90% of CoFA's students and staff crammed into one building

That's the UNSW plan for the 27 months of demolition – excavation – construction.

But it wasn't always so. With the 2008 DA Council approved plan, it was intended to move substantially more students and staff to another site - UNSW in Randwick. Although they've never explicitly said how many were to be moved, it's suggested to have been half the campus, or more. Gosh, wouldn't that be great!

The local community welcomed the redevelopment, so long as it was in accord with the 2008 DA which protected the residential amenity. But since CoFA's and UNSW's backflip, we see that they're not only acting in complete disregard of the residents, but also they're acting in a neglectful and careless manner with their students and staff. We have already written about how we bear the students no grudge, which applies equally to the staff.

In fact, we feel sorry for the students and staff, in particular, those students who will have to study and attend classes in a bombsite for nigh on three years. For some, this will be the complete term of their studies. 

It would've been nice to have been informed of this, right students? Even though CoFA & UNSW planned the restart of the development (and relocation) as far back as September 2009 (perhaps even further back), they didn't update their website until late November did they? ... after the close-off date for University applications. So students couldn't change to another University, they were locked in to CoFA. Within a day of the applications being closed off the website was updated. Now that's some coincidence!

What's more, there's an empty, custom-built, modern art school building just past Flinders Street that could be used to relocate hundreds of students. CoFA and UNSW have ignored this, they'd far rather cram as-many-students-and-staff-as-possible into one building, violate their promises to the community, and spurn the Council brokered compromise.

This really is a very sorry affair ... don't you think?

We're in Streetcorner!!

Streetcorner is a community news site and we're in it!
Take a look at the story "UNSW destroying relationship with residents over COFA redevelopment backflips" and make sure you leave a comment.
To see other pictures from around here and get an idea of what little regard COFA + UNSW have for the residential amenity, take a look at our Remembrances story.

About Streetcorner.com.au:
"It’s a place where locals matter.
You can participate by writing your own stories, post pictures and video about almost anything local – people, arts, environment, development, sports, parenting and health."

Sounds good n'est pas?

Global Guru prizes

Excellent news good people - yes - we have prizes for our Global Guru (Local Hero) game! It's going to be a-amaz-ing, y'know?

READ ON TO FIND OUT MORE...

Truck Off COFA (+ UNSW) - Global Reach

You know what? Here at Truck Off COFA (+ UNSW) we're a global lot. So it'll be no surprise to you that we think local, and act global.
Yessiree Bob. And Chantal. And Mohammed, Ahladita, William and Nadia.

Our little bloglette has gone far and wide. This map shows our visitors over the last month.

Why don't we see if we can get an even greater global coverage? There are whole sub-continents that haven't experienced the joy and bonhomie of our little offering! Obviously, China could be a big growth market for us, as could the other 'BRIC' countries - Brazil, Russia and India. What about Turkey, Africa, Algeria and Saudi Arabia? Malaysia and Burma? Peru and Chile? Botswana? Indonesia and Papua New Guinea? Wouldn't it be great if we could get hits from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Let's make it a challenge! It'll be such good fun!  Read on...

UNSW explains why Council approved truck routes are 'unfeasible'

UNSW construction managers at work. Thinking, thinking, thinking...

OMG!! Britney’s moved in next door!!

Once upon a time UNSW had a construction traffic management plan.

Then it had another one. And another one. Then it sort of went back to the first one. Then it changed its mind, and sat about fiddling with itself for a bit. And then it came up with a new one – ish.

Not a new and improved one, mind. That would require too much actual thought and…er…what’s the word I’m searching for? Ah, yes…planning. No. This plan was a total balls-up plan.

Councillor Chris Harris cites UNSW for 'poor form'

From City of Sydney Councillor, Chris Harris...

Residents furious at CoFA backflip April 19th, 2010

It seemed like the battle of the CoFA development was over but the University of NSW has turned its back on the community once again. In my previous post on this topic I discussed how City of Sydney Council had reached a compromise agreement between Paddington residents and the University about the streets trucks would use during the contruction and when they would use them. What seemed like a victory for local residents and for good faith negotiations was, however, sadly short lived.

