Alexandrians fear giant car park

With the ATP charging for parking within its grounds, residents say that workers in the new buildings are opting to park for free in nearby streets, making it difficult for locals to find a park.

“The whole of Alexandria is turning into a giant car park,” said Martin Bramble, a resident of Alexandria for 13 years. “It’s getting really hard to find a park in our streets because Pacific Magazines, Channel Seven and Global Television have realised that the parking in Alexandria is free.”

The concerns come just as the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) announced a $16.50 increase in the monthly parking rate at the ATP to $181.50, the first increase in four years.

Seven began moving into its new offices on January 4 and expects to have around 2,000 employees and upwards of 1,000 audience members visiting the site daily when the new studios become fully operational. 1,600 car spaces are planned for the Technology Park, which could have up to 10,000 people visiting it each day if the site is fully developed as planned.

Mr Bramble said the ATP should provide enough free parking for everybody that could come to the site.

But a spokesperson for the RWA said that revenue from the car park “is an essential part of the viability of the ATP”. The RWA spokesperson said that visitors may park at the ATP for half an hour for free but providing free all-day parking would discourage the use of public transport to the site.

While the spokesperson said the 1,600 car parks would be “more than adequate” for the site, the RWA is assessing the parking issues in nearby streets. “The Australian Technology Park is currently in the process of engaging a qualified and experienced traffic consultant to investigate parking issues and to develop appropriate parking strategies for consideration by the City of Sydney,” she said in a written statement.

But NSW Greens MLC, Sylvia Hale, who has been helping the residents with their concerns, says conducting a traffic assessment now is too little, too late. “It’s extraordinary that after the development has occurred the RWA can then go and say that it is doing a traffic assessment and expect the residents to believe it is taking the issue seriously.”

“Either the companies running the studio audience should pay for people to park at the ATP otherwise the businesses there should pay a levee in order to encourage their employees and visitors to park on site rather than in residential streets,” she said.

A permit-based parking system in local streets has also been raised as a way of addressing the issue, but residents say it would cause more problems.

“I don’t own a car, several people in our street don’t own a car and so the Council won’t give us a parking permit which means that when we borrow or hire a car there is no where we could park it,” said Kyran Lynch, a resident of Alexandria for 20 years.

“Several of our streets are too narrow for RTA guidelines so we’d lose parking down one side of the street if restricted parking came in,” said Richard Does of Lyne Street. “Even if we do have nine-to-five restricted parking, it doesn’t restrict the evening parking which could be considerable given that Chanel Seven will be running 24/7.”

Mr Does said the aircraft warning lights on top of the building and the recently approved Chanel Seven illuminated logo were also a concern for Alexandria residents who feel they have been excluded from the consultation process.

“Our backyards look out at this building. One night you have starry skies, the next we’ll have a giant corporate billboard. The problem wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d kept to the eight storeys in the original master plan ... it would have been hidden by the trees,” he said.”

Sylvia Hale said the decision to increase the maximum building height to 12 storeys revealed a conflict of interest in the planning process. “Chanel Seven has been permitted to build a building so high that it goes into airspace and requires these lights to be placed on top which impact on local residents. It’s clearly a case where the interest of the developers has been put ahead of the interest of the surrounding community.”

A community consultation session was arranged in December last year by the RWA after a petition signed by around 200 residents was delivered to the RWA, City of Sydney and the NSW Department of Planning highlighting residents’ concerns about the development.

While some residents commended the RWA for arranging the meeting, many were critical of the RWA for not advising Alexandria residents about the session and failing to follow up on their concerns.

“It was excellent to see really good representatives were there, but we still haven’t seen our issues dealt with,” said Lyne Street resident, Desley Hass.

“No-one in Alexandria got an invitation and if it wasn’t for us doing door-to-door letter drops, people wouldn’t have known about it,” said Richard Does.

Because Alexandria is outside the bounds of the RWA operational area, only those residents within 50 metres of the ATP boundary are directly informed about developments at the Technology Park. “The fact that the Alexandria residents are so annoyed and surprised shows how pathetic the notification process around this development has been,” said Mr Does.

Photo: Andrew Collis - Listening to community concerns

Source: South Sydney Herald March 2010 www.southsydneyherald.com.au