This is a quick note to bring you
up to date on some issues relating to Central to Eveleigh. Sorry it is rushed
but we have heard from some people that they know nothing about the ATP EOI
sale sessions.
EOI for sale of ATP
In early December we notified you
about the launch of an EOI process to sell the ATP. This was announced just days
before UrbanGrowth C2E were to hold their first broader consultation meeting
about planning for this site and other government owned land in the Central to
Eveleigh corridor.
The proposed ATP sale has received
some publicity in the SMH with Australian
Technology Park sale: call for expressions of interest and more
recently Eveleigh
Locomotive Workshop collection at Australian Technology Park to be sold. REDWatch
was also successful in requesting City of Sydney Council to undertake an
assessment of the sale and its implications, and this is to be made public
before the end of January when the EOI process closes. We will place the Lord
Mayoral minute on the REDWatch website.
We have been unable to get a
satisfactory explanation from UG of the reason for the proposed sale or an
explanation about how UG proposes to handle the sale of this important site so
its heritage will be protected and interpreted if it is sold – lots of “trust
us” but no real details that will protect a privatised ATP.
ATP is holding two drop in sessions
to answer questions about the proposed sale and we encourage anyone with a
concern to drop in and ask your questions of the experts they promise to have
on hand. It will be display board and question asking exercise so it is
important that people come along and ask your questions especially about why
this is happening before the C2E planning exercise, how access to and improved
interpretation of heritage can be preserved and why the process is being done
over the Christmas New year break when people are away!
Further details are available at
this section of the ATP website: http://www.atp.com.au/News—Resources/Latest-news/EOI-information-sessions
and as follows:
- Session 1: Thursday 22 January,
10.30am–12.30pm – Venue: Meeting Room 5C, Locomotive Workshop,
accessible through the entrance at Bay 4 - Session 2: Wednesday 28 January, 6–8pm – Venue: Meeting Room 6A, Locomotive Workshop,
accessible through the entrance at Bay 6
The NSW Greens announced on
Wednesday that they will be making an application on behalf of the people of
NSW in the EOI process that the ATP stay in government hands. As part of the
Newtown campaign The Greens have launched a survey to collect input on the
importance of the ATP – www.jennyleong.org/atp_survey
. Hopefully saving the ATP will be a bipartisan issue between the ALP and the
Greens in Newtown given the government proposal to sell this iconic site.
UrbanGrowth Community
Engagement
The UrbanGrowth Central to Eveleigh
consultation in early December raised some major concerns for REDWatch, as well
as for many others, about the community engagement experience. One community
member who does training in engagement and group processes said it was one of
the worst community engagement exercises they had seen in a long time. We were
told on the night it was a clean sheet of paper exercise, but the detail had
been workshopped by non-community stakeholders a few days earlier and presented
to the community who were asked to comment in a process that gave insufficient
time for people to go into the details. About a third of those present were
paid $100 each to attend to represent the broader community (many of them
often looked lost in some of the planning discussion because the process did
not give them the background they needed), while a large number of interested
locals were turned away because that section of the community were
over-represented. Resident groups with broader involvement were engaged into a
process that meant they could not raise their concerns nor seek information
about the processes because they were again asked to “react” to preformed
proposals presented to them on the night. Community groups and interested
members of the community were not offered payment for their attendance.
Following the session REDWatch
wrote to the UrbanGrowth’s Community Engagement Manager who had met with some
of the local agencies to discuss how community engagement should be undertaken.
The response to our letter from the C2E Project Manager did not give REDWatch
any confidence that UrbanGrowth wants to listen to community input and to take
groups like REDWatch, who are concerned about good process, with them. You can
see our letter to UG and their reply on the REDWatch website at – REDWatch Comments on
C2E Forum and UrbanGrowth Response.
Having tried hard to encourage a
best practice community engagement approach by UrbanGrowth over the last 18
months, REDWatch has no confidence after the December session that UG has the
interest or will to implement the best practice community engagement necessary
to take the community with them. REDWatch was set up to encourage broad
community consultation and while we remain prepared to work with UG if
possible, we will not support processes which are manipulative and do not
provide proper opportunities for community views to be listened to.
What was on the ‘Blank’ bit
of Paper?
UrbanGrowth has posted the
presentations that they made to the 9th December forum. You can see
the direction they are taking in C2E from the presentations they asked for
feedback on below:
·
Presentation One: Project Background and Community Engagement
·
Presentation Two: Draft Themes
·
Presentation Three : Draft Vision Statements
A guide to achieving good
outcomes in precincts
Roderick Simpson, Peter Phibbs,
Julie Walton & Mike Harris from University of Sydney have produced a good
article on planning for precincts like C2E. It makes specific reference to the
Bays Precinct because they have distilled the messages they heard from the
international speakers at UrbanGrowth’s Bays Precinct International Summit and
mapped out the key points for such a process. It provides a check list for
achieving good outcomes and you can read their excellent article at www.thefifthestate.com.au/articles/a-guide-to-precincts-the-bays-in-particular-to-achieve-good-outcomes/70572.
We note item 2 in their Overarching
Principles deals with Public Engagement and Participation and we do not think
UrbanGrowth Central to Eveleigh have heard this message. Maybe someone would
like to flesh this principle out a bit further as clearly REDWatch has not been
successful in doing this in our December letter to UrbanGrowth Central to
Eveleigh.
Please let both REDWatch and
UrbanGrowth NSW know of any concerns or feedback you have about the EOI for the
sale of ATP or the issues raised about C2E.