Here is a collection of letters to the editor by Frank Scahill relating to the Jetty Foreshore
240715
Dear NOTA
A poll running alongside the Council elections in September will give the residents of Coffs Harbour, for the first time, a formal say on the State Government’s proposal to sell off their land holdings at the Jetty foreshore to a private developer.
The opponents of this plan are often belittled as being of an older generation. Maybe they can remember thirty years plus of venal governments trying to soft soap us into agreeing to this outrageous sell-off of priceless public land. The only difference this time is the slickness of their taxpayer funded marketing campaign. Each time they have been thwarted by the blatant unsuitability of the land for mass residential development and push back from the people of Coffs. Many older citizens undoubtedly also recall that the Bjelke Petersen Government was determined to sell off the Expo 88 site for commercial development and their plan foundered solely on the rock of mass public opposition. This land is now Southbank, the community heart of Brisbane and its greatest tourist attraction. Exactly what the Jetty fore shore should be for us.
We can only hope the people of Coffs stand up once again in September and, for the future of their city, say NO to this unconscionable and relentless try-on.
Frank Scahill
9 Moore Street
0412 626 728
27th May 2024
Subject: Lessons from Barangaroo
Dear News of the Area
Residents of Coffs Harbour should realize that if the State Government sells its foreshore land to a development corporation what we get in the tin will not be what was on the label. Building projects in Coffs are usually monitored by the City Council as the consent authority. The project must conform to the approved plans, which in turn must comply with prescribed planning controls. This process will not prevail at the foreshore. The Government will declare the project to be “state significant’. This shifts the consent authority from the Council to itself. There will be no local control over the evolution of the project whatsoever.
And evolve it will. Neither the developer nor the Government is obliged to comply with the present proposal. The developer’s only obligation is a legal one to act in the interests of its shareholders. It is free to negotiate modifications with the government as it sees fit, and the Government from day one has shown an unshakable determination only to maximise the monetary value of its land holding by rezoning it from Public Recreation to Residential.
The foreshore is not an easy place to build multi storey buildings. The mooted basement parking to all buildings will entail building below the water table. Possible but expensive. The ground is largely contaminated fill requiring remediation. The present road network is embryonic and the utilities infrastructure (water, sewer, power) virtually non-existent. All these on-costs will be horse traded with the Government for concessions on number, density, height and bulk of buildings. The Government, with its cheque banked and politically anxious to have the project done and dusted will agree.
If anybody doubts this will happen I refer them to the history of the Barangaroo development on Sydney harbour. A government undertaking to “revitalize” Sydney’s outdated industrial waterfront turned into a prodigious cash cow for the developer (who now owns the central commercial towers outright) and a retirement village for the super-rich. In the words of Philip Thalis, the architect of the original award winning scheme who has since scathingly disowned it “it stands as an enclave of exploitation, the triumph of private greed over public benefit.”
Frank Scahill
9 Moore Street.
Dear Editor
Minister Jackson says that she will ensure 30% of the proposed development at the Jetty will be affordable housing. History says this won’t happen. The time honoured form is for the glossy brochures and politicians’ promises to precede a zoning change of the land in question which enormously enhances its value. The land is then sold immediately to the highest bidding corporate developer to actually carry out the work. The developer, with legal obligations to shareholders but none whatsoever to the community, discovers ruefully that modifications to the concept plan will have to be made in the interests of financial viability (Public space and affordable housing are always the first babies overboard). The overseeing Consent Authority is the State Government which has just cashed the developers large cheque. They, just as ruefully, accept the modifications.
If the State Government successfully rezones its land at the Jetty only two things are certain; this vital public land will be lost to the public forever and affordable housing will be built east of the railway line when Hell freezes over.
Frank Scahill
25th February 2024
Subject: Free camping to Free parking.
Dear Editor
The State Government has been betting that if it neglects its responsibility to maintain the “free camping ground” at the Jetty long enough, the area will become sufficiently squalid to have residents begging for development just to clean up the mess. Martyn Yeomans’ letter to NOTA last week suggests this cynical ploy is bearing fruit. Martyn is half right. The railway land south of Marina Drive should be opened up as a natural extension of the existing foreshore park, but to solve this confected free camping issue by handing a large tract of coastal land zoned for public recreation over to property developers is pretty dramatic overkill. This irrevocable surrendering of public land would benefit no one but the State Treasury and the lucky developer who lands the project. There is nothing in it for Coffs Harbour. Indeed, the proposed development would exacerbate the present traffic and parking issues at the Jetty creating far more problems than it resolves.
