CURATING KU-RING-GAI

In recent months the Minns government has handed down 39 Transport Oriented Development (TOD) rezonings across NSW, four of which (Gordon, Killara, Roseville, Lindfield) are within the Ku-ring-gai LGA, with heights up to 20 storeys. In response, Ku-ring-gai Council has commenced court action, contesting the Planning Minister’s right to make such sweeping changes. It has also requested a number of Interim Heritage Orders around the affected stations. The litigation is directed at Planning Minister Paul Scully, while the Heritage Order target Minister Penny Sharpe. Mr Scully, however, has warned councils against using heritage protections to sidestep the rezonings. How to resolve such a stand-off?

Certainly, the temptation to litigate is understandable. Locals, quite reasonably, fear the wholesale destruction of heritage and biodiversity. Many are also suspicious that the intensity of rezoning in this ‘blue-ribbon’ electorate is, at least in part, politically motivated. Plus there is evidence that most recent development is, at best, regrettable.

On the other hand, we know that our neighbourhoods must densify to combat both the climate crisis and the housing crisis. Then there’s the question of whether court action, however expensive, will significantly change the outcome.

All this, on top of the more widespread sense that planning is a battle that pitches NIMBY v YIMBY, owner v. renter, suburban family v. inner city ‘elite’ and young v. old, places city-making firmly in culture-war territory. Such warfare is unlikely to go anywhere good.

Which is why the Better Cities Initiative proposes a more healing alternative, the Citizens’ Assembly and, prior to that, a public conversation about the way forward – that is, CURATING KU-RING-GAI.

Few things are more critical to the proper working of democracy that the ability to have reasoned but potentially dissenting conversations about key decisions. This decision, about the shape and quality of neighbourhoods, is critical to our future and our children’s future. There is a danger that we destroy much without achieving the amenity and delight that should accrue from increased density. Even more critically, bad decisions at this point could leave us with a legacy of badly built slum dwellings that help solve neither the housing crisis nor the climate crisis, bit of which are key to intergenerational justice.

We have invited several speakers, with very diverse points of view, to address us for five minutes each, and will encourage debate and conversation from the floor.

So please join us on Wednesday 28th August for an evening that could change the planning conversation across the metropolis and the state.