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.

This is a local road for local people!

The road to mistrust

As the incoming Obama administration readied for the White House, former senior Clinton advisors wrote a report: “Change You Can Believe In Needs a Government You Can Trust”. With public mistrust so high, they warned the new administration to move cautiously before pushing through any transformational agenda.

UNSW’s College of Fine Arts should have read it. UNSW’s big-bang approach to ramming residents with the construction fallout from the $50 million redevelopment of its COFA campus are pure hubris over commonsense.

Rather than building trust, COFA has inflated mistrust. Instead of building bridges, COFA planned an ambush. Once again the Community feels that COFA has no regard for their concerns, their fears or insecurities, leaving us disheartened and very, very angry.

Major "take-outs" from the Thursday meeting

In as straightfoward and dispassionate manner possible - here are the major takeouts from the Thursday meeting.

COFA + UNSW presented a new and more comprehensive Traffic Management Plan for Demolition, Excavation and Construction of COFA, in Paddington, prior to lodging with Council. This plan is for the whole duration of the project, 27 months, instead of just demolition, which is what their previous plan detailed.

'Community' Summary (a summary of the summary)

a) Albion Avenue and Selwyn Streets will get 27+ months of construction trucks
b) The east end of Napier St will get 25+ months of construction trucks 
c) The residential end of Greens Rd will get 27+ months of construction trucks
d) These are in breach of the DA commitments made to the NSW Director General in 2008

How was that for you, dear?

From a resident who attended the Thursday meeting at COFA

I don't know about you but I felt confused and a little bit unwell after the meeting.
I spoke to some of my neighbours the next day, and they were all saying the same thing – they felt, like me, that they'd been bruised, battered, pushed around and manhandled. That they'd been mistreated – grabbed, shoved and mauled.

And they wondered why?

What popular culture teaches us

Like many of my generation, much of my learning was done at the feet foot of the Television. Now, of course, televisions don't have feet foots, but there's still much to be learnt from the flickering images.

What follows is a photo-essay-homage-thingee with a moral lesson for us, our children and the whole blinkin' world.

EXTERMINATE!!! EXTERMINATE!!!

COFA & UNSW's trucks will exterminate any vestiges of good will in the local community as they ram their trucks through the residential streets.

UNSW response to our questions

Our community group posed several questions to UNSW Vice Chancellor, Fred Hilmer. Below in italic are the university's responses.

Great conga lines in history

Mention conga lines and most Australians recall fallen Labour leader Mark Latham’s gritty Liberal perjorative, a conga line of suckholes. For others, it may instead bring to mind the modern day tragedy that is the drunken wedding conga line, rendered doubly wretched if led by a cake-soaked and inebriated bride.

Here are a few lesser-known conga line facts:

Chicken Jokes 'R' Us

Q: Why did COFA + UNSW cross the road?

A: They didn't. They stood on the other side of the road, with their backs to us, 'high-five-ing' it with their ever increasing gaggle of $300/hour consultants.

COFA dreamt about us last night…

In the old British 70s sitcom, Open All Hours, the late comic genius, Ronnie Barker, uttered a line that has stuck with me through the years. He played Arkwright, a stammering, miserly, manipulative, middle-aged grocer, who would rather risk amputation than put his hand in his own till for anyone.

Across the road from Arkwright’s store lived the buxom Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. When not trying to fleece his neighbourhood customers, Arkwright was forever trying to secure Nurse Emmanuel’s affections with the same gluttonous avarice. Irresistible in her plump, starched nurse’s uniform, much of the skinflint's time was spent trying to gain a glimpse of her ample bosom, begging her to ma-ma-marry, or at least sleep with him.

Calling up to her window one day, he stutters, “I dreamt about you last night Nurse Emmanuel, but it’s not the same as d-d-doing it, is it?”

Dilapidation reports: our guinea pig’s exposé.

Many of you have questions about Dilapidation Reports for homes affected by the campus redevelopment project. Questions such as ‘why are they doing to this us?’, ‘who are these people?’, and ‘why are they such schmucks?’.

We can’t answer those questions, but we can tell you a little about what to expect from the dilapidation inspections themselves.

One of our number has kindly written in with this first hand account.

A Complaint is a Gift

I was just idly flicking through a book called “A Complaint is a Gift”, by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller, and was surprised to find how most of it just seemed to be common sense.

The basic idea is that a complaint or criticism is an opportunity to improve. When we’re being honest to ourselves – we have to admit that it’s true. Getting feedback is essential in our lives – otherwise many of us would do something stupid ... like entering Australian Idol.

Resident alert: Our questions to UNSW

Below are the questions we've asked UNSW to answer before the Construction Liaison Committee Meeting tomorrow (6pm at COFA on Thursday 11 February in EG02 Lecture Room).

We urge those who can to attend this meeting.

The questions and responses are here. The responses were not received until 6pm Friday 12 February – 24 hours after the meeting. They would not answer them during the meeting.

Thought for the day

Schmucks!

