Bays and Foreshores – a time of change

By John Sergeant, Bays & Foreshores Subcommittee Convenor, from Bulletin 5/2015

This article covers some of the issues that the Society’s Management Committee discusses in its monthly meetings. There is a great deal of change afoot, and huge amounts of public money being spent on various developments around Blackwattle, Johnstons, White and Rozelle Bays (the exact boundaries of these names is debatable). This provides both a challenge and an opportunity for those of us in Glebe and Forest Lodge. The Society attempts to use its influence, powerful at times and limited at others, to ensure that change is for the better.

Glebe Island Bridge adaptive re-use and restoration

Pressure for the reopening of the Bridge as an active transport corridor is growing, with large-scale housing and business developments planned for the lands surrounding each of its extremities. Planning documents for both the Bays West Transport Oriented Development (TOD) Accelerated precinct (i.e., around White Bay) and for the ‘outgoing’ Sydney Fish Market site pay lip service to this possibility. Quite how this could be achieved while maintaining access for masted vessels, superyachts and, one hopes, the newly-announced expanded ferry service to the New Sydney Fish Market is a matter requiring either the complete restoration of the rotating road deck or some form of lightweight elevated or drawbridge-style superstructure. Given that a major disadvantage of the current pedestrian and cycle access via the ANZAC Bridge is the steep climbs involved, it is hoped that a low-level solution can be devised. A residents’ action group in Balmain/Rozelle is also campaigning for this low-level active transport link, via the Glebe Island Bridge, as part of proposed shared path service their peninsula, following the north-western shoreline from White Bay towards East Balmain.

The Glebe Society’s Glebe Island Bridge website is gradually being updated. If you come across a story relevant to the campaign to restore the Bridge and to make it available for pedestrians and cyclists, or have any other relevant content, you could send it to our web content person Sarah Fogg at webcontent@glebesociety.org.au.

You’ll find a link on the Glebe Island Bridge website to Kobi Shetty’s ‘Reopen the Glebe Island Bridge’ petition calling on the NSW Minister for Transport to prioritise restoring and reopening the Glebe Island Bridge to improve walking and cycling links. Please encourage friends and family to sign the petition.

Fish market redevelopment

Revisions to the planning documents for the soon-to-be-former Sydney Fish Market site show scope for around 1,500 dwellings, with 4.3ha of open public space. There will be some affordable housing but this is achieved by temporary rent controls, after which prices will presumably revert to market levels.

Personally, while I am aware that there are differing views on the subject. I think that the whole redevelopment has been worth the pain, when one considers that every scrap of the former alienated industrial land has been repurposed to create:

• A vast and beautiful new market that, I expect, will become famous worldwide and may outshine, or at least rival, the Sydney Opera House as a tourist attraction.
• A total of 5.4ha of public space (I include the 1.1ha Bank Street Parkland in this), including a continuous foreshore walkway and shared path where, five years ago, there was only hideous and unrelenting ugliness, much of it noisesome and unwholesome.

Problems remain, of course. These relate to traffic and parking issues impacting upon the surrounding suburbs, the inadequacy of public transport and the vagueness of any plans to redress this deficiency, and the missed opportunity to separate pedestrian and cycle traffic. Some of these issues will need to be resolved and there is scope to do so, with increased public transport and with underground parking either below Wentworth Park north or under the playing fields of Sydney Secondary College Blackwattle Bay Campus.

While acknowledging the many legitimate concerns of those affected by the construction and operation of the new facility, I am convinced that it will soon become a treasured source of pride in our suburb.

Advertising on the Glebe Island silos

The lessee of the massive billboard has applied to extend the current ‘temporary’ advertising site for a further three years. Note that this advertising, like the ‘temporary’ Rozelle superyacht marina, was one of those uglinesses permitted in the lead-up to the 2000 Olympic Games. Pleasingly, no extension of the hours of illumination has been sought, unlike three years ago when only concerted action by residents prevented illumination even later into the night.

We need you

If you are interested in being more involved in the Society’s Bays & Foreshores work, have a look at the Subcommittee’s terms of reference which have just been updated. The Bays & Foreshore’s Subcommittee’s objectives are to (1) help ensure that the bays and foreshores to the north of Glebe and Forest Lodge are restored, maintained, preserved and, where appropriate, developed in a way that benefits the community and the environment; and (2) build on the Glebe Society’s years of successful activism in ensuring that the foreshore is accessible to all and that it can be used in a way that respectfully and safely balances the needs of various users, on and off the water.

Pressure of work means that I am unable to devote the necessary time to the Bays and Foreshores role, and so I have regretfully decided to relinquish it. I want to thank everyone for making me welcome and for the spirit of collegiality and diversity of opinion that makes the Glebe Society a lively and useful body for our community.