Another Sad Planning Saga for Newcastle - Public Accountability is Needed

Newcastle was a leader in Town  Planning up until the December 1989 Earthquake and with the establishment of  the Honeysuckle Development Corporation with its 1993 approved scheme and Concept Masterplan. This created a non-transparent quasi planning authority in conflict with the statutory planning machinery of the State that ordinary people can see and comply with.

This conflict played havoc in the Newcastle the City Council when HDC wrongly called for expressions of interest for its first Central Honeysuckle development at Merewether Street Wharf before planning proposal had been officially gazetted.  Appallingly Newcastle councillors were blamed and their Consent Authority status for Central Honeysuckle was taken over by the Minister.  Later the HDC closed off and built out the Merewether Street View Corridor to the Harbour.

Deplorably the HDC has not had an appropriate ‘Approved Scheme’ as required by statute to guide the development of their gazetted Growth Centre.  Furthermore following their failure to vary their scheme to comply with the Regional Environmental Plan (Central Honeysuckle) made by  Minister Knowles in December 1997 they have been unrestrained without an approved public Scheme.  Outrageously a new HDC Scheme was only secretly given approval by Minister Hazzard in  September 2012 even though the Growth Centre was enlarged in 2008 to encompasses every Local Government area in the Hunter Region. The Parks Movement is on record that it had been asking that the HDC vary its scheme in a transparent way to bring it up-to-date and comply with the Growth Centres Act.

The recent collusion between the Minister for Planning and the Minister for Transport culminating in compulsory acquisition orders  issued the 17th and 19th December  implementing a device aimed to confuse the people of the region and bypass the NSW Parliament to close the Newcastle railway is unpardonable. It is in direct contravention of section 99A of the Transport Administration Act and transfers the land and rail infrastructure to Hunter Development Corporation who have never been an appropriate transport authority.

This sad planning saga can only be given clear direction by a comprehensive public planning commission of inquiry.

Doug Lithgow
President, Parks and Playgrounds Movement
Freeman of the City of Newcastle

GPT Pullout Provides City with a New Opportunity

GPT pulling out of Newcastle gives the city a new opportunity to identify the real issues and think of real people not just property speculation.

People with the future of Newcastle at heart may be interested in this letter P&PM sent to the Minister for the Hunter in July 2009. With GPT pulling out of their proposed Newcastle operation there is another opportunity to look at the real issues and the real people and not just the property speculators.

I think this letter is just as relevant as it was when it was written. It was the P&PM submission to the HDC Report. The HDC is not the sort of body that should produce such a report and it would be a disaster if this is to be their revised Approved Scheme under the Growth Centres Act slipped through as the 1988 Hurst CBD POM was. It sets out our attitude to the Report

Please read and forward on to friends if you think it a fair statement.

Doug Lithgow

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

The Hon Jodi Mckay MP Minister for the Hunter.
Governor Macquarie Tower
Level 37, 1 Farrer Place,
SYDNEY NSW 2000



Dear Minister,

HUNTER DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Newcastle City Centre Renewal Report to the NSW Government
March 2009

Parks and Playgrounds Movement wish to respond to the Report on the HDC Web Site and a News Release from the Member for Newcastle and NSW Minister for the Hunter titled Newcastle City Centre Renewal Report to the NSW Government March 2009

The Movement does not share the News Release enthusiasm for the Report on the HDC web site.

The Movement has seen many visions and rejuvenation reports come and go over the past fifty years. Sadly it is at the time of crisis as with the current World Financial Crisis and the December 1989 Newcastle Earthquake that vested interests promote visions and reports with little consideration of the interest of the general public. City planning must serve the general interest of the public and not be based on property speculation and arbitrary individual wants.

To be effective planning must be based on a realistic understanding of needs and the morphology of the City and this is best achieved by sound incremental development that identifies and protects the essential heritage features that give meaning and understanding to the development pattern while recognising the potential and problems of the future.

Minister for the Hunter Jodi McKay said there is no hiding from the issue of rejuvenating the Newcastle City Centre and the NSW Government wants the community to help shape the future of inner-city Newcastle and the Hunter region.

The HDC Report is full of motherhood statements that it then denies in its detail.