COFA's latest truck route plan: bad news for everyone

Dear fellow residents,

The new Construction Traffic Management Plan has now been released by UNSW/COFA and was posted on the COFA website on 8 February 2010.

Take a look and check all the details as a quick review reveals that it affects nearly ALL residents in the area. Major points are as follows:

Ugggh! Here's COFA's complete truck route plan

COFA has prepared a new, comprehensive, yet sadly, unimproved Construction Traffic Management Plan for the entire development process.

Truck Off COFA has not had time to read and digest, but will surely be making appropriate disgruntled noises in due course.

In the meantime, here's the link:

http://redevelop.cofa.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Demolition-Excavation-and-Construction-TMP-CoFA-rpt3.pdf

A friendly message to COFA students from your neighbours

Editor note: This is being disseminated via our extensive knowledge transfer network, i.e. something similar will be posted on the noticeboard at the corner shop.

You may have noticed banners hanging from neighbouring homes and wondered, what does "Truck Off COFA" mean? Please be assured that these banners are not directed at you but at COFA management.

Let us explain a little of the history to you…

Moderately encouraging neighbourhood update

Now, don’t get too excited people, but we come bearing a modicum, a sliver, yes, a veritable scintilla of moderately good news.

The Sydney City Council has told UNSW COFA it must resubmit a comprehensive construction traffic plan for each and every stage of the 27-month development process – demolition, excavation and construction.

Up until now, COFA sought a piecemeal approach, putting forward its truck route plans bit by bit and leaving us all in the dark as to exactly what merry truckers’ delights were in store.

Choices, choices, choices.

For better or worse, society has hierarchies. Same goes for roads.

According to the road experts, a hierarchical road network is essential to maximise road safety, residential amenity, legality and wear and tear. Each class of road in the network serves a distinct set of functions – and is designed accordingly.

Fighting militant truck manoeuvres with a chicken joke

Q: Why did the duck cross the road?

T-shirts: too cool for (art) skool

Our little community is a ragamuffin group, with a diverse range of skills, experience and background. Some are from Mars, some from Venus, and some are from much much further away. Each makes their contribution in whatever way they can.

But they all like a snazzy t-shirt! Who doesn't! Whether they're down at the local RSL, at the footy, off to a fashion parade or just pottering around at home putting a banner up on the veranda or firing off a letter to Clover Moore – being hip, stylish and a little bit edgy is de rigeur around these parts.

Inspirational quote of the day

"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."

Mahatma Gandhi.

A brief history of COFA’s redevelopment project

In 2002, COFA lodged the ad-hoc DA 1431 with Council for the construction of an Art Museum & Gallery on the Selwyn Street residential frontage of its campus. No small project, this would be the third largest gallery in Sydney.

The Community objects and requests a Masterplan for the whole COFA Campus site that would reorient the campus and Gallery towards its non-residential frontages on Oxford Street and Greens Road.

In June 2004, UNSW withdraws DA 1431 and agrees to work with Sydney City Council and the community on a comprehensive Masterplan.

Karaoke for COFA

Here in our (currently) calm and peaceful little precinct, we like to gather around the piano or karaoke machine and sing songs. We're an artistic lot, and uniting in song lifts our spirits, helps us shed the anguish of our daily toil and draws us closer together. The songs are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes sad.

In that way the rich knowledge and life experience inherent in each of us is passed on to each other, and to our children.

Letters to Clover Moore

Letters to Clover Moore - Sydney City Mayor and NSW MP

If you'd like your letter published (anonymously of course!), then email it to us. Click here, then click on Email on the left hand side.

22 January 2010

Dear Clover Moore,
As a resident of one of Paddington's tiniest heritage precincts, I'm writing to seek your help over fears we are about to come under siege from a conga line of thousands of heavy construction vehicles as the College of Fine Arts begins a major redevelopment of its campus - a project forecast to last some 27 months.

Background
As I write, COFA is submitting a proposal to the City of Sydney to turn one-way backlane residential streets into a two-way truck route. This is despite making firm and specific commitments in its development application to create a large vehicle access as an initial activity before demolition began through its central campus via the nearby Greens Road - a larger route that fronts the campus and devoid of dwellings.

Citizen COFA. Not!

In the classic film Citizen Kane, flashbacks illuminating the source of the magnate's cruel and domineering life led to a boyhood sled named Rosebud. So, too, the woes of residents Vs COFA trucks can be traced back to a seemingly insignificant item – a paper store.

I kid you not. A paper store.

They’re really not that into us

Aren’t you sick of people saying one thing and doing the exact opposite? We hate it in our politicians, our spouses, our banks, and we hate it in our public institutions. With that in mind, I'm going to start naming names by pointing out one specific institution that doesn't say what it means and mean what it says.

That would be COFA.

Does COFA think we’re too stupid to see what's really going on?

Truckulent COFA

COFA loves to bug us with their trucks.

They’re supposed to load and unload within the curtilage of their grounds. Them’s the rules. But they often don't.

Proposed plan 200 times worse!

The College of Fine Art (COFA), in Sydney, Australia breaks previous promises to the community and proposes to use residential streets for truck movements during demolition.
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