Imagine if you wanted to renovate your house and the council told you you had to buy other properties around you to make it happen, then the government told you they'd be bringing a train station in around the corner from your house.
And you spent all your money suring-up local property and preparing large renovation plans, ensuring you had ample parking and thinking about the new property values once the train station was completed.
And then the government asked you to move out whilst they started work on the station, and you'd be back in a jiffy.
And then the government changed, the station is cancelled, nobody wants to approve your plans, you can't get back into your house and you own these properties you don't need.
If you were to remove any major club from it's primary premises for a decade, whilst also blocking plans for a refurbishment, you'd put any one of them out of business.
I'll never really know whether or not Tigers' renovation plans were excessive or unrealistic, but considering they approved those monstrous Balmain power station developments a decade earlier, I can't understand how the council suddenly became so concerned about traffic and building heights.
The Balmain Shores land was zoned for high density, Victoria Road isn't. The developer put up plans that meant you couldn't move the cars out of the site.
Can council not zone whatever they like however they choose? Also I don't get how you can say Victoria Rd isn't zoned for high density, when Balmain Shores feeds onto Victoria Rd? It's like saying the Ryde Bridge isn't zoned for high density but you build 10,000 units in Rhodes.
I am sure the developers for the Leagues Club put up "aggressive" plans, but you are supposed to be able to negotiate the outcome.
The thing I'll never understand about the Rozelle area is owners and council trying to keep it as "village" as possible, despite it being a 10 minute drive from the CBD of a city of almost 5M people. High density is coming everywhere, it's the only way we can support the population growth.
I live 30 mins from the CBD and even in the last 5 years the number of units and duplexs going up in place of houses is striking. If you want the space and the lack of traffic, move to West or The Sticks, or the West of Sticks.
I used to live in a 12-storey building (120 units) that opened onto a main road - not such a big deal with traffic and you could only pull into the building from one side.
