Notre Dame – ever expanding

It’s a concern for the Combined Chippendale Community Groups, whose investigations suggest there will be another DA, to add additional storeys onto this building, once local planning controls are changed.

This would represent an alteration to what they describe as a “wonderful Art Deco heritage building”.  Further, the current DA provides no open space, student facilities, parking or cycle facilities. The NDU’s consultants suggest the expansion will have absolutely no detrimental impact locally – with no additional traffic or demand on local parking. Quite apart from how we as a city can deal with this increasing development density and how that must add to the congestion on nearby roads, the CCCG is concerned about the effect on parking for locals.

The CCCG already notes a steady increase in the student numbers for the NDU, contrary to its earlier suggestions the numbers would be small.

A “vision” statement been published – but this is subject to change dependent on an increased demand for its services – suggesting an unconstrained approach.

It seems the University has more than 1,700 students. The vision statement posits 3,000 students for the Chippendale campus, but the CCCG is sceptical, given how rubbery previous numbers have been. The group’s FOI enquiries at Council suggest the University will have several thousand more students. The current population is contrary to the promises made by the University when it first sought approval to operate in Chippendale three years ago. Numbers presented back then (when it was fighting to get its DA approved) indicated about 300 students. After concerns at the time, these numbers were revised – to 860 students by year 2010.

Contrary to DA suggestions that the 1 Grafton Street development would be a temporary facility, its seems that more than a year before, NDU had planned this site’s longer-term redevelopment.

The CCCG also claims a lack of community consultation. A recent media report quotes the University as saying: “There was very little interest from local residents. No objections were raised at the session and support for the NDU’s proposal was expressed.” This claim was repeated in support of the DA.

At the close of deadline, in spite of several attempts to obtain comment from NDU, and some helpful individuals at NDU, no comment was forthcoming.

Source: South Sydney Herald April 2009 www.southsydneyherald.com.au