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| TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE BAYS |
30 May, 2010 |
TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE BAYS PRECINCT
(White, Johnstone, Rozelle and Blackwattle Bays)
Copies of the full document which has been submitted to the Minister for Planning are available at the Watch House.
Objectives and Principles
The CRG has defined 11 core Objectives for the future of the Bays Precinct. Each of these is supported by more specific planning principles -58 in total.
Objective 1 Integrated Future Planning
ß No more one off, ad hoc planning decisions by State Government or other planning authorities
ß All future planning and development decisions relating to the Bays Precinct to be on the basis of the agreed Principles and an integrated strategic plan for the whole Precinct incorporating a long term (c20 years) vision.
Objective 2 Priority and Precedence for the Public Good
ß Establish public good, not private benefit as the overriding driver for future planning decisions for the Bays Precinct.
ß Protect the remaining public ownership of foreshores and harbour from further alienation by sale or long-term lease for private use and restore headlands and heads of bays to the public.
Objective 3 Access, Open space and recreation
ß Open much more of the foreshores to the community and provide, wherever possible, continuous foreshore corridors for pedestrians and cyclists
ß Restore the headlands and heads of bays to the public as opportunity arises
ß Maintain safe access to the Bays for passive water based activities (rowing, dragon boating, kayaking, sailing)
Objective 4 Recognition of Heritage
ß Recognise the Bays’ significant maritime and industrial history in planning decisions.
ß Conserve all heritage items and, where feasible, provide for adaptive reuse of significant structures .
Objective 5 Land Uses
ß Provide for local distinctiveness and character.
ß Given the high residential density of surrounding areas, ensure planning decisions have the minimum possible adverse impact on existing residents and businesses.
Objective 6 Provision for Transport
ß Ensure no new activities or developments are approved without simultaneous provision for the necessary transport infrastructure- including public transport.
ß Prohibit approval of long term activities that will result in increased traffic congestion within the surrounding suburbs.
Objective7 Housing
ß Exclude private housing from direct foreshore frontage and, except for the Rozelle Train yards corridor, restrict housing to a lower order priority within the Precinct.
Objective 8 Built Form and Design
ß All built form is to be of excellent design, on a compatible scale with the adjacent neighborhoods and to contribute to a high quality public domain
ß Views, including views to landmarks, to be conserved and where possible, expanded.
Objective 9 Community and Culture
ß Create a high profile for cultural and artistic activities as an integral and significant aspect of the Precinct’s character
Objective 10 Economic Life
ß Maintain a contemporary ‘working harbour’ character for the Precinct and support other employment opportunities including green R&D and creative industries (eg incubators, artist studio space)
Objective 11 Sustainability and Environment
ß Incorporate best practice sustainability principles in all development and ensure that all uses enhance the sustainability of human and physical ecology in waterways and foreshores.
These Objectives and supporting Principles establish reasonable and balanced parameters for the next stage of the Bays Precinct planning process.
The CRG therefore recommends that the Government accepts these Objectives and Principles as the basis for further discussion in stage 2.
Future Directions - Preliminary Proposals
Having developed its planning framework, the CRG explored ideas for future uses that were consistent with its parameters. These addressed four levels of use:
1. Access and Facilities for the Residents and Visitors
2. Access and facilities for Recreational Boating and other users of the Bays
3. Providing Commercial and Industrial Precincts
4. Providing Necessary Future infrastructure |
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| “Balmain Workers Help Make Our Nation” |
24 May, 2010 |
The Balmain Association has participated in the National Trust Festival held in April for over 20 years and are pleased to have the opportunity to showcase our local history again.
This year we held three events on the 2010 theme “The Making of Our Nation”:
• A photographic exhibition at the Watch House titled “Balmain Workers Help Make Our Nation” was extremely well attended.
• The coach tour to the former industrial sites was booked out well in advance of the day and will again be on the events list for the September History festival.
• A ferry cruise around the harbour to view the former Balmain industrial sites.
After the very positive feedback from those attending the 2007 cruise, including phone calls, notes of thanks and When are you going to do it again, we decided that the time had come.
The theme for this year’s National Trust Heritage Festival was appropriate for us to tour the Balmain foreshores and see the sites where “Balmain workers help make our nation”.
So on Sunday 11th April, a perfect day, 82 people boarded the ferry Radar to enjoy this tour. One family had travelled up from Wollongong bringing their mother, an ex-Balmainite, on a surprise trip. She was absolutely delighted with the day. Guests spoke about their experiences and once again Diana Garder and Kathleen Hamey kept the commentary flowing. Leaving Mort Bay Diana spoke about the many ventures that Thomas Mort had initiated to the benefit of our nation. Cruising past the East Balmain foreshore and into White Bay, Kathleen pointed out the sites of the past boat builders and timber yards. Judy Newton and Al Garrick related their stories of working at Unilever particularly the community within the company, with the workers and families enjoying the annual balls, picnics and musical events. Sailing into Rozelle Bay, David Lawrence spoke about the battles won and lost in the redevelopment of the Rozelle/Wattle Bay precinct and the current situation.
