Newsletter 42 –  Young St Plaza

Council turns its back on Neutral Bay, open green space and pedestrians

A few years ago, the State Government decided to go ahead with the Northern Beaches B- line bus “service” – the result is that Military Road became even more congested and served to further to divide Neutral Bay.

As part compensation the Government offered to fund “public domain works”. This led to the proposal to close Young Street (between Military Road and Grosvenor Lane in Neutral Bay) and – create a 1000m2 plaza.

A place to escape the congested road and foot paths by providing the one thing Neutral Bay village did not have – adequate public
open space.

Would the community support the proposed plaza?
Our Council

• resolved to find out,
• trialled the closure of Young Street and created a temporary plaza and
•  asked our community what it thought.

There were 353 responses:

• 56% supporting;
• 10% neutral; and
• 34% opposed.

The level of support was not surprising given North Sydney:

• has one of the worst rations of residents to open public space when compared to
  other Local Government areas in NSW and
• is faced with the loss of a large section of Cammeray Park to freeway development
  and Bradfield Park to a bike ramp.

The Neutral Bay Chamber of Commerce came out in support of the plaza.

Traffic counts were also undertaken – they found that the traffic redistributed within the surrounding road system resulted in minor increases in overall time delays at some intersections.

The State Government offered to contribute $1.9 million toward the cost of making the temporary plaza permanent and a worthy addition to Neutral Bay.

Council called tenders for the work to create the plaza.

Then, last Tuesday Council voted 6 (2 x Real Independents, 2 x ALP and 2 x Sustainable Australia) to 4, rejecting the tenders, deciding not go ahead with the plaza and to return it to cars at a cost to North Sydney’s rate payers of $100,000 – see it at https://livestream.com/northsydneycouncil/events/10349067

As to the $1.9m on offer by the State Government – one Councillor suggested that the money could be better spent by the State Government elsewhere in NSW.

I’ve joined with other councillors to bring the matter back to Council with a recission motion – a last chance for councillors to save the plaza.

Ian Mutton
Councillor, Cammeraygal Ward, North Sydney Council