Draft Metro Quarter Proposal

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The second drop in information session will
be held on Saturday 2 June 2018 11am-2pm at Redfern Town Hall. You can also
come along to the next REDWatch meeting at the Factory 67 Raglan Street on 7
June at 6pm where UrbanGrowth and Sydney Metro will present and answer
questions. Sessions are also being arranged for the Russian, Chinese and
Aboriginal communities.

The exhibition consists of a
number of information boards and a feedback sheet. So that you have a chance to
look at the material and work out your questions we have provided links to the
information boards and the on line version of the feedback sheet on the UGDC
website.

There is some additional
information also available now at www.ugdc.nsw.gov.au/growth-centres/redfern-to-waterloo/metro-quarter/.
The Metro Quarter proposal is expected to be formally submitted in mid to late
July 2018.

We also learnt today that TfNSW
has lodged a Request with the Department of Planning and Environment for
Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs) for the Metro Quarter
site, this will allow the master plan to be captured in a draft concept plan and
not just a set of planning controls. You can see the details in the SEARs that
was lodged today and the Sydney Metro’s Waterloo Integrated Station
Development in the document library of the Sydney Metro website or down
load them from the links below.

I am not going to make any
analysis of the draft proposal except to say it proposes to deliver 700 units
(of which 20% will be social and affordable) and these figures are in addition
to what will be delivered on the Waterloo Estate. It does this mainly through
three towers of 29, 25 and 23 storeys. Beware that the diagram showing the
proposed building envelopes can easily be misinterpreted – the towers front
onto Botany Road but they can easily be interpreted as being on the Cope Street
side. A better representation can be found in the SEARs application.

We have long held a concern
about truth in development artist impressions. The extensive looking public
plaza we are told is really the size of 3-4 basketball courts. The impression
is looking from Cope Street towards Regent Street and the terraced steps are
designed to retain water in a one in 100 year type flood event as well as to
sit on.

Metro Quarter Comments

REDWatch with
Inner Sydney Voice and Counterpoint, issued a media release over our concerns
about the separation of the Metro Quarter master planning from the Waterloo
Estate master planning. You can see this statement on the REDWatch website
under Waterloo
Metro Quarter railroads public housing tenants . An article along these
lines also ran in the Sun Herald on 27 May and you can see it here – Metro quarter
to open without trains. The Sun Herald article came from out comments below in an email last week.

Waterloo
Metro Quarter

As it looks at the moment the
Metro Quarter Draft Master Plan engagement will run from 30 May to 20 June and
the sessions being arranged seem to be only information sessions rather than
workshops. Feedback on the proposal will be made through the UrbanGrowth
website, where the proposals will be publically available. There is concern that
this will disadvantage public tenants whose first language is not English,
older people who do not have access to computers and people who have low
literacy levels. There is a big difference between the level of engagement that
LAHC has been having with the tenants in the Waterloo Redevelopment Group and
the very top down approach of the new UrbanGrowth NSW Development Corporation
(UGDC) and Transport for NSW (TfNSW).

There is quite a lot of anger
over the Government not honouring the undertakings given to public housing
tenants by LAHC on behalf of UrbanGrowth and Transport for NSW. The decision to
fast-track the Metro Quarter means that public tenants do not get time to look
at the studies, the Visioning report and attend the study workshops and undertake
any capacity building before commenting on this part of the masterplan. In
addition UrbanGrowth and Transport for NSW have not taken into account that
there are activities already organised in the community that they are now
competing with. There is also considerable concern that issues like where
community facilities should be located can no longer be dealt with across both
sites as would have been possible if both were dealt with together.

One of the big problems in
getting participation in the Master Planning sessions has been people’s belief
that Government did not care about the people that lived here and the belief
that they would do what they wanted to do regardless of community opinion. The
decision to dishonour Government Department’s undertakings to the community has
just justified the cynicism those people had and made a fool of those who
involved themselves in a process that officials said “will be different this
time”.

What we are seeing in Waterloo
around the Metro is a rush to push the metro station plan through at any cost –
with absolutely no regard for the vulnerable community that lives the adjacent
estate and the promises that have been made to them. Yes it is politics but it
is also why cynicism is so high and getting community participation and trust
in the planning system is virtually impossible.

The above are adapted from emails sent to REDWatch Members and Supporters.