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.

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...

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?