Frankly, these are no Sartorial masterpieces
AFTER seizing control of the $800 million development of the
Carlton United Brewery site at Broadway Planning Minister Frank Sartor
explained that he was concerned the City of Sydney would deliver “an inferior design
outcome”. For the record, during his 11-year term as Sydney lord mayor,
Sartor gave the city such celebrated architectural triumphs as the Toaster on
east Circular Quay, the Cook and Phillip Park moonscape, the Regis Towers in
Haymarket, Victoria Towers above the Catholic Club in Castlereagh Street,
various Meriton-built icons and his most enduring projects, the redesign of
William Street into a “gateway” and the Cross City Tunnel, which he
co-sponsored.
Experts close to home
MODESTLY, Sartor has appointed what he calls “an expert
advisory panel” to oversee the CUB project. The panel is chaired by former
government architect Chris Johnson, who works for Sartor’s Planning Department,
and includes Michael Collins, chairman of the Heritage Council and on the board
of Sartor’s Redfern Waterloo Authority, and Lucy Turnbull, who was deputy to
Sartor when he was lord mayor and is also on the Redfern Waterloo Authority.
The final member is Neil Bird, deputy chairman of Landcom and a member of the
Central Sydney Planning Committee. Nothing like getting outside advice.
That was then, this is now
IN July 2002 Sartor complained bitterly about the Carr
government scrapping height and density control He warned this would “end
orderly urban development in greater Sydney
and open the way for a developers’ free-for-all’. He went on: “There are
four key determinants of economic value for property: height, density,
permitted uses and heritage. Any council which starts playing around with them
in an ad hoc fashion open the door to uncertainty, development appeals, and
corruption.” Pity he doesn’t follow his own advice over the CUB site.