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What concerns you?
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What aspect of Bays Precinct are you most concerned about?
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Comment 1 30 Jun 2009, 3:42 PM
All those derelict buildings and unused land lying vacant are such a waste. I pass through everyday and it always upsets me – it fells like Detroit or some rust bucket bit of northern UK. But even those places would not be as struck down with indecision and paralyzing political inertia as we are. The Power Station has been abandoned and an empty hulk for more than 25 years. And now we have a pile of rubble (the burnt down hotel) which hasn't been touched since it was torched. Those incredibly valuable waterfront resources should NOT lie rusting.
Please, when you've finished "consulting", stop listening to the naysayers and the local political charlatans buzzing around the site like blowflies and DO SOMETHING!
Anything would be better than that present wasteland.
Comment 1.1 3 Jul 2009, 7:01 AM
totally agree, so its up to you and me to do something, so tell 10 people every day how important it is. lets do it now so we can enjoy it now
Comment 1.2 3 Jul 2009, 7:02 AM
removed by moderator - duplicate copy
Comment 1.3 13 Jul 2009, 5:47 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Having recently moved back into the area after living overseas, it is hard to believe that no progress has been made with this priceless piece of real estate. I am not against mixed usage and some residential development, but please.......don't let Meriton create an urban slum with more ugly apartments.
Comment 2 3 Jul 2009, 6:59 AM
Lets not have another 10 year + wait. We need another reason to do it now. Remember Darling Harbour, it was an identical wasteland, well ALONG CAME the Bicentenery 1988 and W O W , look what we did in 3 thats right 3 years,
lets do this 3 year W O W to the Bays Precinct, not another Darling Harbour Precinct, but a useful vision that I CAN USE to go Boating in 3 year time.
Come on NSW your can do it again.
Boat Launching Ramps, Marinas, Boats and the rest will come
Comment 3 4 Jul 2009, 8:27 PM
The biggest concern is that the planning for The Bays Precinct has already been unduly influenced by marina and super yacht interests. There is a push to make the Rozelle and White Bays a mega marina area. I'm not too fond of residential either but at least with residential we all have access and it can be environmentally sensitive. Its the lesser of two evils. To have the lot set aside as parkland is a pipedream - the land is just too valuable.
What the romantic boat lovers fail to realise is that they will not get a look in to more…
Comment 3.1 6 Jul 2009, 6:37 AM
I could not find any Razor wire, I went to Rushcutters Bay yesterday, I walked out among amazing boats on a floating pontoon, just mm above the water. I visited the CYC next door and was able to view all those famous yachts, The only part of the club, I could not access was the Bar.
I went to Rozelle Bay and was welcomed buy some busy Crew, getting ready for a day out on these great boats, I was told, the facitiy is open to the public.
So I find you claims above amzingly un informed.
I also reviewed you comments on mega yachts not being clean and compatible with a clean harbour, and again, it think your level of research is NIL, Mega Yachts have a far cleaner footprint than commercial and old operations.
Good luck with your vision, but the Harbour is for all I agree, become informed, and enjoy some research,
Comment 3.1.1 6 Jul 2009, 10:24 AM
Mega Yachts (Giant POWER boats), if you bothered to find out, consume massive amounts of fuel. They can easily go through a $1000 tank of diesel in a day. Just look at the huge wake they create as they plough through the water, thats an enormous amount of energy. To claim these things are in any way clean is nonsense. It doesn't take much research to realise that!
Comment 4 6 Jul 2009, 3:32 PM
My biggest concern has to be traffic - the Anzac bridge is already full to the brim, and recently it's been so slow getting off the Balmain Peninsula.
Any developments will only add to the pressure - the Cruise Ship terminal will result hundreds of extra buses on the roads every month, trying to squeeze onto the Anzac bridge in the middle of peak hour, ferrying passengers and crew to where they really want to be - the CBD.
