Tall & Urban News

The City of Sydney has expressed dissent towards casino operators, with a counselor describing The Star and the James Packer’s new Crown casino as “insulting” to Sydney.

Philip Thalis, an architect and member of Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s Independent Team, said the casinos, situated either side of Darling Harbour, were the legacy of poor planning processes.

Moore said she had concerns about The Star’s proposed 231-meter tower.

“These twin totems of greed, with their overblown towers, now dominate this part of the harbor,” she said.

Thalis said The Star would be more than 200 meters higher than its neighbors, “acting as some megalomaniac’s sundial, progressively casting its shadows across Pyrmont and the waterfront.”

His criticism follows a memo issued in February 2019 by Moore, attacking the state government over several projects, including The Star’s tower proposal.

“They have recently used a loophole in the now-repealed state planning system to request a radically different change to an old development approval for a 10-story tower and hotel,” Moore said.

City of Sydney Liberal councilors Christine Forster and Craig Chung both offered support for the development.

Moore’s suggestion that The Star return “to the drawing board” puts her at odds with the casino operator.

“We take offence at any suggestion we are leveraging so-called loopholes in the process” a spokesman for The Star said. “There is no loophole. We are following the correct planning pathway as determined by the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE).”

The Star lodged its plan for an AU$500 million ($US356 million) hotel and residential tower on its casino site under old planning laws that permitted an application for significant modifications submitted before March 2018.

The New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment is required to assess The Star’s proposal, a spokesman said. “It’s not a loophole, it’s the law.”

But Moore said the tower displayed a blatant disregard of the council’s planning framework and should be refused.

“It is a scandalous abuse of the planning system and will have a significant impact on surrounding areas, affecting residential amenity, overshadowing the public domain and changing the identity of Pyrmont forever,” she said.

The Star’s spokesman said the casino had dealt with many of the concerns raised by the council, which had declined to build a neighborhood center proposed for the tower.

“Our community consultation has also been transparent and significantly more extensive than other major projects,” he said.

Moore raised concerns about a number of planning projects including the redevelopment of public housing in Waterloo, a proposed office tower at Cockle Bay Wharf, The Star’s tower plan and the Central Sydney planning strategy.

She accused the state government of seeking to profit from the “overdevelopment of our city.”

The DPE spokesman said the government had sought to “work constructively” with the council over its planning strategy.

“The Lord Mayor may claim differently, but the community expects and deserves governments at all levels to work collaboratively, rather than take an adversarial approach on planning issues – this is how good planning outcomes are delivered,” he said.

For more on this story visit The Sydney Morning Herald.