Sydney development shelved as economic crisis bites

A major Sydney development has been put on hold, due to the economic downturn, putting more pressure on the state's rising unemployment levels.

Frasers Property, the developer of the $1.3 billion dollar plan for the former Carlton United Brewery site at Broadway, has decided to put off construction until the global economy recovers.

Levelling work at the site is still going on, but the Government is keen for it not to turn into another of the "black holes" which plagued Sydney during the financial melt-down in Asia, and during the early 1990s recession.

A spokesman for Planning Minister Kristina Keneally says any applications to excavate the site will be refused unless construction is ready to begin immediately after.

As recently as February, the state Government was extolling the virtues of the project's potential to create jobs in the city.

Ms Keneally says the site still has the potential to generate thousands of jobs, and is optimistic that any delays will be minor.

"The CUB redevelopment site was always going to be staged over a decade, and it does have potential to create some ongoing 5,500 jobs and some 12,000 construction jobs," she said.

"Now construction was due to start early in 2010, and the Government would certainly welcome work getting under way as close as possible to that time frame."

One City of Sydney Councillor is worried that the postponement might signal the return of "missing tooth syndrome", where many sites sat empty during the building bust of the late 1980s and early '90s.

Councillor John McInerney says the City learnt from the problem, and if planning controls for the Broadway site had been left with Council there would have been contingencies in place.

"The ideal thing would have been to have some sort of funding that allows the frontage to be temporarily built, so that you get activity along there," he said.

"Some form of landscaping in the central area, rather than just having a dust bowl that becomes annoying and potentially dangerous. All of these things I would have hoped the Department of Planning have got under their belt, but as I say, I'm a little pesimistic about that."

Aside from its developments in Australia, Singapore-based Frasers Property has large investments in that recession ravaged city-state, as well as the depressed UK and New Zealand property markets.

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/17/2545554.htm?section=business