It's hard to see how the area can support much more activity without a significant upgrade in transport links - either the Metro, an upgraded light rail that actually takes you somewhere useful, and/or a massive increase in ferries that actually go direct to somewhere useful.
Comment 4.1 13 Jul 2009, 5:55 PM
agree with your point about ferry access - why aren't we making more use of this form of transport?
Comment 5 8 Jul 2009, 4:56 PM
What worries me most? That this government will be under the fantasy that it can buy the seat of Balmain by caving in (once again, as it did at Callan Park) to noisy, vocal resident activists.
Look at the outcome there. Nothing has happened. Leichhardt Council hasn't even signed a lease.
If you give the Balmain yuppies their big park, they still won't vote for you Ms Keneally. They'll just ask for more. Yelling "Its a marginal seat!" and "gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!
You KNOW that, don't you?
Comment 5.1 9 Jul 2009, 8:15 AM
Well said and so true
Comment 5.1.1 13 Jul 2009, 6:58 PM
Callan Park is a great place. All that needs to be done is to demolish all those old buildings and plant more trees including mangroves along the water. Its not just about humanity you know, we are not the only species that inhabits this earth (although you might think so).
Comment 5.2 13 Jul 2009, 5:53 PM
OK, so I am a Balmain yuppie, and also have a dog. We already have great facilities here -Mort Bay Park, Ballast Point Park - so another open parkland with a few barbeques is not what we need.
I like the idea of providing facilities that all can use - sports facilities, open air cinema/performance spaces in a park-like environment. Sure, we need to improve access, but we need to improve access for any of the options.
Comment 6 13 Jul 2009, 9:49 AM
I would like to see PUBLIC ACCESS to this area increased.
This is a great opportunity to create a resource for the community on the harbour foreshores.... open space, walking and biking tracks, cafes maybe....
I would hate to see this opportunity lost through eg; locking the land up in private housing developments.
Comment 6.1 13 Jul 2009, 8:59 PM
The reality is that private housing (residential) is the only realistic option that will give us the "open space, walking and biking tracks, cafes" - look at Pyrmont and Glebe Point. The commercial or industrial options will have us all locked out and give us nothing. Residential with continuous foreshore access is the lesser evil.
Comment 7 14 Jul 2009, 7:56 PM
This is a rare and important opportunity to make decisions that will be seen in years to come to have been forward thinking and creative. Therefore it is critical that the Government continues to actively consult and work with local residents, businesses and others who have an interest in the harbour. Thinking needs to be longterm as what is created now will be in place for many years to come, most importantly, this debate must not be dominated by narrow commercial interests.
Comment 8 14 Jul 2009, 10:34 PM
What aspect am I most concerned about? The Government not listening to people's comments. They said no about Iron Cove, they got ignored; they said no about the metro, they got ignored; they said no about the refuelling facility, they got ignored.
We are going to end up with a peninsula with no public transport access, full of high-density apartment blocks that look hideous and have no architectural merit, with a 10 metre strip of land on the foreshore to have a bike track that people don't use, and it will only be the politicians and property developers who get anything out of it.
What I want is that people will be LISTENED to.
Comment 8.1 14 Jul 2009, 11:23 PM
The other thing I am concerned at is that we're not even allowed to comment about half the precinct. Rozelle Bay is off-limits because of the stupid boating shed the Government approved, the rail yards because of the stupid metro, and Blackwattle Bay also. The consultation should be on the WHOLE site and the Government should listen to people rather than making decisions for us.
Comment 9 18 Jul 2009, 11:06 AM
What concerns me - I don't want to see more apartments built along the waterfront. I'd rather see boats, yachts, cruise ships, parks instead of a concrete sea of flats.
Comment 9.1 19 Jul 2009, 5:01 PM
We do not want White Bay and Glebe Island to be another Meriton/Lend Lease/Vivas disaster. An example is the Eclipse building rising above the deck of the Anzac Bridge, ugly and out of scale with its surroundings it stands out like a sore thumb from every viewpoint.
