Thursday, June 14, 2012

Community Action - Save Rozelle

What good is a blog if you can't use it to reach out to people in your local community when action needs to be taken.  I need to share this to as many people as possible - The "Rozelle Village" building plan is outrageous and a crime to build in our beautiful local area. 

Lilyfield is situated right next to Rozelle. The Rozelle shops are our local shops and are about 700m from our house so while I technically live in another suburb, this is happening basically on our doorstep.

Here is some photos of what Rozelle currently looks like - a vibrant gorgeous shopping street with lots of beautiful old buildings, almost no chain (mass owned) shops and a local school that hosts a great flea market every Saturday and Sunday.  



Beautiful cafes, restaurants and shops that are unique and privately owned and not chain stores.






On the old "Balmain Tigers" site a developer plans to build the following:
  • Three ENORMOUS towers: one of 32 storeys, and joined twin towers of 26 storeys
  • a car park with 834 spaces with 8 basement levels.
  • 13,971m2 of retail outlets. All of the existing retail in Rozelle added together is only 11,500m2; local businesses will lose trade & some will likely go out of business.
Here is what the site currently looks like - the surrounding buildings are a maximum of two storeys high.


Here is the plan - look at the scale of the development compared to all the existing buildings!  This development is not wanted by locals, it will massively exacerbate the existing congestion problems on the corner of Victoria Road and Darling St, We currently have good retail with in 1 kilometre with Birkenhead Point, Balmain and Rozelle villages as well as Leichhardt Market Town and Norton St Plaza. I think most locals wouldn't argue with a much smaller development that is in line with existing infrastructure and scale. Anyway you decide and have your say.


Please act on this now - there are 4 days left for submissions of protest. 


Link here for more information


Link here for how to write your submission and send it

Join your community to express your opposition to this unacceptable development. Saturday 16th June, 12:30pm, National Street corner of Darling Street, Rozelle (opposite Rozelle markets). All welcome.

10 comments:

  1. Oh that's terrible. When will developers understand that sometimes community and character are worth more that dollars?

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    1. Sadly Kylie I think they just look at the bottom line. it's a crime really.

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  2. oh that is terrible, such a cute village atmosphere by the look of it now...I love that Sydney has so many little 'villages' with shopping high sts...shame it is so hard to get a park on any of them though, lol! Those towers just look wrong.

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    1. it's a lovely village atmosphere Karen. but yes parking is generally terrible. I usually just walk there.

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  3. Veyr disappointed to read this! My friend lives in Leichhardt, but when we stay with her, we usually end up in Rozelle at some point. It's got a nice atmosphere and really good markets! How about investors direct money into the public transport system instead? :)

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    1. hi Lizzie - it's a great area isn't it. I love wandering around the markets (and the Orange Grove ones also). I'm going to have to blog about both of them at some stage.

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  4. How disappointing! The number of communities with real character and charm grow less and less all the time, and Rozelle with a hulking great tower would be another loss. Hope it doesn't get approved.

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    1. fingers crossed the developers are just pushing the boundaries so when it's scaled back to something reasonable it's actually what they were aiming for in the first place.

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  5. Is there a place to express your support for this development? I mean, when the local chamber of commerce is saying that the shopping strip both sides of the main road is dead, then surely a development with more people and a re invigoration of the area would only be good for this....or we can just say no to growth and development in Sydney, and live in our own little NIMBY worlds.

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    1. hi Michael - i'm sure you can support the development by logging on to the developers website. but Rozelle isn't dead -have you been there? I don't think any locals are against the old tigers site being developed. It's the scale of the development that is an issue. The 99% of buildings around the site are 2 storeys high and this is aimed for 32 storeys! but yes we definitely can say no to growth and development. NIMBY does sound good. LOL.

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Thanks for taking the time to comment! Sorry if you have trouble commenting, you can always email me at lilyfieldlife@bigpond.com