enlargement, expansion, and intensification of existing public-visitor-type use on campus. Alternatively, it is, in legal terms, for a new use on the campus.
10. The only visitor access to the Entrance Reception Area of the public-traffic-generator which is easy, equal for all ages and abilities, quick, direct, on and at street-level, secure, and weather-protected, is on a back street cul-de-sac. This is the only practical, attractive, access for public visitors, tourists, non-students, mobility-impaired people, and service and delivery vehicles. It is off a back-street cul-de-sac hidden away at the end of a local one-way loop residential narrow street, lane, and walkway system at the core of a residential heritage conservation area. Visitors, tourists, and their carers, would favour the least-effort way to get to the Entrance Reception Area. They would try to come, and leave, by car or people mover, in a tiny and already stressed cul-de-sac in a “no-cars” walkway residential enclave. The Sydney City Council created this enclave during the 1970s. UNSW only came into the area in 1990.
The only way for vehicles to get to the big new Museum complex on the cul-de-sac would be along a long, one-way loop, past the doors and windows of a precinct-full of terrace houses, into the core of the cloistered enclave.
11. The Architect-Applicant points to token palliatives: - A confusing alternative series of uphill climbs from the north, along zigzag, circuitous, ramps, stairs, and weather-vulnerable “cracks” or spaces between buildings, with a hard-to-find, small, only part-rise, lift as a token for the “disabled” as well as for cafe deliveries. From the Oxford St footpath, these obstacle courses would be 130 to 160 metres horizontally, rising over 11 m (approx 4 storeys) above it. From the campus northern boundary, they would be 90 to 110 m horizontally, rising 8 m (approx 3 storeys) to the feature Entrance Reception Area on the rear of campus. The existing staff car park has only 67 spaces (not 90 as claimed), is distant from the proposed Reception Area, inaccessible except by a series of stairs, cannot feasibly be controlled electronically for public use, and will be needed for evening and weekend staff, VIP guests, and lessees of car spaces.
The Architect has offered another token: he has changed the tilt to the Entrance Reception Area feature. But it remains on the cul-de-sac.
12. These tokens would not mitigate or remedy any environmental, social, or economic impacts on the users, the UNSW, the local community, the City, or the State. Visitor, and service and delivery vehicles, tourist buses etc, would frequently clog the cul-de-sac and one-way loop, and frustrate would-be users of the complex, as well as hundreds of neighbours.
Summary Conclusions and Recommendations
13. DA 1431-02 would attract significant vehicular traffic volumes along long distances in narrow rear residential one-way streets. This would injure the amenity of hundreds of residents. It would induce unnecessary fuel-use and pollution, which would reduce the sustainability of the City. The tilted glass and metal box feature facing houses would be inappropriate. The DA merits Refusal under each sub-section of S 79C(1) of the EP&A Act. The Court has consistently upheld Council Refusals for these reasons on facing and nearby sites.
14. We want a “win-win-win” result for UNSW, for the City, and for the State. If there are to be any high-visitor-traffic-generating, income-producing, uses on the Paddington campus (such as any Art Museum, Reception or Conference Centre) then the only feasible location for such would be on the north east corner facing Oxford Street and Greens Road, and opened up to be fully accessible from both Oxford Street and Greens Road by all modes of transport. The rear along Selwyn Street should be used for an educational classroom block, not visitor/tourist attractions.
15. The first steps in the “win-win-win” scenario are recommended in Para 1, Recommendations 1A to 1D (i) to (iii) of this letter, on Pages 1 & 2 herein.
Yours sincerely
Will Mrongovius
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