There is a fine grove of tallowwood trees growing on Sydney University’s Shepherd Street car park. It has been there some 22 years, long enough to support an array of wildlife including possums and flying foxes, rainbow lorikeets, white cockatoos, kookaburras, currawongs, butcher birds, Australian miners, wattle birds, magpies, ravens and at least one migrating koel.
The grove is an important element in the University’s mature tree canopy and a component of the wider urban forest within the city. It also relieves the unattractive face the University’s Engineering campus presents to Darlington which would otherwise be an unbroken “wall” of concrete, brick and asphalt.
The axe has been hovering over the tallowwoods since 2014 when Sydney University exhibited its Campus Improvement Program. This proposed a three-storey building on the Engineering car park to serve as a “decanting space” for occupants of other Engineering campus buildings being redeveloped.
One-hundred-and-forty-six residents signed a petition to save the trees but the Campus Improvement Program received state government consent in February 2015. Nothing happened, however, and in 2018 the University advised that premises has been leased off the campus in Abercrombie Street to serve as a “decanting space”. Residents had reason to think the trees were safe.
It seems we were being lulled into a false sense of security. Early in November 2019 the University announced a plan for a “teaching building” on the Engineering car park which would involve cutting down 11 of the 19 trees in the grove.
Residents who attended a recent University community consultation were dismayed to learn that the new building on the Engineering car park would not be the subject of a development application, as its footprint had been reduced, “on legal advice”, below the threshold for which development consent is required.
In adopting this very questionable approach the University is seeking to avoid an examination of the environmental impact of the project, and a proper consideration of the alternatives. The University also seems intent on ignoring the effects on parking in nearby Darlington streets due to the loss of some 40 parking spaces in the Engineering car park.
Sydney University ought to be a leader and exemplar in meeting obligations for environmental protection and enhancement. Instead, the University is trying to set the bar as low as possible.