The land is already used for informal overflow parking. If it were to be formalised, sealed and landscaped as a broad area parking facility under Council administration the Jetty’s parking and free camping problems would be solved at a stroke.
The Government could then avail itself of the Council’s offer of CBD land ideally situated and appropriately zoned for affordable housing (which they constantly assure us is where their heart really is!) The city might even end up with land usage determined by rational planning decisions rather than the machinations of corporate developers and politicians.
Frank Scahill
6th March 2023
Subject: Latest foreshore policy
Dear Nota
Good to see that with an election imminent the State Government has abandoned its policy of selling off public assets to fund infrastructure development. As this is precisely the funding model and prime driver of Gurmesh Singh’s proposed foreshore development he owes the electorate a clarification of what they will now be voting on.
Mr Singh might also clarify that when he constantly refers to “some built form” at the foreshore he actually means two, four and six storey buildings of all types. He means, in fact, the opening up of the Jetty foreshore to general urban development.
Frank Scahill
14th February 2023
Dear Editor
I’ve done it again. I notice I made a small but important mis-description in my previous letter to you and would really appreciate it if you consider the following to be my offer for publication. Thank you.
Congratulations to Bruce Fidge (NOTA letters 10/2) for his informed insider’s account of the decades long struggle to save the harbour foreshores from extensive urban development. It was recognised by government forty years ago that substantial development East of the railway line was not feasible without an overpass replacing the railway level crossing to cope with increased traffic. The present State Government and its local agent Gurmesh Singh now dismiss this concern out of hand in their determination to urbanise that precious parcel of railway land to the maximum regardless of any and all negative impacts on the city. Apparently the prospect of the entire Jetty area becoming a traffic tangled nightmare no longer troubles our elected representative in his eagerness to implement this Government’s Sydney hatched grand planning strategy.
Bruce points out that the government has been putting up these development proposals for forty years in the face of entrenched community and Council opposition. The only difference this time round is that they think the use of industrial grade spin, hype and cunningly engineered polling can convince us that this is what we really want. Let’s hope that the only poll that really matters proves them wrong yet again.
Regards
Frank Scahill
Subject: Revision?
Dear NOTA
The big problem with the revised plan for the Jetty is that it’s not much of a revision at all. For all the spin and assurances of community consultation the objective of the State Government since its initial briefing of GHD has been the urbanisation of that railway land to the maximum that it can get away with. Despite the revised plan rating this intention last out of eleven “key drivers”, and despite the Council’s insistence the land remain as public recreation, this objective is still central to the revised plan.
On its own initiative the State Government is already building a restaurant posing as a community building at the beach end of the Jetty walkway. To get an idea of this government’s “vision” for the foreshore, the citizens of Coffs should consider the scale and character of this building and then imagine the walkway bookended at the other end with two 6 storey buildings. These buildings are proposed to step down to 4 storeys either side, extending to the North across Marina Drive and along the railway line as apartments and Southward to a proposed “business activity hub”(shopping centre) opposite the railway station. (Sydney planners can’t see a railway station without wanting to activate it to serve the teeming commuters.) South of this the plan allows for further potential two storey accommodation.
Contemptuous of the Council’s expressed concerns and obviously anticipating further resistance, the government notes in this revision that it intends to lodge the necessary rezoning proposal directly with the Department of Planning and Environment. They appear to be well on the way to overriding the council’s authority completely.
Frank Scahill
12th December 2022
Subject: The big election issue
Dear NOTA
The Council has now made its position on development of the foreshores crystal clear. Last week, in its capacity as the city’s consent authority, it passed a clear majority decision not to support any residential development East of the railway line. The onus is now on Gurmesh Singh to make the government’s position just as clear. Either their foreshore development proposal needs to be amended appropriately and resubmitted or their position otherwise made clear to the electorate. Gurmesh, presumably waiting on advice from head office, is already past his last promised delivery date for the revised scheme and any further stalling can only be interpreted as an unwillingness to fight the election on this issue. With campaigning for the election already under way and the stakes for the future of the city so high the voters of Coffs Harbour have the right to know where all the candidates, party and independent, stand on keeping that foreshore land, the jewel in the city’s crown, in public ownership.
