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?