The Report is unmistakably biased and prejudiced against passenger rail services which are in reality crucial to the 21st century liveable city.

The report boils down to a plea for more money for the HDC and for the Commonwealth to finance the arbitrary movement of facilities to new locations.

A perfect example of this faulty thinking in action was when the Royal Newcastle Hospital was removed after the 1989 Earthquake from the Newcastle East where it had an excellent location and public access, to New Lambton Heights where it was sited on the Highway 23 road reservation causing intractable problems such as the requirement for a new and more environmentally destructive highway relocation and transport and access problems. The removal of the hospital from Newcastle has been the single most debilitating action in the old town. The HDC and City Council have been hiding from this fact and blame everything else but themselves for their action. No amount of residential redevelopment can return the activity that had evolved in that area around the Hospital over nearly two centuries.

The report makes a plea for money to finance four principal projects:

    * relocation and expansion of the University of Newcastle’s campus in the city.
    * relocation of the Court house and legal offices to the Civic.
    * removal of railway infrastructure from the city and construction of interchange facilities near Wickham.
    * redevelopment of Hunter St Mall.

None of these wish list projects really require the removal of the rail infrastructure from the city to be initiated. Indeed all of the projects if really needed would benefit from the retention of passenger rail services.

Ironically it is the Madison Wing at the Hospital site that was the first real university push into the city and that is earmarked for demolition!  Of course the university should be encouraged to consolidate its city campus and student accommodation but that will be much more successful with passenger rail services are retained.

The existing Court House precinct has a logic and distinctive presence that is capable of expansion where it is rather than be relocated at Civic. It would be far more logical to return the  NSW Department of Planning to the civic where it would have a logical presence as it used to have when the Northumberland County Council and the SPA were located at the Civic.

The GPT suburban mall type proposal should never have been facilitated by the LEP for the CBD. It will destroy permanently the historic Dangar Axis which defines the old cathedral town and will overpower the pedestrian scale of the existing Hunter Street Mall area with its ugly elevated carpking structure. This elevated parking structure will also obliterate the historic panorama from the Cathedral. The existing Market Street –Queens Wharf –Cathedral (Dangar Axis) link should be emphasised by any new development in the Mall area. Newcastle Council had an excellent proposal recently before it that satisfied this important criterion.

The removal of passenger rail services from Newcastle as proposed would wipe out the opportunity of Newcastle to show off its unique sense of place and prevent the Newcastle Lake Macquarie and Maitland urban area from having a transit orientated future.

The following check list is provided to help understand what is happening to Newcastle.

Living City – since HDC the city has declined, principally because of the1988 CBD Business Plan which was meant to revitalise the city has unfortunately become a blue print for its demise.

The $100 million dollars Building Better Cities funding which should have been used to create a public domain foreshore park extending the Joy Cummings 1981 Harbour Foreshore Scheme through to Throsby Creek was not well used. The public domain foreshore parkland is still needed as the centrepiece of the Central Honeysuckle development. The Honeysuckle Approved Scheme Masterplan proposed a rail overbridge crossing at Wickham which should have been built at the same time as the Carrington Bridge with ‘Building Better Cities’ money.

Economic Diversity - should be encouraged by developing the natural and heritage advantages of the City Centre. The positive promotion of the city has never been attempted and it is always stories of woe. We have a magnificent theatre in the Victoria Theatre but it is empty and we never have promoted and developed the positive advantages of the Old Town.

Revitalise retail – It is not practical or in the public interest to try to make the Cathedral town of Newcastle a Charlestown like suburban shopping mall. It needs to retain its traditional character and be a speciality market orientated place something like the university Cathedral town of Durham in England or like the Rocks in Sydney.

Commercial Investment- since HDC and the city centre Committee, the inner city has fallen prey to property speculation rather than to sound commercial development. This HDC Report unfortunately is heavily skewed in favour of property speculation rather than practical public interest planning for a future city that will feature Transit Orientated Development.

Public Transport – the report as shown above struggles to thwart the creation of a public transit orientated city by being prejudiced against our existing passenger rail infrastructure. Passenger rail services have been an essential and distinctive feature of the city of Newcastle for over 150 years. Yes the services should be improved and modernised and trains should not be stabled in the open foreshore corridor. Improvements should be made to Newcastle Station. The grand entrance reopened and an arrival and departure concourse developed.

