Residential Towers Letter To Clover Moore

Posted: 30/03/2006

29 March 2006

Councillor Clover Moore
Lord Mayor of Sydney
Sydney Town Hall

Dear Clover,

Water Police Site Master Plan

I am writing to you seeking clarification of the story that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of Tuesday, 28 March 2006, concerning the Master Plan for the old Water Police site park at Elizabeth Macarthur Bay, Pyrmont.

Along with many other local residents and members of our community group, I am very concerned about the reference in the Herald article to the residential tower that is apparently being included as part of the Master Plan.  I have been inundated over the past two days with calls and letters from concerned fellow residents, particularly those in the adjacent public housing flats in Bowman Street, about the rumoured tower.

This comes as a complete bolt from the blue because there was an almost unanimous message coming from the community at all of the community workshops, that there were to be no buildings on the site, save for perhaps a toilet/kiosk/boat-kayak storage and some community activity rooms in a small low rise and unobtrusive building.

If the story is true, one wonders why the community put so much effort into fighting SHFA’s plans for residential development of the site when it is now being reported that the Council will put its own residential development on the site.  All of the tremendous goodwill achieved by the Council’s truly inclusive and open community consultation process is in danger of evaporating.  We therefore hope that when this plan is considered by Council any proposal for a residential tower will be scotched once and for all.

I am anxious to receive some form of clarification so that I know how to respond to our membership and to others in the community who have been contacting me.  Understandably, there are a lot of very unhappy, worried and disillusioned people following the publication of the story.  Many residents of the public housing are frail, infirmed and ill and are now despairing at the possibility that they may need to see out their remaining days faced with disruption and intrusion from construction work on a high-rise tower right next to them.  In one letter that I received this development is referred to by the writer as “suicide stuff” for her.

I eagerly await you reply.

Yours sincerely,

Drew Morrow

President