If this government is so keen to allow such development why not relocate the Sydney Fish Markets to the Glebe Island site? The sale of the old Sydney markets could fund the move and that site then made available for development. With new markets, restaurants facing north and parks adjacent to the foreshore it could be sensational. Run ferries from Circular Quay, Darling Harbour and North Sydney and rival anything you might see overseas.
As has already been pointed out Darling Harbour was once an eyesore and a wasteland and is now an amazing success.
We only get one crack at this to get it right. DO NOT let this be wasted due to shortsightedness and lack of planning.
Comment 9.1.1 23 Jul 2009, 8:24 PM
The new dry dock recently completed under the Western Side of The Anzac Bridge makes any residential development look great. These giant sheds (of which there will be many) are what concerns me most.
Comment 9.1.2 24 Jul 2009, 10:51 PM
Who is "we"?
No one, certainly not the millionaires who control Meriton/Lend Lease/Vivas would be interested in this land unless they made a buck up of it. Its so weird that "this government" or "planners" so often cop the blame for these so-called "disasters". They may react (at their electoral peril) to the will of the people, but they do NOT control it.
The reason those buildings are there is because we need a roof over our heads and we are more than willing top dollar for water views in locations close to the city.
It is OUR demand that is the driver. It is OUR wishes, expressed by OUR actions with OUR cheque books which will determine the outcome at White Bay. Stop playing the blame game, it is so childish.
Comment 10 19 Jul 2009, 7:20 PM
For the Bays precinct, I'd like to see something for everyone, a mixture of residential, offices, restaurants, cafes, music performance spaces, art exhibition sites, open spaces for kids and dogs, swimming pool, adventure playgrounds for older kids, a public transport station or ferry stop linked to an effective Sydney wide netwpork (that we don't have). What I don't want to see is wall-to-wall residential and I definitely don't want to see any of it turned into even more shopping zones, we have more than enough of those already.
Comment 11 19 Jul 2009, 9:20 PM
The Bays Precinct currently divides Balmain, Rozelle and Lilyfield from each other, and this can be dealt with during the planning process.
The deep water wharfage and road and rail links are resources that the NIMBYs would rather did not exist, and so they will try to discount their importance.
The chance that road widenings, motorways and cross city tunnels will take space or delay planning in the precinct really worries me.
That the opportunity for sustainable development, and in particular sustainable transport uses, in the corridors is missed.
That opportunities are not maximised through master planning, but the piecemeal development as currently taking place results in lost opportunities, again in particular transport opportunities.
Comment 12 22 Jul 2009, 9:37 PM
It concerns me that the sheer size and integration of the development required means that all parties (RTA, STATERAIL/RAILCORP, SHFA, SYDNEYWATER, SYDNEYMETRO, STATE, LOCAL GOV etc. etc.blah blah blah) will not agree on a direction in the near to mid future. The government body with the most political pull and funding will lead the development planning process and perhaps an overall ideal solution will not be achieved since politcal so be's and lobbyists don't have 'the numbers'.
It would concern me to find out the old power station would be knocked down. Its a beautiful structure which could be brought to life with a modern curtain glazing facade system and spruced up architecturally to bring it in life with the 21st century. It would make for a great shopping experience (something similiar to Melbourne Central where the old brick pit vents were maintained).
Concerns me if the waterfront will not be accessible to the public and line of view sights to the waterfront are not incorporated in the street layouts.
Go Forward, Plan and be bold but not arrogant.
Comment 13 28 Jul 2009, 11:43 AM
Any development of this area must co-ordinate land uses and accessibility. The development must not encourage access by private vehicles by provding 1000s of parking spaces. The area is not suitable for traffic generation because road access is bad and vyer congested, especially on weekends.
Good access to various forms of non-car transport is essential. The CBD and North West metros provide this opportunity.
