This is a copy of the covering letter of the Rhodes Peninsula Group to DUAP in response to the exhibition of draft Community Development, Transport Management and Development Control Plans over the Christmas Holiday Period 2000-2001. DUAP declined the request of the Council of the City of Canada Bay for an extension to 1 March (and allowed only 1 week to 8 February)

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RHODES PENINSULA GROUP

29 January 2001

Project Officer  
Rhodes Peninsula Planning Team  
Department of Urban Affairs and Planning  
26-32 Pyrmont Bridge Rd  
PYRMONT  NSW  2009

Comments on the Drafts of the Development Control Plan (DCP),  
the Traffic Management Plan (TMP) and the Community Development Plan (CDP)  
for the Rhodes Peninsula Development

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the above Rhodes Peninsula Development planning documents.

The Rhodes Peninsula Group (RPG) was established in March 1999 at the suggestion of our local State MP, Mr John Murray, at a public meeting attended by a large number of local residents who expressed concern over this development.

The RPG believes that it is very important that the impacts associated with this development be thoroughly assessed and addressed prior to the finalisation of this planning stage. Failure to mitigate the impacts will result in much inconvenience and loss of amenity, not only to the local community but the large number of people visiting or passing through this area.

DUAP seems keen to make the Rhodes Peninsula development an example of how the compact cities principles can be successfully applied. Equally the community, especially the local community, has a right to know how this experiment will impact on the existing infrastructure and what plans are in place to address this impact. The RPG has been unable to obtain a State Government commitment to ensuring the necessary infrastructure will be provided; the usual “she’ll be right mate” response is not sufficient.

Accordingly, the RPG is very concerned that these draft plans, in particular the TMP and CDP, fail to assess the impacts and provide details of how any shortfalls in community amenities, and transport infrastructure will be remedied and at what cost.

We have appended three attachments containing detailed comments and questions on each of the draft plans. In summary our main concerns are:

Draft Development Control Plan

The open space is totally inadequate, especially for an apartment-only development, the ratio of open space to population being only about one third of that which currently exists in the Concord area.

The high-rise conflicts with the existing “face” of Concord. The higher buildings being located along the ridge-line may improve views for the residents but impact greatly on the aspect from the river.

The Plan fails to provide an effective riparian protection zone as included in the Government’s Rivers and Estuaries Policy.

Draft Transport Management Plan

The draft plan is littered with discrepancies, errors, and totally insufficient explanation of how crucial figures are derived making a full assessment of the draft impossible.

The transport situation associated with this development is a huge constraint for this site. This draft plan fails to correctly estimate the impacts of the development on the transport system and to identify the works necessary to mitigate those impacts. It should be noted that each day the equivalent of over 3% of Sydney’s population travels over Ryde Bridge.

The proposed traffic improvements are totally inadequate. In particular, the Averill St intersection goes from a “no delay” intersection to “near capacity” (in fact, very close to “at capacity”) due solely to the Rhodes developments. The draft Transport “Management” Plan identifies such critical problems with the initial proposed intersection improvements yet doesn’t investigate any necessary works to address this situation.

There are many significant assumptions made in this study which go against current trends, in particular, the transport modal split percentages and the background growth. The study is inadequate if it doesn’t include a sensitivity study of the impact of a range of values for the modal targets and background growth.

Given the extent of very dubious content in this draft Plan it is considered essential that the draft be redone then re-issued as a second draft with a further exhibition period.

Draft Community Development Plan

Whilst the draft CDP attempts to identify the community facilities and essential services available to the future residents, it fails to determine the existing capacity, estimate the additional demand and the cost of meeting that demand.

The RPG believes the inclusion of many services north of the river does not agree with the habits of existing Rhodes residents and that the 2kms radius is wrongly applied.

The demographics of future residents may differ significantly from existing residents and hence services other than those provided in the listed directories need to be examined.

The CDP fails to take into account the additional load on facilities by other nearby medium/high density developments.

The Planning Framework ignores many policy documents, legislation and decisions of statutory bodies and recommendations of government sponsored bodies which apply to the Rhodes Peninsula or surrounding areas.

The conclusions reached in the document are unsustainable given the fundamental flaws, errors and omissions described in the detailed comments attached. Like the draft TMP it is considered essential that the draft CDP be redone then re-issued as a second draft with a further exhibition period.

You will appreciate that because of the importance of this project to the general community, the RPG members have invested a significant amount of time to provide constructive criticism of these draft plans. Despite this it has been impossible to fully comment on these documents, given the large number of errors, contradictions and unexplained assumptions in the draft TMP and CDP. Further, an attempt to receive clarification of some figures in the TMP during the exhibition period was ignored by both the consultant and DUAP.

Recently Ms Holliday was quoted as encouraging the local community to make submissions on these plans. However, we believe DUAP has seriously stifled local input to these plans by:

·        failing to appoint a community representative to the Steering Committee,

·        producing very substandard drafts especially the TMP and CDP,

·        arranging the exhibition period of the plans to close just after the end of school holidays therefore making it difficult for the community to meet and discuss their content,

·        failing to hold a public meeting to discuss the conclusions despite many local residents spending many nights assisting DUAP in initiating these plans and then being given only limited access to the draft plans, and

·        by failing to provide a preliminary draft of this defective TMP to the RPG when available (apparently early September 2000) despite several requests by the RPG. The multitude of significant problems with the TMP identified by the RPG may thus have been resolved prior to the embarrassing exhibition of the draft.

Considering all the above, we expect to receive answers to all of the questions and issues raised in our submission including the three attachments. We look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

 (all signed)

for and on behalf of the Rhodes Peninsula Group