Port Authority approves Glebe Island facility which will ‘fuel Sydney’s construction boom’
A 24-hour plant will be constructed at Glebe Island in an attempt to help fuel Sydney’s construction boom. However, residents are furious and fear the constant noise will make their lives hell.
Central Sydney
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A 24-hour plant on Glebe Island set to help fuel Sydney’s construction boom has been approved by the Port Authority of NSW – the same organisation that proposed it.
The ‘multi-user facility’ will provide around-the-clock berths for delivery and storage of building materials, which the authority argued was needed “due to the depletion of local sand supplies in Sydney” and an “increasing demand” for these materials in the inner city.
“This will help service the demands of the NSW Government’s commitment to deliver $93 billion of infrastructure projects for at least the next 10 years,” the authority stated.
It comes as a blow to residents who fought against the proposal, penning many of the more than 300 submissions lodged over the plan.
Jacksons Landing Coalition president Chris Levy said residents were “very disappointed” at the announcement.
He said many had been concerned that the authority had acted as the “judge and jury” for its own project.
“The biggest concern we have is noise, because they will be allowed to operate 24/7,” he said.
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“Ships berthed there can run their motors all night, it’s a very disturbing low-frequency noise.”
Balmain state Greens MP Jamie Parker said it was “no surprise” the authority got “exactly the development it wanted”, adding it should have been declared as State Significant to ensure an “open and transparent” application process.
The project would impose “years of constant dust, noise, air pollution, increased truck movements and the further contamination of harbour waters”, he said.
“Blackwattle Bay has always been a working harbour but this is a totally unprecedented proposal for a multi-user facility that will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week just metres from people’s homes,” Mr Parker said.
The authority has defended the process in the past, saying it is “consistent with the same approach that applies to other public authorities or comparable infrastructure projects”.
In a letter to Sydney state independent MP Alex Greenwich, the authority’s acting chief executive Philip Holiday said a Port Noise Policy would be in force before operations begin in “late 2020”.
Apartments facing the port in Pyrmont would be subjected to a noise level equivalent to a truck travelling along the nearby Anzac Bridge.
“Port Authority will produce and publish noise maps that update the noise maps published in the White Bay and Glebe Island Master Plan and take into account the multi-user facility development,” the letter states.
Mr Greenwich said the approval was “not what we wanted” but he said resident lobbying had led to stronger noise controls being put in place.
The noise controls will also apply to all users of Glebe Island projects, including the Hanson concrete batching facility set to be moved from Blackwattle Bay.