State takes on beer development - 21 June 2006 AAP

NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor, who is the City of Sydney's former Lord Mayor, said the project had become tangled in red tape for three years.

The council had so far required more than a dozen different designs for the site, costing the landowner, and now wary developers, $8 million in fees, he said.

By declaring the site "state significant", Mr Sartor has invoked state powers introduced last year.

An expert panel of four will take control of redeveloping the four city blocks near Sydney's Central Station.

"This will streamline planning, provide ample opportunity for public consultation, and deliver more certainty for local residents and investors," Mr Sartor said today.

The redevelopment would ensure more affordable housing and provide the same level of community benefits as those flagged by the council, "or better", he said.

Mr Sartor had clashed bitterly with current Lord Mayor and NSW Upper House MP Clover Moore over the site before today's announcement.

Cr Moore today said no council in NSW was safe from Mr Sartor's meddling.

"The sole reason for this intervention is so the state government can get its hands on at least $30 million from this development in this blatant cash grab," Cr Moore said.

But the state's key property development industry association, the Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW, welcomed Mr Sartor's decision.

Institute president Ralph Bruce said that navigating developments past parochial local councils, and the many state agencies dealing with land use, was thwarting development in NSW.

"The challenge for the NSW government in aligning the inputs from each of these stakeholders and achieving an outcomes-focused approach is akin to herding cats", he said.

NSW Greens MP Sylvia Hale said Mr Sartor's plan would allow the site to become a new urban slum.

"It will result in poorly designed, high-rise apartment towers in the city and poor or non-existent infrastructure in the south-west growth centre," Ms Hale said.

Property developers have donated over $9 million to the Australian Labor Party over the last five years, she said.

"In the same period the number of property developments 'called in' by the Minister for Planning has increased by 800 per cent from around 30 per year to around 250 per year."

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