City of Sydney Liberal Councillor Shayne Mallard today called for the city council to invest resources in creating a revitalisation DCP (Development Control Plan) for the ageing red light district of Kings Cross.“I support The Lord Mayor’s recent call for a ban on spruikers in Darlinghurst road Kings Cross, but it does not go far enough.” Mallard said. Councillor Mallard’s proposal is a plan to reward property owners and businesses in Kings Cross for investing in new sensitive developments on Darlinghurst road and cleaning up the unpopular strip.
“Council should take a leaf from the book by New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani and harness the burgeoning inner city property market to encourage property renewal in Kings Cross and in so doing clean up the worst elements of the sex industry and club scene.” Mallard said.
Former New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani utilised his council’s powers to acquire the sleaziest of sex industry and club properties in Times Square, cancelled their existing use rights and redeveloped the properties for a profit on behalf of the people of New York. Today Times Square is a shinning beacon to inner city renewal.
“Council should explore a policy of one off development bonuses for property owners in exchange for the cancellation of their existing sex and alcohol usage rights. Council could then reconsider any future application for sex industry or club usage along the strip in a more manageable framework.” Mallard said. Councillor Shayne Mallard who is a local resident in the Kings Cross area has been critical of the city council for losing it’s focus on the renewal of Kings Cross.
“Former Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull had a vision to make Kings Cross ‘naughty but nice’ and the city invested more than $10 million in the wonderful street scape upgrade and a new neighbourhood service centre.” Councillor Mallard whilst very supportive of the investment said more has to be done in a sustained commitment to renew and improve the area.
“Council has a window of opportunity to work with property owners, businesses and local residents to master plan an urban renewal for Kings Cross that can still provide some adult entertainment whilst ending the unfortunate sleazy element that still permeates Kings Cross,” he concluded.
9 comments:
the real problem with the X is the injecting room.
whilst i understand and accept the health benefits, the problem is the honeypot affect and the way it ties the hands of the cops.
my outside the area free advice on how you combat this are:
1 put the injecting room in a hospital (try Sydney - the pollies won't allow Macquarie Street to be a crime zone!
2 if you cant put it in hospital, at least put injecting room, methadone and needle exchange under one roof
3 get the state govt to create a special offence of seeling drugs within 1km of injecting room - mantatory 6 months or a year in prison. The disincentives have to be so harsh as to discourage the honeypot.
P
Paul
Look I agree that the MSIC is not ideal - but what has to be remembered is that the druggies, dealers etc were all there long before the injecting room. I have lived in the area for nearly 10 years. I remember all the problems of street injecting, OD's etc long before the injecting room came along and the very reason why no politician who has campaigned against the injecting room has been elected (including Peter Collins and Malcolm Duncan to name two). The local community overwhelmingly support it.
If you read the studies and reports that form the basis of the MSIC there are a few fundamental problems with the locations and your proposed solutions.
Firstly an injecting room must ideally be located within 400 metres of the main source of drug sales. The reason for this is that injecting drug users need to inject very fast after purchasing -for a fix and for fear of being caught with the drug o their possession. Evidence is that they will inject on the street (lane or back door) if they have too in a hurry. The main drug sales area is the Cross and not around any hospital location. It was always thus before any injecting centre was opened. In fact the strip clubs in the Cross who have been major opponents of the injecting centre were making a fortune renting their cubicles for $10 for 5 minutes to drug users. That also causes a problem with the stronger prohibition of drug slaes within 1km of the MSIC. The honey pot theory just does not stack up on evidence.
Finally no hospital wants an injecting room on its premises. That is because 1. IDU's are prone to very contagious diseases (eg Hep C), 2. They are often thieves looking for opportunity crime to pay for their habits - hospitals are highly insecure for the valuables of patients and drugs.
The bottom line is that if the Cross properties were cleaned up the dealers would be forced out and so would the users. Then the MSIC can be closed or relocated.
I am on the community consultation board for the MSIC (have been since it opened) and my experience with very senior police is that they are comfortable with the centre as the street users are not the Mr Bigs that they are chasing, Police also are concerned about the health issues for users, the MSIC provides valuable intelligence information about dealing and product in the market and the local residents are not on the back of the police about street injectors.
However I do agree that locating all the services under one roof is the way to go. We have been working on that for some time, but it is the State government's final decision.
thanks
Shayne
shayne
thanks for the detailed reply - appreciate it...particularly considering im not even a constituent, just someone with strong convictions from the north shore (gee im starting to sound like my father!).
you don't have any disagreement with me re the health benefits...I only wonder if the model can be improved.
This KX Business partnership-Shayne Mallard scheme to revitaltise the Cross is the most pathetic attempt I have seen to pander to deveopers.
Only last month Shayne was bleating in the Wentworth Courier how Council is spending too much money and was irresponsible.
Now he wants council to buy - yep, using our rates - massively expensive buildings to move the sex clubs out.
Doesn't he know?
They don't own the buildings. So they'll just rent elswhere and the $80m spent on buying these run down buildings will have been wasted. How jerky is this?!
And he thinks that by giving developers more height to develop more and more somehow things will be better.
Doesn't he know?
Developers already have the right to go over the height limits. They can be relaxed under State Envrionment Planning Policy {SEPP}No1. All developers can apply to have the heights relaxed if the request is reasonable.
So if its unreasonable, the increased heights are not allowable.
So Shayne thinks unreasonable height limits are OK.
Well I dont.
The sooner we get rid of Mallard and his business partnerhsip mate Stephen, "Mr Sleazy" Carnell, the better.
Matthew
Dear Matthew
A few of your facts and therefore conclusions are wrong:
1. Stephen Carnell has nothing to do with my proposal.
2. My comments on the Council budget were not that Council is wasting money - but that Council is emabrking on a $640 million spending spree in just 3 years and that this is not sustainable (at about $1.25 million deficit each week) and will not ensure value for money. My arguement is that the expenditure on capital works should be spread over two terms of Council. Much more sustainable and easier for our staff to manage. I am already being proven correct on that observation.
3. If you read my media release I have not suggested Council buying the buildings in the Cross. We do not have the power that New York has to comupulsory aquire buildings - the State government does though. It is a plan to waive a carrot in front of the long term property owners. Therefore my plan has zero cost to Council's budget.
4. SEPP1 allows applications of only 10% variations to controls. My bonus propsal (in return for surrendering sex industry use rights) will require more than 10% - see my earlier blog comments.
5. Darlinghurst Road already has 24 metre height limit. The FSR of 3:1 has held back most new developements. In general i am talking about additional FSR equivalent to another floor. Since most offending properties are now 3 or 4 floors they will still be much less than has been approved.
6. I guess if you want to get rid of me it will have to wait until the next council election in 2008. But be warned that I have now been elected twice now because I represent without fear the views of the silent majority in our community.
Shayne
James(is that your real name?), thanks for your virtual anonymous flaming of my blog site - not. let us know your one so we can enjoy your intellectual brilliance and courage for open debate. I'm sure my friend and great Australian Lucy would like to repond and in doing so know who it is behind some key board.
SM
James(is that your real name?), thanks for your virtual anonymous flaming of my blog site - not. let us know your one so we can enjoy your intellectual brilliance and courage for open debate. I'm sure my friend and great Australian Lucy would like to respond and in doing so know who it is behind some key board.
SM
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