Frank Scahill
Dear NOTA
Cath Fowler’s derision of mayor Amos’s community plan for the Jetty Foreshores in last week’s NOTA misses the point entirely. The proposal is not about resolution of detail but about addressing the big question which has always bedevilled the foreshores debate: should that priceless harbour-side real estate be developed as a community asset or for commercial profit. The NSW government, whose plan Ms. Fowler so strongly advocates for, assumed this question settled to their advantage from the beginning and have since used the trappings of a consultative process to justify an unwavering determination to develop their railway land for private apartments
Ms. Fowler spruiks the survey as proof of community support. Many opponents of the plan felt incapable of completing this survey without feeling railroaded into its support. I, for one, took every opportunity the structure of the survey afforded me to express my total opposition to residential development and still felt that Gurmesh Singh could count me as generally supportive of his plan.
Not all of Ms. Fowler’s fellow PSAC members are as happy with the consultative process as she is. Others (obviously including the mayor) have been less than impressed, if not dismayed, by the government’s response to their input.
The Council, as consent authority, has rightly brought these issues to the government’s attention by rejecting the plan and presenting Coffs Harbour residents with an alternative residential-free conceptual vision. Let’s hope that a revised government submission arrives in plenty of time for public consideration before the March election.
Frank Scahill
16th September 2022
Dear NOTA
As the most successful tourist town on the coast by a country mile, Byron Bay seems to have everything Gurmesh Singh aspires to for the Jetty without having to top all their cafes, bars and restaurants with several levels of private apartments in order to achieve economic viability. If we have to have a model for the City’s development, I’m sure the citizens of Coffs would prefer a Byron model to that of Port Macquarie. As Gurmesh concedes that Coffs residents are in broad agreement on development at the foreshore, let’s just ditch the contentious private residential component and move forward with true community consensus.
Frank Scahill
12th September
Dear NOTA
Considering their financial interest in developing the railway land at the Jetty to the maximum the State government’s interpretation of their community survey is open to question but there is no doubt about their track record on foreshore development. Residents inclined to accept Gurmesh Singh’s assurances regarding the proposed scale of development on the land in question (currently zoned for public recreation) should recall that James Packer’s Barangaroo casino was built on land promised to the people of Sydney by this government as a public park. This colossal breach of faith required the City Council to be replaced as the consent authority by the State Government itself. This government has already set itself at odds with our Council over the long term vision for the foreshore so we have no reason to expect them not to resort to this strategy again if given the chance.
Regards
Frank Scahill
15th August 2022
Dear News of the Area
Gurmesh Singh continues to characterise all opponents of the State Government’s plan for the foreshores as an anti-progress brigade incapable of constructive input. Every single letter writer in last week’s NOTA taking issue with Gurmesh declared their desire to see the foreshores creatively developed as quality public space including landscaping and built amenities. The sticking point for everyone (as Gurmesh well knows) is his government’s proposal to develop private apartments on land east of the railway line presently zoned for public recreation. For the government to persist in this wilful misinterpretation of the facts to advance their own ends is an insult to thousands of concerned Coffs citizens. As for the effect of their proposal on tourism, what are visitors more likely to come to Coffs to see? A world class multi-functional coastal park integrated into and enhancing the life of a growing community or another row of glassy apartments for rich retirees fronted by a tastefully landscaped nature strip.
Regards
Frank Scahill
9th May 2022
Dear editor
The NSW State Government in its draft masterplan for the jetty foreshore professes to be “not developing the precinct for profit”. However, the private developer it intends to sell the railway land to will be driven by nothing but profit. If history is anything to go by the developer’s first move will be to attempt to increase their commercial return with a concerted attack on the height, bulk and density provisions of the plan. When the government’s “preferred developer” at the Barangaroo foreshores project tried this in Sydney the City Council rejected all their proposals only to be dismissed as the consent authority by the government. The Department of Planning then accepted the developer’s amendments root and branch, including the proposal of a mega casino for James Packer
The final development bears little resemblance to the original concept, private interests and those of shareholders trumping public interest at every turn. What was previously public land has become, in the words of the chief architect of the original prize winning scheme, an “enclave of privilege”.
I see no reason why the government will not treat us in the same cavalier fashion. I for one would prefer to see continued Council management of the foreshores with incremental improvements over time.
Frank Scahill
