I, along with many others, remain concerned about the future of the land around the old Gosford School site and the threat of it being sold off for private profit.
I am also concerned DOMA, the private company building the tax office, has been using the school site to store equipment, machinery and their cars.
Did DOMA make any payments to state departments for the use of the land?
Most of the equipment has been moved recently, but they now have fenced it off and are using part of Leagues Club Park, which is Crown Land.
Lucy Wicks insisted that the ATO was only using a small portion of the former school site and said she did not have any preference for where the Performing Art Centre should go, but the school was removed by a NSW Labor Government for a Performing Arts Centre and Entertainment Precinct to be built on the site.
Then a Liberal State Government made the school site and around the water a State Significant Site and rezoned the school site in a 24 hour State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP).
My mind boggles at a planning POLICY that only lasts 24 hours; nevertheless, I, as an interested resident, did not understand this, and it was promoted as a great thing.
The relocation of the school was rushed and the demolition of the school started as soon as the children moved.
Children moved into a new school before it was completed and some of the things promised still have not been delivered.
There are sound and water issues on the new school site.
Two 10,000-plus signature petitions were delivered to State Parliament, first against the closure of the school and the second opposed massive overdevelopment of Gosford Waterfront (Lend Lease proposal).
There are numerous Facebook pages which comment on the Waterfront and School site and there have been many newspaper articles in local papers as well as talk back on local ABC radio.
Residents have written and spoken numerous times to local politicians and Council.
The last GM/CEO of Council was not even aware the school site was intended for the PAC Precinct.
There have been numerous gatherings and protests on Leagues Club Park objecting to the ATO on the school site, including a meeting with David Shoebridge (Greens member NSW upper house).
The school site has been wrapped in red fabric twice, yes, I believe more than 200 metres of fabric.
The date palms were also wrapped in red fabric (on Leagues Club Park) during Easter 2016.
The land and Environment Court approved the ATO building even though they were one car park short of what was required and some of the parking was on a paper road which is an extension of Baker St.
There are council documents which show Baker St was only ever a paper road and it was to be added to Leagues Club Park once Dane Dve was built.
At each JRPP meeting, residents have raised the issue of Crown Land as well as the school being ‘Dedicated for education purposes’ and the status of the paper road, Baker St (South).
The JRPP’s decisions on the school site have not been unanimous and the Chair, Mr Fielding, even made comments about the Masterplan and if we had of had it implemented, we would have had a better outcome.
At a Confidential Stakeholders meeting regarding the location of the PAC (now referred to by council as a Regional Performing Art and Conference Centre), the Leagues Club Park was their pick of six possible locations.
A number of us requested the school site to continue to be included as a potential site, and at the council meeting, where the Administrator had a confidential chat with himself, he agreed it would be the second choice of location.
The remanding two-thirds of the school site had an Expression of Interest put out to tender.
This is now closed and it is not believed there were many interested parties.
The Finance building is on this two-thirds of the site.
There was a recent rumour the school site was sold, yet it is understood it has not been sold yet.
I believe the NSW Government wants us to stop focusing on the school site but we will not.
Flood lights and a security camera had to be removed for the Baker St Extension to go in and as far as I can find out, there was never any advertisement of the intended work to be done.
If it was a paper road, why did they put this infrastructure in the middle of the road?
Ninety-degree parking on the new section of Baker St was a condition of the approval, yet in the Our City Our Destiny master plan, it was to be a boulevard.
In the Confidential Stakeholders’ meeting (no longer confidential due to the announcement being made), Council did not want to discuss the school site because of ‘commercial in confidence’, but the sale has not been finalised and a number of people and groups have written to the council asking them to negotiate with the state government for the purchase of the remainder of the site.
What was promised in the Our City Our Destiny Masterplan as a tree lined boulevard linking the CBD to the waterfront, has now become a service lane with multiple uncoordinated entries to car-parks and access for heavy service vehicles such as garbage trucks, hardly a safe pedestrian passage, and certainly not an attractive linkage between supposedly activated areas.
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Mar 20, 2017
Joy Cooper, Green Point