Making the world green with envy

The newest, and one of the most spectacular, Sydney harbour foreshore parks has opened without fanfare, a triumph for people power after a 25-year campaign – and a pointer across the harbour to further greening of the foreshores.

Walama, the new park, offers a fresh perspective on the harbour, with views from Ballast Point to, and over, Goat Island to the Harbour Bridge and across to Barangaroo. Balls Head to the north and Walama are now clearly the western heads to the inner reaches of Port Jackson.

Room with a view ... Ballast Point's view of Walama park at Balmain.Credit: Nick Moir

The public has had little access to Ballast Point for a century. There has been none since Caltex turned it into a fuel depot in 1928 and more recent plans to build apartments there.

Now the focus on greening the harbour turns to Goat Island and to East Darling Harbour, tipped by Millers Point, where public access to the waterfront has been denied for nearly a century.

The former prime minister Paul Keating, whose intervention in 2002 cleared the way for the Ballast Point park, has a vision for the western side of Sydney Harbour as an archipelago of headlands and islands that would return the area to something like it was at the time of white settlement.

If realised, he said this week, Sydney would be the only city in the world with such beauty near the city so long after the first buildings were erected.

‘‘This is a once-in-200-years opportunity to get things right,’’ he said. ‘‘Cities never get the chance to fix things like this.’’

His archipelago takes in the green slope of McMahons Point, Balls Head, Ballast Point, Goat Island, Illoura at east Balmain and Barangaroo.

Keating believes the landscape architects did not get Walama quite right. While he wanted nature to be given a bigger say and what he called ‘‘Caltex vandalism’’ not to be recognised, the park reflects the point’s evolution from its oil industry background.

The Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority’s executive director of strategic planning, Di Talty, said public response was overwhelmingly positive. ‘‘The park recognises the battle for it. And Mr Keating will achieve his vision in 20 years when the trees grow and it looks green from the water.’’

Tom Uren, sometimes called ‘‘the father of Sydney Harbour’’, agreed. He has a Lloyd Rees painting of Balls Head without a tree. Jack Lang, then NSW premier, secured Balls Head for the people in 1926 and it is now covered in trees.

Roger Parkes, a great-grandson of Sir Henry, began fighting for the park in 1984 and became chairman of the Ballast Point campaign committee. He said the important point was that the park now existed, adding: ‘‘We can always change it.’’

Ballast Point, so named as the point where sailing ships took on and offloaded their ballast in the 19th century, was bought by Texaco in 1928, after which locals asked the then Balmain Council to buy it. There was no money in the 1930s.

In 1990 Caltex pressed for residential rezoning of the 2.6-hectare site to provide 163 dwellings up to seven storeys high, 520 residents, parking for 350 cars, three marinas with 83 berths and open space.

The Greiner Liberal government ordered Leichhardt Municipal Council to rezone the area, together with four other sites on the Balmain peninsula. At a public meeting in 1991, Uren moved successfully that the council retain the industrial zoning until the site could be purchased by council.

In 1994 the Land and Environment Court left final planning powers with the NSW minister for planning. After the Walker Corporation secured an option to purchase with a view to building apartments in 1999, the council continued to refuse to rezone.

The Court of Appeal overturned moves by two Liberal planning ministers, David Hay and Robert Webster, to expedite the development before the Labor minister Craig Knowles declined to overrule Leichhardt council.

The Lang Walker company McRoss Developments submitted a revised plan for 83 luxury houses but, after Keating’s approach to the then minister for urban affairs and planning, Andrew Refshauge, the former premier, Bob Carr, announced that the NSW government would compulsorily acquire the site.

The residents’ focus not to allow rezoning had prevailed for 13 years despite the planners who twice recommended rezoning and a government that took council powers. Lang Walker’s long pursuit of compensation is back with the Land and Environment Court after the latest NSW Court of Appeal decision, on July 3. The case had already been to the High Court.

Philip Jenkyn, of the Defenders of Sydney Harbour Foreshores, said that the end result of the battle for Ballast Point was good, although he agreed with Keating that Walama will be a manufactured park rather than a natural headland.

Now both men, members of a Goat Island committee, are involved in putting a plan for the island to the Environment Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, later this month. It calls for the clearing away of old wharves, the bigger slipways, crane and sheds, and the retention of the 1830s convict-built Queen’s magazine, barracks, cooperage and harbourmaster’s cottage.

Keating would also encourage indigenous Australians to use the island for cultural purposes. He quoted from the 1798 journal of the early settler David Collins: ‘‘Bennillong, both before he went to England and since his return, often assured me, that the island Me-mel (called by us Goat Island) close by Sydney Cove was his own property; that it was his father’s, and that he should give it to By-gone, his particular friend and companion. To this little spot he appeared much attached; and we have often seen him and his wife Ba-rang-a-roo feasting and enjoying themselves on it.’’

Then there’s Barangaroo. Keating has been working to improve the winning design, seeking to restore much of the pre-1836, pre-wharves site, with a rebuilt green headland sloping to the water and two coves.

He would like Millers Point to look something like Mrs Macquaries Point. He’d also like to see it approved before the next NSW election, but he has briefed the Opposition Leader, Barry O’Farrell, just in case.