Criticism of 8 car rail sets with only a few passengers have been made but Newcastle is currently the end of the CityRail electric service and 8 car sets will only be full when special events are planned in the city on the foreshore. There is no reason why sets could not be more often split into 4 car sets at Gosford for services on to Newcastle. Special daily excursions should be organised from Sydney and the Central Coast to visit Heritage sites, the Convict Mines, Macquarie Pier and Nobbys, Fort Scratchley and Christ Church Cathedral. These things are merely operational details that can be altered to fit circumstances. Newcastle never promotes its natural and historical advantages. We hope that the current passenger bus fleet will be replaced by lighter electric powered vehicles in the new city of the future.. If there is an interchange to be constructed on the City Rail network in the northern area it should be as planned at Glendale in the Lake Macquarie Local Government area where it is more central and supported by all the local Councils.

The proposals for public transport in the report are not well conceived and are not in the interests of the public who use public transport.

Revitalising the Hunter Street Mall, Celebrating the special character of Newcastle and improving the quality of the public landscape and obtaining a better standard of architecture in new buildings are matters we all strive for but they will not be achieved until we truly identify the problems and potential of the existing city and promote the city in a positive and practical way.

Yours Sincerely,

Doug Lithgow  Freeman of the City of Newcastle
Parks and Playgrounds Movement

KEEP OFF THE GRASS - HONEYSUCKLE OPEN SPACE

The Editor

The Herald

NEWCASTLE 2300

Dear Sir,

Honeysuckle Openspace

Parks and Playgrounds Movement welcome the openspace push of Minister for the Hunter Jodi McKay MP (Keep off the Grass 12/6 The Herald).

However we would be more impressed if the Hon. Minister clearly directed the Hunter Development Corporation to prepare and publicly exhibit a Varying Scheme under Section16 of the Growth Centres Act.  The HDC Growth Centre now includes every Local Government Area in the Hunter Region and their 1992 Honeysuckle Master Plan is utterly inappropriate for their extended Growth Centre.

What Ms McKay mentions as city planning errors of the past were in fact straight out flagrant disregard of statutory planning by the Honeysuckle Dev Corp at Central Honeysuckle! This was only possible because there was no effective oversight of the Corporation after 1997.

We need to revisit the vision of the former Lord Mayor Joy Cummings AM

Doug Lithgow President

Parks and Playgrounds Movement

To our conservation colleagues

It is clear that we need to begin setting out the issues and our views on maintaining the statutory zoning of our foreshore openspace and the protection of existing parks.

Furthermore the disregard of planning by the Honeysuckle Development Corporation and their non compliance with their own Act - i.e. The Growth Centres (Development Corporations) Act 1974,  the  foolish mistakes made such as:

- the buying the longshore Wharf and then demolishing it. 
- not carrying out Geo-technical work at the early stage, 
- wrongful advertising for Merewether Wharf development before rezoning in place, 
- tearing up Wharf Road, 
- building out the Flinders Cove without re-planning for the change, 
- building out the views to the harbour while claiming to be opening up the harbour, 
- not building the planned overbridge at Stewart Ave, 
- removing rail crossing overbridges and level crossing. 

Not to mention the complete disregard of the Joy Cummings foreshore initiatives of the 1980's. 

The talk about light rail is just talk and the real agenda is the to grab the public harbour front including the Newcastle Railway station. (The HDC aim is to get rid of rail commuters first!)

There is a lot of work to be done just to get the above information out to the general public over the next 2 years. 

We all need to take the time to understand the concept of the Honeysuckle Masterplan and the earlier Joy Cummings Foreshore Design with its protection of the public domain. 

We need to write every couple of months on one or more of the issues otherwise the truth will never be told. 

Cheers 
 Doug

TAKE THE LEAD FROM HISTORY

The Hunter Development Corporation (HDC) should be disbanded if they continue to operate without an appropriate approved scheme‏.

Dear Conservation Colleagues,

Parks and Playgrounds Movement have watched the Newcastle rail debate wax and wane since 1952.

There may have been some justification in down grading passenger rail then but it makes no sense in the emerging future. Balance between private and public transport in a transit orientated urban pattern is essential for the modern urban city.

