SUR-PRISE, sur-prise, sur-prise.
While channelling Gomer Pyle is not my preferred forte, Pyle's go-to catchphrase articulates the reaction of some people to a reconvened Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel (HCCRPP) Review Panel's decision. The Review Panel overturned an earlier HCCRPP refusal of Iris Capital's modification application to significantly jack up heights in the already approved third and fourth stage of the EastEnd development.
Newcastle's now lord mayor Ross Kerridge was one of many who opposed the modification application in a submission to the review panel. The then-candidate for the city's top job wrote the modification was a betrayal of the previously agreed planning guidelines for the old city area ... The rejection of the modification was entirely correct and the modification should not be supported. He was right.
The first HCCRPP panel rejected the development because the modified plans would have an unacceptable impact on views and parking, and differed too greatly from the plan approved in 2018.
Iris did not alter height plans for stages three and four as part of its application to the review panel. Planning panels in NSW are not supposed to knock back developers. Planning panels are supposed to be barely able to hide their gleeful enthusiasm concerning development modifications. Panels should forget about pesky height limitations and respond nicely to threats to abandon the project if approval is not given, despite the developer already having a largely uncontested approval for what was originally requested before the fortuitous knocking down of the Mall Parking Station.
The 'fuhgeddaboudit' approach to heights in the historic part of the city telegraphs all the wrong signals to others biding their time to redevelop buildings in that area. The precedent that height limits are just ballpark suggestions is now crystal clear to anyone wanting just a few more storeys in that part of the city. Meanwhile, the city west of Darby Street is rising to the sky with very little opposition, because that is the right place for such ambition.
Iris boss Sam Arnaout told this masthead last Saturday he was shocked when the proposal was knocked back and feared the city would have lost so much over the stroke of a pen. It would have been a disaster for the city had it not been approved, Mr Arnaout said. Disaster?
Like the '89 earthquake? Deaths? Massive property destruction? Widespread trauma and perhaps a local drama group season at the Playhouse?
It is impossible to imagine an instance in Newcastle where another panel would be granted to those who opposed a development being greenlit. What about applying a State of Origin framework and best-of-three rules in a planning panel series? Iris now gets to bank the latest decision despite the series being deadlocked. I suppose that's because, as Mr Arnaout says, commonsense has prevailed (East End project will be 'beating heart' of city, says billionaire, NH, 9/11/24).
The opportunity for the modification of the already approved plans for stages three and four occurred because of CoN's decision to demolish the Mall Parking Station. I thought the joint was a hideous blight on the city and appeared in a Newcastle Herald spread writing as much (Buildings we love and the ones we would like to pull down in the Lower Hunter, NH, 12/1/21).
I endorse the idea of city parking disappearing underground. Lord Mayor Nelmes has promised that no spots (more than 380) will be lost when the car park is demolished. Here is the opportunity to improve the vista from the foreshore to Christ Church Cathedral. It should be grasped, providing any deals with developers do not involve more height in the East End precinct. Good luck with that.
An engineering report CoN used to justify demolishing the parking station stated it could have been repaired for less than it eventually cost to knock down. I guess the demolition was fortuitous. Nothing to see here and there will be 36 additional bicycle racks. The unreplaced 380 parking spots will haunt the letters page of the Herald for years to come.
Newcastle isn't in the news for what it's losing; it's in the news for what profiteers are taking. It's framed as progress, as growth, as a necessary journey to a revitalised promised land. The real story - the one that's lost to the backslapping cheer squad's stories about the new Newcastle - is one of greed and erasure, of ignoring height limits, of fawning bureaucrats, of a city's spirit and history being flogged to the highest bidder.
Pyle's other well-known catchphrase was shame, shame, shame .
Fortuitous indeed.