Other highlights were sailing past the Adelaide prepared for its now postponed scuttling and an unexpected contribution from Fay Briggs, a volunteer with Sydney Heritage Fleet, who gave us a rundown on the vessels moored there. Returning past East Balmain, noting Illoura Reserve and the recently acquired Bells foreshore, we cruised around Goat Island with John Morris speaking about its significant buildings representing the layers of history and expressed his concern that National Parks were considering the removal of most of them.
We were disappointed that due to the prevailing winds the ferry was unable to tie up at Fitzroy Park, the site of the former National Box Factory, instead we lunched moored at Elliott St wharf where people were able to disembark to walk around.
Returning, we circled Rodd Island and the outer side Cockatoo Island with Diana and Kathleen pointing out various sites. John Garrett gave us an impromptu talk about “the first Sydney Harbour Tunnel” built between Long Nose Point and Greenwich, in the early 1920s to carry submarine electricity cables for the trams on the north shore. It was flooded about 193 but the cables remained in use until 1969.
Once again, our thanks to Rosman Ferries and the very amenable captain, who slowed down and turned around on request. Thanks to our speakers, the bar tenders and the 3 helpers who arrived at 8am to prepare the lunch. We actually covered costs and made a small profit, unexpected due to the increased hire cost of the ferry and our keeping the tickets at the same price.
All these events take a great amount of organising to be a success and there are many others to thank for their contribution.
See you in September.
June Lunsmann, Kathleen Hamey. |
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| BALMAIN – A DEN OF INIQUITY by Terri McCormack |
06 Nov, 2009 |
History Week 2009
Recent incidents of car thefts, drug dealing, break-ins, and robberies of local establishments by hooded persons armed with knives or guns have alarmed many long-term Balmain residents who lament the ‘good old days’. These were the days when Balmain was a working-class suburb, before all the wealthy newcomers paid absurd prices to turn workers’ cottages into Turramurra mansions with harbour views and subsequently encouraged thieves in search of rich pickings.
But have things changed all that much? A recent History Week tour of an exhibition at the Balmain Watch House made it clear that this inner city suburb has in fact always been a hive of criminal activity. For tour participants who were long term residents, all the memories came flooding back. Nearly everyone recalled some personal association with crime boss Lennie McPherson and his cheap lodgings, Neddy Smith’s fortress/brothel in Rozelle, the Balmain Welding Company (still too soon to say much about that), the illegal casino up at Rozelle, the brothels on Evans Street, the barber’s shop with the strange trapdoor, the East End gangs, or the fences working their way around the dozens of local watering holes. The pubs themselves were notorious with at least three known murders at the Unity Hall. The former Star Hotel in Mort Street featured bullet holes in the wall from the payroll holdup at the nearby Morts Dock Shipyard which was pretty much run by the powerful Painters & Dockers Union.
The difference is that, while we might not have condoned their crimes, these were all our criminals and we felt safe enough as long as they kept their activities to themselves. And you always knew there were ways to get in touch with a hitman if you really needed one. Now the offences are being committed by outsiders and it’s just not the same.
Balmain Watch House
Crime has been an integral part of Balmain since at least the 1840s when the original grants and large estates were subdivided and maritime industries began to proliferate around the coves of the peninsula. The Balmain Association is housed in the first jail. The sandstone building was the local lock-up from 1855 to 1925 when it became a residence for policemen and their families. The tiny cells are still intact and now accommodate photographic exhibitions and other functions.
For History Week, one of these cells (left) was cleverly recreated with a forlorn convict figure lying beneath a blanket on a straw palliasse with a few pathetic possessions beside him and a copy of the Police Charge sheet attached to the sandstone wall.
Balmain Criminals
One of the most famous criminals associated with Balmain was Frederick Ward (1835-1870), the last of the professional bushrangers in NSW. He was serving his second sentence for horse-stealing on Cockatoo Island when he escaped on 11 September 1863. Balmain legend has it that he swam across to the point now known as White Horse Point, near Elkington Park, where his faithful part-Aboriginal wife Mary Ann, neé Bugg, was waiting for him with a white horse on which they both fled. An alternative version recounts her swimming to the island with a file to cut his chains. Certainly, he went on to an illustrious though non-violent career as Captain Thunderbolt until he was shot in Uralla in the New England area in May 1870.
Fast forward to 1902 and the Balmain Observer was reporting weekly on petty thefts, obscene language, indecent exposure, public drunkenness, and even dancing on the bar. Three Superior Public School pupils created a scandal when they were charged with stealing a clock, one spirit lamp, five pincushions and one handkerchief. Balmain was an industrial suburb with more than its fair share of pubs and drunks were often brought to the Watch House to dry out. In 1911, charges included counterfeit, gambling, shooting, manslaughter, stealing, domestic squabbles, and attempted murder. During History Week in September, details of these and other criminal activities in the area were displayed on the walls of the Watch House.
Busted!