Regarding the Newcastle situation I have enclosed the two concepts that have some statutory expression.

1.  The Joy Cummings concept that is embodied partly within the current (in force) planning scheme. (Never properly implemented)

2. The other has statutory expression under Growth Centres Act 1974 in the 1992 Approved Scheme of the Honeysuckle (Hunter) Development Corporation.

The HDC should be disbanded if it continues to operate without an appropriate ‘approved scheme’ that has real relationship to their Growth Centre which now includes all of the Hunter Region Local Government areas.

Parks and Playgrounds policy regarding the Newcastle Old Town and the foreshore is simple.

Parks and Playgrounds movement supports the retention of rail services to Newcastle and the revision and full implementation of the Joy Cummings Newcastle Harbour foreshore Scheme.

We call upon the NSW State Government to vary the 1992 Honeysuckle Masterplan using Sec 16 of the Growth Centres Act and retain rail services to the historic Newcastle station. All the previous rail crossings, pedestrian and vehicular should be re-established and new crossings built as needed.

We oppose the removal of rail services and the closing and redirection of Wharf Road and the alienation of the Harbour Front and railway station area for Hotel, Retail and Mixed uses as proposed in the Honeysuckle approved scheme Precinct ‘D’

Doug Lithgow President
Parks and Playgrounds Movement

HDC Report Threatens to Remove Passenger Rail from Newcastle

Parks and Playgrounds Movement wishes to place the following supplementary submission before the inquiry because since our submission made on 23rd of February there has been a report made public by the HDC, that threatens to remove existing passenger rail services from the historic city of Newcastle NSW.

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia



Dear Sir,

Supplementary submission Inquiry into the investment of Commonwealth and State funds in public passenger transport infrastructure and services

Parks and Playgrounds Movement wishes to place the following supplementary submission before the inquiry because since our submission made on 23rd of February there has been a report made public by the HDC, Hunter Development Corporation that threatens to remove existing passenger rail services from the historic city of Newcastle NSW.

The Movement would have liked to place evidence before the Senate Standing Committee Inquiry showing that it is a misuse of the Hunter Development Corporation to have it prepare a Newcastle City Centre Renewal Report that removes passenger rail services to Newcastle.

The Corporation was previously named the Honeysuckle Development Corporation and had been operating without an Approved Scheme since 1997. We can show that it has not prepared a Varying Scheme pursuant to Sections 14-16 Growth Centres (Development Corp) Act 1974 even though its Growth Centre has been extended from time to time and now extends with its name change to include all of the Local Government Areas in the Hunter Region.

In our earlier submission we wished to show how the $100million dollars directed to Honeysuckle under the Building Better Cities Initiative of the Commonwealth Government in 1993 was allowed to be misdirected by an endemic bias against the provision of rail services to historic Newcastle. The Corporation had continually denigrated the importance of rail services to the City and allowed the removal of three pedestrian overpasses and two at-grade controlled vehicular and pedestrian crossings in their development area whilst at the same time complaining that the rail services created a barrier. The 1993 Honeysuckle Scheme proposed the construction of a road over bridge across the rail at the Stewart Avenue. This bridge should have been constructed using Building Better Cities Funds but was not.

Furthermore we believe that the HDC did not fully achieve the purpose of the $100million dollar Building Better Cities Program which was ‘to promote improvements in the efficiency, equity and sustainability of Australian cities and to increase their capacity to meet the following objectives: economic growth and micro-economic reform; improved social justice; institutional reform; ecologically sustainable development; and improved urban environments and more liveable cities’.

Any new passenger transport funding initiative from the Commonwealth Government should be clearly directed to genuine transit orientated development and funds should not be used for removal of rail infrastructure or degrade the provision of passenger rail services to Newcastle as proposed by HDC Report to the NSW Government March 2009.

The Newcastle City Centre Renewal Report prepared by the HDC March 2009 is clearly biased against the provision of rail services to Newcastle:

* It is not fair in that it denies social justice to public transport users and those that rely on passenger Rail services.

* It is arbitrary in its promotion of the construction of a new transport interchange at Wickham for its development without proper regard to the wider region and the already proposed interchange for Glendale in the Lake Macquarie Local Government area which is more central to the lower hunter urban area and on the main line.