Much to the anger of the local community UNSW have now decided that they are unhappy with the agreed traffic management plan and are applying to the Department of Planning to have Council stripped of it’s power to make traffic management decisions about the site. This is poor form on the part of UNSW but also serves to highlight the broader issue of the pro-developer bias in the NSW planning system.

The notorious Part 3A powers of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, enacted by state parliament in 2005 when both the Labor and Liberal parties voted in favour of them, allow the planning Minister to usurp a Council’s powers to approve developments. The effect of Part 3A is that developments that are totally opposed by the communities most affected by them have a much greater chance of getting approved - especially if the proponent of the development is a donor to one of the major political parties.

I will be doing all I can to make sure the Department of Planning does not overturn the months of negotiations that went into developing the current traffic management plan. But this is only one battle in the ongoing war that my Greens collegues in state parliment have been fighting for many years against a highly flawed and unbalanced planning system.

COFA + UNSW indifferent to students and a bully says MP

NSW Parliament, 21 April 2010

Ms SYLVIA HALE [9.24 p.m.]: 
"Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act is notorious. It allows the Minister for Planning to usurp a council's powers to determine developments in a council's area if the Minister decrees that the project is a major development or a development of State significance. Part 3A has allowed the Government to ruthlessly approve development applications that are totally opposed by the communities most affected by them. Needless to say, the chances of obtaining approval are infinitely greater if the applicant is a donor to the Australian Labor Party.

"The following are two examples of how part 3A is being used to ride roughshod over community concerns, environmental issues and the fundamentals of any democratic process. The first is the redevelopment of the College of Fine Arts site in Paddington by the University of New South Wales. No-one denies that existing conditions for staff and students are intolerable and that the site needs to be redeveloped. What is unacceptable, however, is the approval process. One of the main concerns voiced by local residents is that construction will take more than two years to complete.

COFA/UNSW want 27 months of residential trucks

What the earlier post below (Lord Mayor on UNSW and potential delays for COFA development) means –
COFA and UNSW want to ignore the Council's March 2010 compromise traffic plan and have asked the NSW Department of Planning to do, what will effectively, reverse the Statement of Commitments that underpinned the 2008 Development Approval.

Put simply, COFA and UNSW want their trucks using residential streets for the complete 27 months – Josephson Street, Selwyn Street, Albion Avenue and Napier Streets. This is all three residential sides of the campus!!

What can you do? Voice your opposition!!
We've made it simple.
Copy between the dotted lines (below), then click HERE to email all the NSW State people, and paste your objection.
------------------------------------------------------
I strongly object to:
1. The removal of the City Council’s approval powers
2. The use of residential streets for truck access for the full 27 months

And would like to point out:
3. The delays in starting are completely under COFA/UNSW’s control
4. That COFA/UNSW shown a lack of transparency in community consultations and are misrepresenting the facts.
5. The Council brokered compromise from March 2010 was deemed reasonable by the community, even though it had significant impact on Napier St residents and allowed truck access for light strip-out
------------------------------------------------------
Do it as quickly as possible as the decision is due very soon (perhaps even tomorrow!).

What else can you do? Get everyone in the house to send a separate email so that the NSW Government people are inundated.
Once you've done that – you can also become a follower – the more people the better – by going over to the right hand side of the webpage and clicking "Follow". You can also click on "Tweet this" if you're a Twitterer, or the Facebook Icon if you're a Facebooker.

Lord Mayor on UNSW and potential delays for COFA development

The redevelopment of the UNSW Sydney College of Fine Arts (CoFA) is under threat, with the State Government expected to remove the community from the planning process and re-examine already approved construction traffic conditions for the site under Part 3A planning powers.

The Department of Planning is looking to remove Council's Construction Traffic Plan approval for the site's redevelopment in Paddington. This action to remove the City's approval powers for CoFA will unnecessarily hold up progress on this important site and create significant local unrest. The City of Sydney must remain the approval authority for CoFA.

