‘Rosehill will become a ghetto’: Councillor accused of ‘cultural snobbery’ over racecourse remarks

A plan to convert Rosehill Racecourse into housing would transform the area into a ghetto of 100,000 people, a local councillor has claimed in comments condemned as “malicious”, “cultural snobbery” and showing a “breathtaking lack of understanding”.

In a chaotic meeting that featured councillor-drawn maps and frequent yelling, Parramatta Council on Monday night voted against a motion to reject the housing plan and heritage list the racetrack, on the same day the Australian Turf Club’s immediate past president said the proposal had little chance of succeeding.

Top: The former government’s planned Camellia development next to the Rosehill Racecourse, ditched in favour of redeveloping Rosehill. Bottom: Councillor Michelle Garrard’s impression of what the Rosehill development would look like. “I just did it up,” she told the Herald.Credit: Facebook/Our Local Community

The ATC’s plan to sell the land to the state government to transform the track into a new “mini-city” was pitched in December as part of an ambitious bid to create an extra 25,000 homes in that area. But the club’s 11,000 members need to vote to sell the land, and last month Premier Chris Minns conceded the development might never get off the ground.

Councillor Michelle Garrard, who brought forward the motion to oppose the development and came armed with illustrations of what it could look like, said the council needed to “fight to retain Rosehill Racecourse and not allow Parramatta’s most vulnerable land to be developed into a ghetto”.

Parramatta councillor Michelle Garrard.Credit: Our Local Community Parramatta/Facebook

“And I’ll say it loud and clear: Rosehill will become a ghetto.” She estimated 100,000 people would live in the area – although the government initially spoke of having 25,000 dwellings. She held up the graphic she created of apartments covering the racecourse.

When asked on Tuesday morning to clarify what she meant by the word “ghetto”, commonly used to refer to the housing of minority groups, Garrard said she used the word to mean “a place that is overdeveloped and has the potential to turn into a slum”.

“When you talk about putting that many people in such a small location it does over time become a ghetto. It’ll be a closed community that mostly only people that reside there will go,” she said.

She said the existing Camellia-Rosehill Place Strategy, which would have a new town centre of about 10,000 homes, was enough for the area.

Planning Minister Paul Scully condemned Garrard’s comments, saying he did not think anyone would take them seriously.

“Comments like this show a breathtaking lack of understanding of the basics of process but also ignore the basics of planning,” Scully said. “Any proposal for Rosehill will be subject to a thorough planning process and assessment.

Planning Minister Paul Scully said Garrard’s comments showed “a breathtaking lack of understanding”.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

“Creating more homes for people who need them, especially young people, essential workers and families is the role of good government.”

Labor Lord Mayor Pierre Esber said: “The people of Parramatta are better than that.”

Esber did not “classify any part of Parramatta as a ghetto” and said the impacts would be no different to high-density development in any other area of Sydney.

“At Parramatta Council, we support the development, and we just want a seat at the table, so when decisions are being made, we can decide where the schools and infrastructure go,” he said.

Adam Leto, from the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, said the phrase was “at best disingenuous, at worst malicious”.

“I don’t buy into the ghetto concept,” he said. “It’s an unfair description of future development in Sydney.

“The standards now in western Sydney have risen, the quality has risen.”

Professor Bill Rudolph, of the UNSW City Futures Research Centre, said there was “a degree of cultural snobbery” in characterising the plan as a ghetto.

“There are certainly places in the eastern suburbs where there are high-rise buildings full of middle-class people,” he said.

The vote at Parramatta Council came after Matthew McGrath, who was ATC chair from 2018 to 2022, said if leading racehorse trainers such as Gai Waterhouse and Chris Waller maintained their fierce opposition, the deal would struggle to pass.

The Australian Turf Club has signed a memorandum of understanding with the NSW government about the Rosehill site, and is expected to submit its official unsolicited proposal later this year.

Minns has acknowledged it was “not a done deal” given “irreconcilable differences, particularly in relation to the disposal of property, the size of the rezoning or the density of housing, how much open space is available, what the links are and contact with the metro line”.

Premier Chris Minns and Transport Minister Jo Haylen at Rosehill Racecourse.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Speaking at the council’s public hearing on Monday night, Waller said the idea had “upset a lot of race club members and racing participants, as well as members of the public”.

“Keeping Rosehill is a commonsense approach,” he said, suggesting selling off part of the land instead of all of it. “A race meeting brings together all generations, from young to old, all genders and all nationalities and religions.

“Every single person comes together on a racetrack as one. It unites people and engages people, which is what a modern-day society needs.”

But the plan was backed by David Borger, executive director of Business Western Sydney and a former Labor housing minister, who said putting an extra metro stop at the Rosehill Racecourse site was a “visionary step towards redefining the future of the Greater Parramatta region and its surrounding areas”.