State’s Pyrmont hotel plan rejection sets up a fight over what Sydney will look like
The decision to knock back a much-needed luxury hotel at Pyrmont is not only out of character for this government, it sets up a fight over what Sydney will look like, writes state political editor Anna Caldwell.
Opinion
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Sydney is at a crossroads. As planning boffins sounded their death knell on a proposed 61-storey Ritz-Carlton tower at Pyrmont on Thursday, they sent a signal to the world about what Sydney is and aspires to be.
The blow to the $500 million hotel and residential tower project, which has been in the planning pipeline since 2015, comes as the city’s tourism chiefs cry out for more high-end offerings. With the new International Convention Centre at nearby Darling Harbour heaving with high-end events, the city is struggling to find suitable accommodation for attendees with only a handful of five-star offerings built since the Olympics.
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Premier Gladys Berejiklian — who is overseas on leave — is broadly supportive of the need for more luxury accommodation in the city. Yet her planning bureaucrats have fallen on the side of local residents angry about skyline view, traffic and parking. Planning Minister Rob Stokes said last night his department’s decision “reflects the consistent and widespread opposition to the scale of the proposal”.
I’ve been told the Premier has not seen the detailed specifics of the Star’s bid. This seems extraordinary given the significance of this development — but it feels like the scene truly is now set for a war over this tower.
The Star’s plans for a Ritz-Carlton tower is targeted at the luxury end of the market and pitched to cement the Barangaroo-Darling Harbour-Pyrmont zone as the tourism and entertainment hub of Sydney.
The big vision is for the Star tower on the western side of this hub and Packer’s Crown on the east as soaring bookends which would generate money, jobs and tourism for the city.
But make no mistake. The call to block this from the state’s planning department represents so much more than a decision about the future of Pyrmont and the Ritz-Carlton tower.
For years now there has been a war between forces who want this city to be a truly world-class destination that can compete with Hong Kong, New York and London on the one hand, and opponents who want to put the brakes on development on the other.
The bureaucratic decision not to recommend the Ritz-Carlton tower is a smashing victory for the state’s anti-development forces.
Tourism leaders believe July 25, 2019, is the day we sent a signal to the world that Sydney is not open for six-star business and they will fiercely back the Star in its bid to keep fighting for the development in the Independent Planning Commission. Recently resigned Tourism Australia boss John O’Sullivan last week told me that in his five years leading the state’s top tourism body a handful of major investors told him building in Sydney’s CBD was very difficult.
Aside from the development lags, O’Sullivan said that quite simply Sydney needed to stay fresh and competitive with its hotel offerings in order to compete with Hong Kong, New York and London.
“We need to keep the product fresh. Particularly in hotels. The city does need a new injection of a five-star world-class brand,” he said, adding the Pyrmont peninsula project was a “no-brainer” that should have been approved “well before now”.
“The risk you have is someone like Star or their investment partners saying it’s too hard to invest our capital, we’ll take it somewhere else.”
The submissions in favour of the tower came from the likes of Destination NSW, the International Convention Centre nearby, the Tourism and Transport Forum, Business Events Sydney, the Sydney Business Chamber, Ticketek and Tourism Australia.
Destination NSW wrote in their submission, “the proposed development of an iconic, high-end hotel will provide greater choice of premium accommodation options for visitors and contribute to enhancing Sydney’s reputation as a global city”.
Ticketek said the development would “further boost the Western Harbour precinct as a tourism and entertainment hub in Sydney”.
Those against the development were largely local residents and interest groups. They complained about the height of the tower, which they said would impact the “unique character of the suburb” and compromise green space.
They complained there would be too much congestion, too many people and not enough parking.
One said the tower would simply make Pyrmont an extension of the CBD. Many called it “out of scale”.
Far greater than a debate over the Pyrmont peninsula, this is a debate being held over Sydney’s future.
Indeed, the state election canvassed this very territory, with Michael Daley roundly defeated after he campaigned on a platform that was largely about slowing development. Daley wanted to stop the new Sydney Football Stadium and campaigned fiercely on overdevelopment and traffic and congestion.
He was defeated at the polls by a government running on a platform of building big things.
How curious then is Thursday’s decision. Stymying the Star would mean James Packer’s $2.2 billion Crown Sydney project reigns supreme in the casino wars towering over our city.
Stunningly, back in 2016, this paper reported that Packer was backing plans for his one-time bitter rival Star’s tower dream. It was said at the time he was so supportive that he was prepared to write a submission endorsing the proposal.
“What’s good for Sydney is good for Australia and what’s good for Australia is good for Crown,” Packer told The Daily Telegraph at the time.
Thursday, the state’s planning department decided Sydney shouldn’t get a diamond as big as the Ritz. This is a fight that’s a long way from over — not just about the future of the tower, but over the future of this city.
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