The Council's approved Plan provides a solution to enable CoFA's redevelopment while minimising impacts on local residents and businesses. I am concerned that if the Department of Planning reviews the approved Construction Traffic Management Plan (CTMP) it will seriously impact on CoFA's tight time frames and potentially jeopardise its stimulus funding.

The Council Plan allows construction traffic to use the Council owned Napier Street road closure adjacent to CoFA, to minimise traffic impacts on nearby residential streets. Residents who previously were originally strongly and actively opposed to CoFA's redevelopment had told me they were satisfied with Council's traffic plan and would now support the redevelopment.

If the Department takes control and recommends changes from Council's approved Plan, local residents are likely to have significant concerns and lose confidence in CoFA's redevelopment process. The redevelopment works are essential for CoFA's continuing success and will provide vital facilities for students and the broader community.

If the development is reviewed the Department will also look at a number of other approvals required for CoFA's redevelopment including the Community Liaison Committee Terms of Reference.

Do a little dance....make a little love....get down tonight....

The video of KC and the Sunshine Band has been taken down.
It was inappropriate in its celebratory display. We apologise.

Whilst some of us are pleased that the recommendations are favourable to us - there are others in the community who are likely to be even worse off. In particular, those in Napier Street, who will have their pocket park ripped out, 27 months of truck mayhem, with the 4-5 months of excavation and shoring mooted to have 20-30 trucks per day.

This is still a unconscionable impost on the community. We must stridently object at the Traffic Committee meeting on Friday

The Latest The Latest The Latest!!

Just in via email from Michael Soo at the Council - these recommendations for the Traffic Committee Meeting.

The full set of recommendations can be downloaded from here.
We've just grabbed a couple of key points:

Recommendations from the Traffic Committee
B) That the Construction Traffic Management Plan be amended so that all demolition, excavation and construction phase traffic will enter and leave the site directly from/to Greens Road (which additionally includes access to Greens Road from the Council owned Napier Street road closure) except for vehicles required for works along the Selwyn Street frontage where access cannot be obtained from Green’s Road as noted in (C), and amended to reflect all other conditions.

With exceptions:
C) Exceptions to (B) include the delivery of fencing, hoardings, tree protections, screens, site establishment, bins/skips and equipment of light strip out and asbestos removal and the like for the buildings which are the subject of the redevelopment fronting Selwyn Street. These exceptions, including the occasional delivery and removal of equipment to demolish buildings, are permitted to be delivered and removed using Selwyn Street during the demolition phase only or via Josephson Street and Selwyn Street for equipment that cannot be delivered via the Napier Street road closure during all phases of work.

Naturally we'll need time to digest and discuss. But some of us are doing a little dance!

High Noon for COFA/UNSW

Sydney Traffic Committee - extraordinary meeting on Friday 12 March 2010
Construction Traffic Management Plan (CTMP) for the College of Fine Arts - Paddington

This an an extraordinary meeting specifically called to go over COFA/UNSW's latest CTMP and to hear our objections. Lets all go! There are rules if you want to speak, so read on...

Remembrances

Photo essay
(Click on the image to see it enlarged)
 

REMEMBER ME. BECAUSE IT'S ALL GOING TO CHANGE.

George Clarke Park – once a pretty place to have lunch.

There are four images altogether. 
Click on "Read more" below to see them all

We'd like to say thank you

Thank you one and all.
For your shared concern, your ideas, your work and your kind thoughts. And for all the letters and the hundreds of signatures on the petition.

Σας ευχαριστώ
Merci
Grazie
ありがとう
Gracias
Danke
당신을 감사하십시오
Вы
Obrigado
Dank u
谢谢

What do you think about COFA/UNSW's new plan?

Out of the mouths of:
– babes
– residents
– concerned citizens
– and cartoon characters.

We're in the Wenty again!

Click on image to enlarge

The Challenge

Our challenge is to get as many objections as possible to Council by this Friday, 5 March.

