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Supermarkets – the new urban battleground

It’s raining supermarkets in Sydney, it seems, and the storm is provoking contrasting reactions from residents while presenting a complex planning problem to Council and the State Government reports Michael Gormly in City news of 27 August 2009.

In Erskineville the locals are bitterly opposed to a proposed supermarket which they say will degrade the City’s “best urban village” by bleeding business from its strip of small shopfronts and filling its backstreets with yet more cars looking for parking.

They say there are plenty of supermarkets in nearby Newtown.

However in Waterloo the residents have collected a 600+ signature petition supporting a proposed Aldi store right opposite a Coles Express under construction at Bourke and Danks Streets.

The residents want the Aldi store in the hope that the competition will bring down prices, crucial to many public housing tenants who live nearby. The site also borders the large East Redfern unit development near Moore Park so it would serve a large population within walking distance.

Ross Smith from residents’ group The Peoples Precinct has been helping with the petition, which will be presented to Council. He said Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who lives very close to the site, had taken a special interest in it during a recent Community Forum and locals were concerned that Council might refuse it.

“It’s right on several major bus routes and it’s within walking distance for a lot of nearby residents,” he said.

Mr Smith’s group worked with Planning Minister and local MP Kristina Keneally on a trolley price comparison between Aldi Eastlakes, Coles in Cleveland Street and a boutique food outlet in Danks Street. The result was startling: The Aldi total was $23.96, Coles $23.96 and the smaller outlet a whopping $78.85 (see table).

“There is no doubt, residents of South Sydney are poorly served for choice when it comes to groceries,” Ms Keneally said.

During the past 12 months the City has received 15 Development Applications for new supermarkets, 11 of which have been determined. Two were refused and four are still being assessed, including the Bourke Street Aldi site. The City points out it can rule only on the land use, not determine which supermarket chain occupies a site. Nor can it comment on the Aldi proposal because it is still being assessed.

The Erskineville site and one in Alexandria were both refused by Council, a decision since upheld in the Land and Environment Court.

The State Government is itself at the centre of a debate around planning for retail centres. At stake is whether new retail centres should be located within existing town centres — where established players already have a stake and land is expensive – or whether new players like the US Costco chain can set up in more outlying areas, keeping costs down.

The problem is Sydney’s choked roads. People shopping in a mixed centre can complete multiple errands in a single trip, while people visiting an outlying retailer typically must make a separate car journey which means more car trips, more congestion and more pollution.

Kristina Keneally’s Planning Department in April released a draft Shopping Centres Policy. Its first principle embraces concentration within existing centres, and it proposes audits of available floorspace in each area as a basis for ensuring that there would always be sufficient floorspace available to allow new competitors into each centre.

A submission from The Shopping Centres Council of Australia, unsurprisingly, argues that retail should be concentrated within existing urban centres – the emerging Green Square being the nearest regional centre to Waterloo. Already the City has refused one supermarket DA close to but outside Green Square.

The Shopping Centres Council argues: “To provide one retailer with access to cheap land, while another has to consolidate expensive commercial-zoned land, is inequitable and provides financial benefit to one at the expense of the other. It is not competition.”

On the other hand, anything that reduces prices for consumers will be popular. The proposed Aldi at Waterloo is not in an existing retail centre. But Mr Smith and his residents group point out that many locals do not have cars to get to a larger centre and the Trolley Comparison is stark evidence that overarching strategies do not always address local circumstance.

by Michael Gormly

Trolley price comparison of the cheapest available item in each line (not necessarily the same brand)

Trolley price comparison of the cheapest available item in each line (not necessarily the same brand)

 

This proposed redevelopment on Bourke Street would include an Aldi outlet

This proposed redevelopment on Bourke Street would include an Aldi outlet

Source: www.altmedia.net.au/supermarkets-–-the-new-urban-battleground/10540