Barangaroo: anatomy of a sellout

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/09/barangaroo-sydney-land-lease

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In May of 1791 Barangaroo, a “fierce and unsubmissive” woman of the Cammeraygal people, was appalled when she was forced to witness the severe flogging a convict in Sydney. Barangaroo was not going to let some jumped-up government apparatchik visit this injustice in her presence. Watkin Tench records how she “snatched a stick and menaced the executioner.”

If Barangaroo was around now she would probably be looking for another stick and heading off to find Premier O’Farrell to tell him exactly what she thought of a casino and oversized office development overwhelming the urban renewal project that bears her name.

When the end of stevedoring at East Darling Harbour (Barangaroo) was announced in 2003, it was a once in a generation opportunity to reinvigorate the west of the CBD. This was 22 hectares of prime, publicly-owned harbour foreshore land and the good news was that most of it was going to be set aside for parks and public uses.

It did get off to a positive start. In 2007 an initial concept plan was approved based on an international award-winning design by Hills Thalis architects. It proposed a harbourside park along the whole of the 1.4km waterfront. The new commercial, retail and residential development was separated behind a grand new boulevard on the eastern side of the site. Importantly, capped at 330,000 square metres, the commercial, retail and residential buildings were not going to dominate the public domain. 

But this is Sydney and no self-respecting developer and no compliant State government could ever let it rest at that. So in 2009, following some high profile lobbying from former prime minister Paul Keating, the Hills Thalis plan was chucked out in a favour of a plan being pushed by Lend Lease. This saw the loss of the harbourside park to the south of the site, the narrowing and loss of streets and a further 120,000 square metres of commercial floor space added. 

The developers got a further boon in early 2010 when another 60,000 square metres of floor space was added. By then the public open space had been savaged and the developer’s return had been increased by more than half.

In October 2013 renowned Danish urban designer Jan Gehl quit as a consultant for the project stating that economic factors were driving a “strong urge to build as much as possible” while “concerns for the people landscape have gradually evaporated”. 

For some time James Packer had been eyeing off Barangaroo for a casino. He eventually worked Premier O’Farrell, and the Labor opposition, until they both agreed in November 2013 to a towering casino being built in the centre of the site. This is slap bang in what had originally been a precious harbour foreshore park.

With this last insult it seemed like Barangaroo had struck rock bottom. All of NSW could see how yet again property developers, big business and NSW politicians had come together to sell out the public interest.

Disgusted as many observers had become, a number held on to the hope that there would be some public return with the commercial arrangements delivering enough revenue to construct what remained of the public open space and headland park.

This too is in jeopardy with Lend Lease mounting a Supreme Court challenge to the amount it had to pay for the right to develop the site as a result of the upscaling of the development.

Just before Christmas the Supreme Court delivered an early present to Lend Lease by ruling in the developer’s favour. This decision has crippled the state government’s capacity even to build what remains of the public domain in the centre of the site.

So the NSW government has given hectares of precious public harbour foreshore land to a developer and a casino operator and hasn’t even received enough in commercial returns to build a decent park. The state government does not have to settle for this.

Even if we accept the dreadful decisions to build a casino on the site and upscale the development to a towering half a million square metres of development, at least we can work out a scheme to get a decent return.

One option is a site-specific betterment tax that works to capture a proportion of the increase in value Lend Lease received as a result of the 2009 and 2010 amendments. England has had such a scheme since WWII so that where a planning decision delivers an increase in land value a proportion of that increase is payable to the state as a charge. 

It would still be a compromised project but at least the public would have enough to build a decent park and maybe even a community hall or two.

Given the history though, I’m not holding my breath. Where’s Barangaroo when you need her?

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