I ask you to support our neighbours – those who live in Albion Avenue, Selwyn Street, Greens Road and Napier Street.  But actually, all of us will be effected by the noise, vibrations, truck traffic and disruption, and destruction of pocket parks and gardened areas for more than 25 months.
How can you help? – there's two easy ways:

1. Send an email to the City Councillors – we've made it simple.
Just go to the contacts page - we've got a link that automatically puts all the email addresses into your email. There are four key points that'll make the council sit up and listen – we've listed them below.The smarty-pants people in the community say that we should all make a point of mentioning them.
To email all the councillors in one go, click HERE
Or go to the contacts page:
Contacts page link

2. Sign the petition
A petition will be circulated this week. Everyone in the house can sign.
We look forward to your support, it affects us all.

The 4 Key Points
CTMP stands for Construction Traffic Management Plan
1. The CTMP does not comply with statutory approvals already obtained.
2. The CTMP does not comply with commitments made by the UNSW.
3. The CTMP contradicts the entire basis on which the DA was negotiated by UNSW, Council and the Community.
4. The CTMP, if approved, imposes a huge impost on the well being and amenity of the adjoining residential area.

It really is crunch time now. So send the email. Get everyone in the house to sign the petition.
In fact - get everyone in the house to send a separate email too! And come back here often to check for developments.

Once you've done that – you can also become a follower – the more people the better – by going over to the right hand side of the webpage and clicking "Follow". You can also click on "Tweet this" if you're a Twitterer, or the Facebook Icon if you're a Facebooker. Cool huh?

UNSW mismanagement, well and truly trucked.

From humiliating financial bungling and loss of face in its failed Asian campus venture to a mortifying police probe into cadaver abuse at its medical school, the past three years have seen UNSW make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In 2007, some months after the macabre cadaver scandal erupted, the university was forced to make an embarrassing public apology to relatives of people whose donated bodies were allegedly inappropriately handled, sexually interfered with, and fondled by trainee surgeons.

A reminder. Dilapidation reports due 3 March.

Those of you who wish to have Dilapidation Reports done on your home, UNSW has advised us that these must be done by March 3. Dilapidation Reports are being carried out on those houses that surround the perimeter of the campus.

It's just a few trucks. What's your problem?

The psychology of lying

The capacity to lie is noted early and nearly universally in human development. Social psychology and developmental psychology are concerned with the theory of mind, which people employ to simulate another's reaction to their story and determine if a lie will be believable.

The most commonly cited milestone, what is known as Machiavellian intelligence, is at the age of about four and a half years, when children begin to be able to lie convincingly. Before this, they seem simply unable to comprehend why others don't see the same view of events that they do — and seem to assume that there is only one point of view, which is their own.

Thought for the day

Truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed; second it is opposed; and third it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

UNSW doing "all it can" to mitigate residential impacts

UNSW caught being economical with the truth - again

UNSW’s claim that it must break promises to protect residential amenity from truck movements due to student accommodation pressures have been blown out of the water.

Truck Off CoFA can reveal that UNSW was offered but declined use of a purpose-built design facility just down the road.

Oh look! A vacant design skool that COFA was offered but strangely declined.
By the way, it's still vacant and its owners are ready and willing to talk, CoFA.

The university has consistently stated that it has pursued all avenues to relocate its student numbers in order to fulfil its DA commitments to use the uninhabited Greens Road for construction access.

However representatives of a vacant design facility just a few hundred metres away have told Truck Off COFA that they offered the large six-storey professional school building to UNSW in 2009. The university said it was not interested.

How COFA vandals plan to trash the precinct

Here's Napier Street Park, a long-established street closure. 

CoFA & UNSW plans to rip it out to gain access for its trucks.
They plan to use this access, which is clearly within sight of Oxford Street, for 25 months. During the busiest 5 months, there'll be 40 truck movements per day - including Saturday.

CoFA plays space invaders!

From an observant resident

 Click on image to see larger size.

"Those who cannot remember the past Are condemned to repeat it." 
George Santyana, Philosopher

COFA Dean responds in the Wenty

Truck off COFA says: if Dean Howard says the truck route is only for demolition, how come it has applied to use and modify semi-pedestrian residential streets - including tearing out landscaped islands, an established public park, and making one-way streets two-way for itself only – for the entire 27-month development?

Riddle me that, Batman.

