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Correctional Centre DA to be Withdrawn

On Friday 29 October Carmel Tebbutt advised that she had "received advice that Corrective Services NSW has reconsidered the proposed Darlington site. The Community Offender Services Office will remain at its current Newtown location." This article provides background from REDWatch on the proposal to establish a Correction Services office at 145-151 Cleveland Street Darlington. There was community concern about the lack of information regarding the facility and the possible impact on the surrounding residential neighbourhood. The DA is currently still on exhibition but give the advice from Carmel Tebbutt it is expected the DA will be withdrawn.

About the Proposed development:

Use and fit-out to a public building for Corrective Services NSW providing community offender services. Works consist of internal and external works. External works include a new shopfront and removal of driveway to Cleveland Street, new vehicular crossing to Vine Lane, removal of roller shutter door and new to property boundary. Proposed hours of operation for public access are between 8am-5pm M&F 8am-8pm TWT for 5 days. It has subsequently been learnt that Corrective Services have outgrown their regional office in the Newtown shopping strip and are looking to locate it to Cleveland Street Darlington.

Background to Exhibition:

This DA is currently off-exhibition. It has been exhibited twice already. On the first occasion it was withdrawn and re-exhibited following a community request for additional information as it was not possible to determine what was proposed from the initial application. Following this Clover Moore wrote to REDWatch and advised that the DA would be re-exhibited and the notification area expanded from 25m to 50m.

There was ongoing concern with the lack of detail in the re-exhibition and Corrective Services organised a community meeting for Wednesday 13 October 2010. Regretfully there were problems with notifications for the meeting and few people knew about the meeting. Those that did turn up found that there was no one present that was able to answer questions about the DA. The meeting requested another meeting be held which was notified properly and that Corrective Services ensure that someone capable of addressing the DA was in attendance. Corrective Services has subsequently advised they are hopefully of organising another meeting.

REDWatch hence wrote the email below to Council requesting an extension to the exhibition. Council extended exhibition until 19/11/2010 however on 29 October Carmell Tebbutt advised Corrective Services had decided to to remain in Newtown. Council has been in contact with Corrective Services and were looking at how best to deal with the matter.

Below is the text of the REDWatch letter which provides an account of the issues raised at the meeting.

Letter to Lord Mayor with copies to CoS CEO, RWA, Redfern Police, Corrective Services & Local Aboriginal Organisations

Dear Clover

Thank you for your letter of 28 September regarding the above DA. This DA has now gone on exhibition again with a revised EA (www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/DAsOnExhibition/details.asp?tpk=974131). The revised documents are currently on exhibition until 20 October. There continues to be considerable concern in Darlington, Chippendale and Redfern regarding this proposal and the level of information available.

I am writing to bring you up to date with the latest developments and to ask Council to liaise with the proponent with a view to extending the exhibition period until the proponent is able to make more information available to the community. As this is a crown DA it is important that the proponent, community and council take the time to endeavour to negotiate an outcome rather than just let the DA process determine the outcome that might be over ridden by the crown.

A community meeting was held last night at Yaama Dhiyaan organised by Corrective Services NSW about this DA. We welcome this initiative by Corrective Services to discuss the DA with the community.

As the proposal is for the move of the Newtown Corrective Services office to Darlington John Crawford, Director, Community Offender Services at Newtown provided an overview of the services provided by their office. Sarah Brennan, the Regional Executive Director handled the enquiries in general discussion. A Corrective Services property section person was unable to attend at the last minute.

The main issues which arose last night were:

1.     Corrective Services said their head office arranged leafleting for the meeting but no one had seen a leaflet. Word of the meeting seemed to have spread from an email sent by Carmel Tebbutt’s office to people who had raised concerns with her office regarding the original application. People who contact Council said the council officer was not aware of the meeting.

2.     In the absence of the Corrective Services property person no one present was able to answer many of the issues raised about the DA.

3.     Due to the lack of public transport to the Cleveland St site parolees have to transit through residential areas and hence there was a strong view that the notification area should have included the area between the site and public transport nodes as these areas are affected by the DA. Clients to the service come from an area stretching from Marrickville to Glebe. These routes to the proposed centre take parolees through areas with significant numbers of youth and children.

4.     There was a strong community opposition expressed at the meeting to the facility being placed on Cleveland Street. Mick Mundine spoke strongly about the expected adverse impact this was likely to have on the AHC’s moves to break the cycle on the Block. It was also pointed out that the indirect bus service in Cleveland street only run half hourly, that taxi’s could not discharge in Cleveland Street and that there were issues with taxis discharging in local streets. Corrective Services said they had been told the site was well serviced by public Transport

5.     There was a strong feeling that the Updated Statement of Environmental Effects was still inadequate especially as no basis was provided in the EA or to the meeting to support the statement in the DA that “There are no adverse social or economic effects” that will result from the DA.

6.     There appeared to be no discussion with the RWA or Redfern Police about the service coming into an area which there are human services plans and a Human Services Implementation Senior Officers Group to try and co-ordinate government activity in the area. As a result Corrective Services seemed to have little understanding of some of the services and issues of the area. The meeting was told that John Crawford was trying to set up a meeting with Luke Freudenstein at Redfern LAC for the following day to discuss the DA. Hopefully the RWA will also have discussions on a human services level with the proponent about the proposal and the hard work undertaken within the community to address its many problems.

Sarah Brennan was going to follow up the lack of notice for the meeting and to investigate the possibility of another meeting where the issues raised could be discussed with the opportunity for others also to be involved.

Given above it will be very difficult for people to adequately respond to the DA by 20 October. Hence Council should liaise with the proponent and extend the exhibition period until after a future meeting when hopefully the community will be better informed and better able to raise considered concerns with council.

I am hence writing to request Council to liaise with the proponent with a view to extending the exhibition period until the proponent is able to make more information available to the community.

It is important when a DA has the potential to raise fears in the community that all the information necessary for the community to rationally asses this DA is provided. Council’s assistance in this regard by requesting a revised EA is appreciated and I hope that it will be possible to also extend the current exhibition until more information can be made available by the proponent.

Regards,

Geoff

Geoffrey Turnbull

Spokesperson

REDWatch

Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490  Mob: 0418 457 392

email: mail@redwatch.org.au

web: www.redwatch.org.au