Balmain Library also had a History Week exhibition. Entitled Busted, this was a snapshot of crime in Balmain told in photographs, press extracts, and digital storytelling. It featured disorderly seamen, petty pilferers and other unsavoury characters. As well as the usual drunk & disorderly and wife desertion charges, newsclippings in the exhibition gave detailed accounts of the Lilyfield Tragedy of 1912 (a tragic love triangle ending in a suicide/murder) and the very curious cross-dressing case of Italian-born Eugenia Falleni who spent most of her life passing as Harry Crawford. In 1915, at the Balmain Methodist Parsonage, she married Annie Birkett, having earlier given birth to a baby girl. They ran a confectionary shop at 231 Darling Street until Annie disappeared and, in 1919, Crawford/Falleni remarried. In 1920, he/she was convicted of the murder of his/her first wife.
The Library’s author talk in September was by Larry Writer, author of Razor: a true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes and sly grog. He focused on the 1920s and 1930s when vice-queens Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh ruled the criminal underworld of Surry Hills with a potent mix of illegal drugs and alcohol, extortion, gambling and prostitution. I was surprised to find a Balmain connection to Tilly Devine. Larry Writer claims she ran a brothel on the corner of Nelson Street at Darling Street, Rozelle, a site later occupied by the Stationers and Art Suppliers called Tillys who have now moved over the road.
It is not surprising that Marelle Day based many of her detective novels in Balmain and she is not the only crime fiction writer to utilise the rich resources of this inner city suburb. Others include Roger Wood with his George Overton (Retired) stories and Catherine Cole whose novels with their local settings have attracted fans who are convinced that her fiction reflects their own experience of Balmain.
Balmain Court House
Prisoners were kept in the Balmain Watch House and, later, in the Police Station, while waiting to go up before the Court. The Balmain Association’s History Week visit to the Watch House began with a tour of Balmain Court House. Kathleen Hamey, Balmain’s pre-eminent local historian, pointed out the Victorian features of the façade and the relationship between the Post Office (opened in 1886), the Court House (1887) -– both designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet – and Balmain Town Hall (1888), designed by Balmain Mayor and Architect Edward Harman Buchanan. To the left of the Court House entrance, beneath the Royal Coat of Arms, the inscribed and rather premature date is 1886. The Police Station attached to the Court House opened in 1926, when the Watch House closed, and was extended in the 1950s.
An additional tower on the Post Office gave it a Classical Italianate appearance. It was removed in 1957 and reinstated in a reduced form in 1978. Coincidentally, on the day of the tour in 10 September 2009, photographers commissioned by the Balmain Association had at long last received permission to ascend the ladder in the Post Office tower and photograph a panorama of Balmain similar to the one taken in 1909 that is now in the Leichhardt Library local history collection.
We were all slightly hushed as we were ushered into the court room with its original dark timber fittings, thinking perhaps: “There but for the grace of God…” After seating some of us in the caged dock where prisoners are still retained, Kath Hamey gave an overview of the development of the justice system in New South Wales. The oldest existing local court in NSW opened at Windsor in 1821. A local court was established in Balmain in 1883 and met in the Council Chambers behind the Town Hall until Barnet’s building was complete in 1887. I was interested to learn that the accused swore on the Bible with his left hand, raising his right hand so that the court could see if the record of any previous convictions had been stamped on his hand.
There is also a smaller court room up the ornate timber staircase but it is no longer operating because of the lack of disabled access. Interestingly, many of the charges recorded for 1887 – unpaid rent, drunkenness, stolen goods, disgraceful language – are not that different from current charges – apart from things like driving while disqualified and refusing a breath test.
Balmain Court House is open on Wednesdays and anyone can sit in on court cases. Whenever the footpath outside is crowded with photographers, you can be sure some well-known or notorious person is in the dock. With its stately façade and original interior, it is popular as a film and TV location.
The tour of the Court House plus the exhibitions at the Library and the Watch House made it very clear that crime has been a part of Balmain since the early days. Indeed the character of this previously grotty and now desirable inner city suburb has been largely shaped by scandals, crime and corruption – the theme of History Week 2009.
Reprinted from Phanfare, newsletter of the Professional Historians Association, No. 238: Sep-Oct 2009, courtesy Terri McCormack. |
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| Wanted historical photos and items |
1 January 2010 |
Do you hold letters, photos, documents and other material related to the people, history and heritage of the Leichhardt Municipality?
Heritage Group of Leichhardt District (HGOLD) has received a grant from Leichhardt Council to prepare a database of historical photos and items about the Leichhardt Municipality.
We are looking for people who would be prepared to list their items on this database to be accessed by others searching family histories, buildings etc. The collections would remain in their hands and access would be by negotiation ie a visit to their home or meeting at the Balmain Watch House or other suitable venue.
We are advertising throughout Australia via the numerous historical societies, libraries and interested groups.
If you have material of interest please contact
Sue Tronser, phone 9519 3268, email suetronser@gmail.com
June Lunsmann 9810 6885, email speal@zip.com.au |
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