Sydney University plans to expand

The University crossed City Road in the mid-twentieth century and took its place in Darlington. It has slowly swallowed up the residential housing within the suburb and replaced it with sports centres and faculties of Engineering, Business and Economics. As time went by, the town houses of Darlington were bulldozed but there remains one final strip of houses standing in the way of the University’s domination of North West Darlington.

Darlington Road is the remaining stronghold of houses within the Darlington campus and is surely feeling like a veritable allusion to the military term: “Divide and conquer.”

Long-term Darlington Road resident, Terry Laws, has, for the last 10 years, repeatedly rejected offers from Sydney Uni to buy his house. His father had lived in the property for over 50 years and passed away last year, but Mr Laws has thus far refused to sell the property and has no intention to do so.

The University’s ‘Campus 2010’ expansion plan is already underway, which will see the development of 11 new buildings on the Darlington Campus, varying from two to seven storeys in height. The development will hem in the existing public school, which is built upon university grounds.

An open secret of the University’s Eastern expansion is that, when the houses that stood upon the sight were bulldozed, no asbestos was removed from the site, but was simply buried along with other landfill.

Sydney University has also hinted at plans to expand even further. When the North Eveleigh site is released to tender by the Redfern Waterloo Association, Sydney Uni will be one of the first to pounce on the prime piece of real estate. This may be counter to the RWA plans to have the area primarily developed to produce more affordable housing in the area, but, as another cliché goes, “money talks”. If this expansion goes ahead then it would be likely that it is only a matter of time before the private housing between the North Eveleigh site and the existing campus would be swallowed up too.

Darlington locals are seeking more open dialogue with the University to express their concerns about future plans for development. Sydney University’s proposal to build a parkland campus at Callan Park to complement its College of the Arts has upset many of the local residents there, and with Darlington locals already furious with the Uni’s redevelopment, it appears to be repeating its mistakes. This reverberated around when the University failed to be represented at City of Sydney Community Urban Design Workshop that was focused on Darlington.

One very irate Abercrombie Street resident, Maurice, has grown increasingly forlorn at the University’s relentless plans for expansion into Darlington, describing it as the worst environmental thug in the area, “shifting all the rubbish it doesn't want onto Darlington,” he said.

“Cyclone fencing, demountable sheds, pot-holed streets, containers, diesel generators in front of terrace houses, metal-clad buildings looking like Stalag 13 and endless jack hammering and disturbance at all hours of the day and night,” are just some of the headaches he has had to tolerate.

And although Darlington residents may feel as though they are being treated with contempt by the University, they will have to get used to the beast it has become, and prepare for the Leviathan it will be in the future.

Photo: Ali Blogg - The old Darlington School hemmed in by Sydney University