Henderson St Development Turrella
A Development Application to build 20 industrial units on a contaminated site directly fronting onto Wolli Creek opposite Turrella Reserve was given a conditional deferred consent by Rockdale City Council in December 2008. WCPS campaigned strongly against the proposal; to see the Society's submissions on the original development proposal click here. For our response to the revised proposal produced by the developer click here. Council also received over 300 letters of objection supporting the Society’s stance, including the owners of several nearby industrial units.
Despite the intrusion of buildings and access road construction well into Council’s own 30m foreshore building-free zone, the development is currently set to go ahead. The developer had until June 2009 to meet three pre-conditions:
- satisfy Council engineers on revised arrangements for on-site stormwater control;
- arrange a right-of-way access across the adjacent Allkotes site to Henderson St;
- submit a risk assessment plan in relation to the ethane pipeline which runs across the site.
If these were met, the developer would then have three years in which to commence development.
In the second half of 2009 the developer withdrew the DA; and in December submitted a new one with changes to layout to deal with the pipeline issue and a request to have the deferred commencement extended to five years. It altered little or nothing of the issues that were of concern in our earlier objections. The Society sent in a further letter in January 2010, repeating its objections and noting a couple of further ones; see it by clicking here.
In its 2009 approval Council issued a 27-page set of conditions (the last was number 192!) to be met by the construction and no doubt many of these will be repeated for the new application, but whether all of them can be adequately policed is doubtful. The Society seeks to use members and others in the community to monitor the ones critical to our concerns. If you would like to be a part of this process, please let us know at info@wollicreek.org.au and we’ll be in touch.
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Waterworth Park
In 2005, The Touch Football Asociation sought Council agreement to an increase in the number of pitches on Waterworth Park, wanting to go up from four to ten pitches. Waterworth Park is outside the revised boundaries of the Wolli Creek Regional Park, close to the junction of Wolli Creek and Cooks River.
Late in 2005, Canterbury Mayor Furolo issued a press release indicating expansion of playing field areas and new picnic facilities along Wolli Creek. The Society was not consulted on the proposal, but was able to bring it up with him when he received a delegation to present our plans for a distance walk through the Canterbury local government area from Bexley North to Campsie. He assured us that consultation would be arranged.
Subsequently the Society gained more information about the proposal, which would cost at least $150,000 to level the park, eliminate many mature trees and to remove, or significantly impact upon, the other vegetation, which is important native bird habitat. The Society developed a preliminary position paper and a set of counter-proposals which included a modest expansion of the vegetated area and extensive bush restoration work to reduce weeds and improve native habitat. Read the position paper and letter. This would enable the bush ‘feel’ of the Wolli Track component of the Two Valley Trail to be continued almost to the junction with the Cooks River.
Since then we have been urging the Mayor to commit to the development of a Plan of Management specific to Waterworth Park to ensure that its natural values are enhanced and the competing proposals for its use can be properly addressed. This is being considered in the preparation of Council’s budget for 2009/10.
To get involved with this issue, email us at info@wollicreek.org.au and we’ll be in touch.
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Regional Park
In the 1980s, as part of its community campaign to prevent the M5E effectively destroying Wolli’s bushland, the Society promoted the idea of forming the bushland into the Wolli Creek Regional Park under the management of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Clover Moore, before her mayoralty in Sydney, was persuaded to introduce into the NSW Parliament a private member’s Bill to achieve this. At the time, the Bill lapsed because Parliament was dissolved.
The Society kept up the campaign, however, and formation of the park finally became an undertaking by the NSW Government in 1999 at the time of announcing that the M5E would be going underground. An early acquisition (2003) by NPWS for the park were the 8.9 ha of Girrahween Park, below the Earlwood shopping centre.
Despite WCPS pressures, it was not until 2004 that the then Minister of the Environment signed off on a Plan of Management and Masterplan for the regional park, essentially the same as the draft prepared four years earlier, and just in time for a public meeting called by the Society. But there was not much evidence of action in the ensuing two years until another public meeting was called by the Society: “Where’s Our Regional Park?” we asked. All public owners seemed to indicate that there were no barriers to the transfer of lands to the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Since then, there has been progress, but it has been slow, in part because of the complexities of land ownership (over 100 different lots, some of them in private hands are within the park boundaries), and the problems of resolving problems with them. Some required subdivision before transfer, one has sensitive Sydney Water infrastructure across it, and one has minor contamination. And, of course, it was quite a while before additional resources were provided to NPWS to enable them to undertake the extensive work involved in surveying, mapping, and dealing with the various owners.
Another part of the problem is that, no doubt under Treasury inspiration, the Dept of Planning has been required to make the whole creation of the park cost-neutral for the Government – rarely a requirement in say, road develoment! Most of the publicly owned land will be transferred at no cost, subject to various conditions laid down by the present managers. But some open space that could have been added to the park or kept as a buffer between it and residential and other developments has been slated for sale to fund the purchase of the various small pieces of private land that have to be acquired to make the park continuous.
Rescued from this fate was Wolli Bluff, overlooking Waterworth Park, with its rugged rock outcrop and splendid array of native plants, which the Department of Planning agreed with the Society should go into the park.
Among elements not only lost as open space, but inevitably to be developed for residences, with all the pressures that will put upon the park’s bushland are:
- open space below Wolli Bluff. Here we have been promised only that a 5m buffer strip will be left and that any building on the site will be limited to single storey.
- vacant land on the S side of Unwin Street nearby, although a narrow strip at the lowest part of these blocks has passed into NPWS hands – too little even to support a proper riparian zone, let alone allow for a pathway outside that zone.
- a house block that will be subdivided out of a large Dept of Lands block below Hocking Avenue, Earlwood for sale. Here at least we have been able to reduce the size of the block to be sold.
- private land forming an extension to Highcliff Road, Undercliff (still a very live issue at May 2009 and to be listed as a separate issue, later in 2009).
These losses have to be set against the otherwise splendid ultimate provision of 50 hectares to form the regional park. By October 2008 a further 17.2 hectares were in the hands of the Minster for the Environment, awaiting gazettal as NPWS estate. We are led to hope that the bulk of the remaining public land will be transferred by the end of June 2009, but there will be some small portions, notably those currently in private hands, that will take much longer to acquire. The gazettal of the bulk of the outstanding land should be the signal for the formal lifting of the road reservation for the M5, something which the Society has been fighting for since its formation in 1984.
The last several years (to 2009) have been a period of very effective co-operation and support for the bushland of the park among the various State agencies, the City of Canterbury, and the Society and major improvements have occurred and more are in the pipeline. In 2008, the Society signed a Memorandum of Understading with the NPWS to set the parameters for ongoing co-operation.
If you would like to support the park, the first thing to do is to join the hundreds of other members in the Society and even become active in bush restoration. We look forward to hearing from you at info@wollicreek.org.au
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