At the July meeting, the following motions passed:
That the Alexandria Residents’ Action Group opposes the WestConnex project and supports the call for:
(i) The release of the full business case;
(ii) A halt to the tender process for the new M5 and M4 East; and
(iii) A parliamentary inquiry into WestConnex
ARAG members call on the City of Sydney to pursue an Interim Heritage Order for the Alexandria Hotel as a matter of urgency.
There are two new developments.
Because council took longer than 40 days to approve/reject their DA, the developer has the right to not wait and see if council will approve the application – they can instead go to the Land and Environment Court. And they have done so. It’s not clear how this will play out. The Court can overrule Council, but given that the DA appears clearly non-compliant in several areas, most obviously height, it’s not clear what will happen.
AND, an Interim Heritage Order has been issued: http://www.gazette.legislation.nsw.gov.au/so/download.w3p?id=Gazette_2015_2015-63.pdf
This doesn’t guarantee heritage protection for the Pub, but it does allow up to six months for a proper assessment of heritage to take place, which on the face of it, would seem likely to mean that heritage protection is now a real possibility.
The June 2015 meeting of the Alexandria Residents’ Action Group unanimously passed a motion in support of the City of Sydney in its fight against forced local council amalgamations that are being proposed by the NSW State Government.
The motion was carried unanimously.
A copy of our submission to IPART ‘Fit for the Future’ can be found here.
The City of Sydney has extended the exhibition period for the Alexandria Hotel until the 21st of July. If you haven’t lodged an objection yet, it’s not too late.
Ron Hoenig (the Labor member for Heffron) has prepared a sample objection you might like to use (for inspiration). He has also released a press release calling on the Minister for Heritage to act, and he also has an online petition you might want to sign.
To lodge an objection to a Development Application (also known as a DA), you need to write to Council explaining what is wrong with the DA – in your own words. Objections can be as short or as long as you like.
It is acceptable to simply explain how a development is going to make an area less pleasant to live in. (Planners call this ‘amenity’).
The best objections drill into the documents in the Development Application and point out where they are incomplete, or misleading, or plain wrong. All the documents will be online until the close of submissions.
You must respond by the closing date for submissions. You must include your full name and address, the relevant Development Application number and the site address.
You can email your objection to dasubmissions@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au or you can post it to council at “City of Sydney, GPO Box 1591, Sydney NSW 2001″.
For the Alexandria Hotel DA, the DA number is “Application Number D/2015/772” and the site address is “35 Henderson Road EVELEIGH NSW 2015”.
There is a list of documents at http://development.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/DAsOnExhibition/details.asp?tpk=1204858.
The Statement of Environmental Effects (known as the SoEE) is often good place to start because it contains both the rules the DA will be judged against, and a statement of whether or not the DA complies with each rule. (Sometimes they’re rules, sometimes they guidelines.) The Heritage Report often makes for very interesting reading. If you are interested in Disabled Access, check the Access Report. Floor plans (basement, ground, 1st, 2nd, 3rd), elevations (nth/sth & east/west) and montages (se, sw) can be good for helping you understand what a building is going to look like. Where buildings are hard up against each other, it’s usually worth checking the Shadow diagrams. Practically every document is useful to someone some of the time.
Note that _all_ of these links will break after the close of submissions – Council take all these documents down, so always get a copy of everything before then.
For the Alex, the closing date is currently the 14th of July, though we will try to get an extension the 21st of July (Council have granted an extension). So please get your objections in before then.
And when you send your submission, please also email the Councillors – otherwise the objection only goes to Council staff and Councillors don’t get to see your submission – which makes it harder for them to argue for you.
The Councillors’ email addresses are:
For more information, see http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/development/development-applications/comments-and-objections.
PS. You also have the option to submit your objection via https://www.planningalerts.org.au/. This has the advantage of letting other people see your objection, and lets you see what other people are saying.
Planningalerts.org can also send you email notifications of future DAs near you. This is well worth doing – Council are only required to notify you of a DA if it within 50m – practically nothing. And if you do see something, make sure to talk to your neighbours, or letterbox them, because odds are that otherwise they won’t realise what’s happening until it’s too late to react.
The agenda for the July ARAG meeting is:
The meeting will start at 7pm, Wednesday the 8th, at Alexandria Town Hall, 73 Garden St, Alexandria.
Alexandria Residents' Action Group 