In memory of George Clarke: urbanist, activist, inquirer.

Formidable in intellect, resolute in his opinions, and at times, explosive with activist zeal, George Clarke was a man whose presence was always larger than life.

With his trademark bellow, perfectly rounded vowels and thick mop of unruly grey hair, there was nothing ordinary about George. Minutes into any divergent encounter, once George began to rake an impatient hand through his mane, you could feel his exasperation rising. His impervious demeanour was immune to puncture, and resistance was futile.

In his latter years, he had taken to charging about the streets in a pair of It-Ain’t-Half-Hot-Mum-style khaki army shorts and Ugg boots. And, if I may say, he still had a great set of pins for a man approaching or, possibly by then in his seventies. Not that I notice that sort of thing.

Which phobia is that?

Thassophobia is the fear of sitting.
Papyrophobia is the fear of paper.
Ecophobia is the fear of home.
Euphobia is the fear of hearing good news.
Cofaphobia is the fear of trucks rumbling through a heritage precinct.

Light friday afternoon 'truckywood' relief

Fud for thought

Mitigation? Hmmm ... sounds like a good idea ... or does it ...?

New consultant joins COFA team

It's easy to leave a comment. We'll show you how.

When we wander around the streets of our sleepy little hollow, we like to stop and chat. Much of the chat, of late, has been about trucks and what we can do about them. Often, we share a laugh about the latest thing on the blog.

Occasionally, our friends and neighbours express confusion about the blog. How do they make a comment? It seems all Goggle-password-this and OpenID-that. Besides, we don't all have a suite of techno trousers in our closets and the interwebs is a strange and foreign land to some.

Well, we're here to show you how you can make a comment without all that stuff. You can even do it anonymously!

This is not my beautiful street! How did we get here?

Sometimes decisions made in our streets, in our cities and in our nation leave many of us scratching our heads and asking: Who decided that? What were they thinking? And, how on earth did we get to this dumb place?

Economist, Alfred E Kahn, may have a partial answer in what he called "the tyranny of small decisions". While Kahn was talking of market economics, these “small decision effects” apply equally to the wider environment in which we all live.

We see it all around us, from the gradual loss of Moore Park parklands through encroachment by commercial interests to the long-standing malnourishment blighting NSW’s public transport infrastructure. It's death by a thousand cuts.

Likewise, much of the current confusion and distress surrounding the COFA campus construction issues can possibly be traced to decisions that were never consciously made, but simply resulted from a series of small decisions, Kahn’s so-called tyranny.

Broadly, Kahn’s premise goes something like this...

The Fallout – Before and After

Doing a 'before and after' study is helpful. It helps us understand what is actually happening. And it's even better if it's done visually, because then everyone can see the difference, and everyone is 'on the same page'.

We've prepared a visual 'Before and After' of COFA & UNSW's plans.

Letter published in the Wentworth Courier

Wentworth Courier, page 39, 17 February issue.

"We ask that the council, the NSW Planning Minister and the Commonwealth funding body insist that UNSW honour its commitments and approvals. UNSW's self-made problems should not be dumped on the community"

The Wenty is also available  in "page flicking" format here. Just close the ad window by clicking close [x] in the right hand corner, then click through to page 38-39 to get to the Opinion page.

It would be nice if The Wenty also had these letters in a plain and simple old html page, don't you think?

And it appears as though we're not the only ones upset about trucks. Our friends in Rose Bay are also "fed up with their small streets being used as an access point for a construction site." See page 7 in the same issue of The Wenty. This time the redevelopment is for a school. Hmmmm.

Joke of the day

Q: How do you get thousands of trucks into a small heritage precinct?

A: You give Government stimulus money to COFA & UNSW...

We're in the Wenty!

 

We're in the Wentworth Courier – the front cover of the printed version – no less!

And the Wenty has gone digital, so the story is online, with comments - some good, some bad. Take a look and contribute to the conversation here.

Sorry about the time it's taken to post this up – but the meeting on Thursday night and the subsequent analysis of their 'community consultation' took quite some time. And besides, we had Daleks and Koalas to contend with first.