* The Parsons Brinckerhoff Identification of Preferred Scheme used to justify the general recommendation to cut passenger rail services to Newcastle is wrong in claiming Railcorp policy on level crossings (page 9) means that no new crossing for vehicles or pedestrians can be built to replace those removed. We are not aware of any policy that would prevent the construction of controlled railway crossings in NSW.

* HDC frails to promote Ecological Sustainable Development by their failure to support the continued provision of passenger rail services to historic Newcastle.

* The argument that the railway is a barrier to linking of the CBD to the harbour cannot be sustained because it is the HDC that has allowed the removal of crossing in their original Growth Centre Area and has not promoted their replacement.

* The HDC Report is dominated by unsubstantiated claims blaming the Newcastle railway as a straw man argument. It claims to promote an integrated transport concept which it also denies by its lopsided and narrow focus against passenger rail services to Newcastle

Future urban development will need to be based around sustainable innovation and increased efficiency that replace oil and herald a renewable green and polycentric City. The transport options that support this new resilient urban pattern will have to be new electric passenger rail services for fast cross and inter-city movement and a series of small scale electric bus and hybrid electric vehicles and a resurgence of cycling and walking.

The HDC Report sadly takes the wrong and arbitrary attitude to the future of passenger rail services to Newcastle and should not accepted as a base for Commonwealth funding.

The Parks and Playgrounds Movement would be pleased to provide the Inquiry with documentation and oral evidence if called to the public hearings.

We trust that the inquiry will give weight to our submissions in its report to Parliament.



Yours Faithfully,
Doug Lithgow Freeman of the City of Newcastle
President of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement Inc.


Below is our February Submission


Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia



Dear Sir,

Inquiry into the investment of Commonwealth and State funds in public passenger transport infrastructure and services.

The Parks and Playgrounds Movement is a community organisation established in the early 1930s. Its secretary was the C E W Bean, the historian, lawyer and journalist. It was brought to Newcastle in 1952 by R.E. Farrell, and continues the work to safeguard our Natural and Cultural Heritage. The Movement’s early work included the protection of the openspace provisions of the 1952 Northumberland County District Town and Country Planning Scheme.

Parks and Playgrounds Movement has been deeply concerned at the way funds from the Building Better Cities Initiative of the Commonwealth Government were allowed to be misdirected by the NSW State Government with respect to the Honeysuckle Development Corporation at Central Honeysuckle Newcastle.

We are totally opposed to the misdirected activities of the Honeysuckle Development Corporation over the past 15 years in continually denigrating the importance of rail access to the City and for allowing the removal of 3 pedestrian overpasses and 2 road crossings in their development and the current outrageous push to have the commonwealth fund the removal of direct railway access to historic Newcastle.

The Honeysuckle Approved Scheme 1993 adopted under the NSW Growth Centres Act of 1974 was flawed in that it did not acknowledge and blend with the 1988 Bicentennial harbour foreshore work which was partly funded by the a Commonwealth Grants used to implement features of the Winning Design from the International Competition that informed the Newcastle Harbour Foreshore Landscape and Urban Design which was published in 1982. The Competition was assessed by a team of noted Architects and landscape Consultants lead by Lawrence Halprin the internationally renowned Landscape Architect and Urban Designer of San Francisco.

The principal characteristic of the Foreshore design was the landscaped rail corridor providing a uniquely attractive rail entrance direct to the Historic Newcastle Railway Station.

The Movement would be pleased to present evidence to the Senate Standing Committee outlining why and how future funding can be properly targeted to improving all aspects to the railway access to historic Newcastle and promote historic Newcastle as a destination. We are adamant that commonwealth MUST NOT USE scarce public funds to further debilitate public railway access to Newcastle from its hinterland and the Central Coast and Sydney.

The enclosed essays are provided to demonstrate the Movement’s attitude to this issue and its opinion that Newcastle’s 150 year rail access and distinctive railway station is a boon to the city of Newcastle and can be integrated with future transit orientated development of the region.

Yours Faithfully,

Doug Lithgow Freeman of the City of Newcastle
President of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement Inc.