08 December 2014
The Urban Taskforce is a great champion of tall structures in the right location but the Sydney Harbour Control Tower is out of place in low- rise Millers Point and it should not become a heritage item, says the Urban Taskforce.
“Some heritage bodies see the tall concrete control tower as a romantic connector to the days when Sydney Harbour was a bustling port,” says Urban Taskforce CEO, Chris Johnson. “But the tower represents the worst period of shipping use when the beautiful finger wharves were bulldozed to create vast concrete flat tarmacs for the growing use of containers that led to semitrailers clogging the city streets.”
“The extensive container wharves were never listed as being of state heritage significance and neither should the concrete surveillance tower that looked into the back gardens of local residents. Technology has replaced physical surveillance with radar based systems and the heavy container port activity has been moved to Botany Bay.”
“The calls for heritage listing seem to be a throwback to the calls to keep the container wharf shapes rather than support the re-shaping of the original headland that is now in place. The essential character of Millers Point is of low- rise buildings that relate to the waterfront and this end of the Barangaroo project must respect this.”
“The Heritage Council’s Statement of Significance seems to struggle to addresses aesthetic significance of the Control tower by mainly referring to it simply as an engineering structure and by saying the architects had designed some good buildings in Canberra.”
“The much taller and visually prominent Sydney Tower in the middle of Sydney’s CBD is not listed as state significant and neither is the control tower at Sydney Airport.”
“The Urban Taskforce would normally be very supportive of tall structures in the right locations. In this instance the tall buildings are appropriately located at the southern end of Barangaroo with the northern end being mid and low-rise buildings that relate to the historic setting of terrace houses and warehouses. It is a misuse of heritage legislation to now support an intervention that the heritage organisations 40 years ago should have been fighting against.”
“It seems that some community groups who are against new development are keen to use the heritage laws to compromise the new development. Heritage significance must be assessed on its merits rather than becoming another tool to attack new development.”