Sample Email from Janet Regarding Stadium Draft Legacy Plan

Below is an email sent from Janet, a supporter from Fortitude Valley to key decision makers regarding the Queensland State Government’s Stadium Draft Legacy Plan.

To the GIICA Board, QLD Premier, Deputy Premier, MPs, Ministers and Councillors

Dear Members,

As a Queenslander, taxpayer, ratepayer and therefore a stakeholder in Olympic infrastructure development, I read the Queensland Government's Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan at https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/__data//pdf_file/0017/115901/victoria-park-precinct-draft-legacy-plan.pdf and participated in the consultation via the survey at https://haveyoursay.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/victoria-park-precinct-legacy-plan-consultation.

As community consultation goes, I felt it was designed to prevent me from having my say in a way which was meaningful to me, so I offer the following observations and questions for your consideration.

Victoria Park Draft Legacy Plan - observations and questions

1. Heritage listed and grounded in history

The Victoria Park Precinct Legacy Plan states it is "grounded in history, place and culture". How exactly will the historical, cultural and archaeological legacy of Victoria Park/Barrambin be protected? 

Like New Farm Park (described as Heritage Parkland on page 9 of the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan), Victoria Park/Barrambin is listed on Queensland's Heritage Register, and is a Local Heritage Place under the Brisbane City Plan. I therefore feel that the status of the park should have been respected and the Heritage Place protected. Imagine the outcry, if what is being done to Victoria Park (destruction to build sporting and associated infrastructure) was done to New Farm Park? 

To emphasise the Park's historical functions as a municipal dump and golf course is to diminish the legacy planned by our forefathers in 1875 when the park was gazetted, and to negate its multi-faceted history as a First Nations meeting place, traditional campsite, ceremonial, hunting and fishing ground; quarrying and brickmaking site; rifle range; Depression-era refuge for homeless people; major WW2 military base; post-war emergency housing site; and most importantly, the largest remaining open space "lungs of the city" in inner Brisbane. Immigrants who arrived in Brisbane on the ship Fortitude in January 1849 were temporarily settled in an encampment around York's Hollow waterholes, before establishing the suburb of Fortitude Valley. The place is rich in history which should be respected. Yet work has already started, though the Park is still subject to assessment of multiple Section 10 applications under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act (ATSIHP Act), which have yet to be decided. 

2. Mostly about sport, with the park an afterthought

Despite the Queensland Government's assertion that the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan is not just about sport, there is an awful lot of sporting and associated infrastructure, quite apart from the huge landscape-dominating stadium, when compared to the now discarded Brisbane City Council Masterplan which cost Brisbane ratepayers $30M. (see below).

And there will be even more than is shown in the latest renders when IOC dictates around circulatory infrastructure and access are added. How are you going to provide the necessary circulatory infrastructure and still maintain 2/3 of the area as open green space?

The Draft Legacy Plan states that with the closure of former golf facilities and the expansion of parkland areas, there will be more publicly accessible open space across the precinct, even with the addition of a 63,000-70,000 seat stadium and an Aquatic Centre. How is that possible?

The reality is that the closure of the golf course was always going to result in "more publicly accessible open space" developed as parkland under the community-supported Brisbane City Council Victoria Park/Barrambin Master Plan. The proposed stadium, aquatic centre and associated infrastructure will greatly diminish that open space. The only way to increase the open space of Victoria Park, is to rejoin the northern and southern sections of the Park over the top of the ICB and rail line and build Brisbane Stadium above, on the reclaimed land.

The inclusions that have been borrowed from the former BCC master plan feel tokenistic and subordinate to the stadium. I'd like to see more elements incorporated from the original Brisbane City Council master plan, including important pre-settlement trees. 

3. Trees

Stadium builds usually lay waste to a large area of surrounding space. How will existing important trees be protected? 

I doubt there will be more "shade, cooling, biodiversity, or improvement to environmental comfort and health", than currently exists. How are you going to "reinstate landscape systems" when you're going to destroy them to build the stadium and associated infrastructure?

The Ecological LGID report prepared for the original Victoria Park Master Plan, when the park was intended to be re-wilded into a world-class public park, identified seven pre-settlement trees. A later MNES report prepared for the stadium EPBC referral, by the same company, claimed there were likely no pre-settlement trees in the park. Why the backflip on the earlier work for Brisbane City Council? According to Save Victoria Park Inc, fifty-seven pre-settlement trees over 200 years of age have been catalogued by ecologists and arborists.

The Park's existing centuries-old trees are superior to any proposed new plantings which won't mature for decades. Large, important trees should be protected. The Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan (page 24) speaks of elements which "support tree protection" but what does this actually mean in practice? Bulldozers have reportedly already destroyed some of these trees.

What are you going to do with the eucalypt trees in Gundoo Memorial Grove? 

Grammarians planted this grove of 1,000 trees in 1959 to celebrate Queensland's Centenary, to beautify the parkland and honor the area's Indigenous history. I don't see any mention of the Grove in the new legacy master plan. As a former Grammarian, I would like to know what the Government's intention is on this point.

4. Stormwater flows

So much bare earth, hard stand, concrete and asphalt are going to create vastly increased overland stormwater flows. 

How are you going to prevent waterway contamination especially of York's Hollow and prevent flooding during and after construction?

5. Neighbourhood amenity

Residential areas around Victoria Park have lost access to the park and will lose the quiet enjoyment of their properties as a result of this project, both during construction and afterwards because of events at the stadium.

How are you going to protect the amenity of the Victoria Park neighbourhood from noise, light and dust pollution during the 5-6 years of construction? 

How are you going to prevent traffic chaos in surrounding streets during and after construction especially during event days, as currently happens around the Gabba? 

How are you going to ensure safe and timely ingress and egress of ambulances and staff of the RBWH and the educational institutions around the site?

6. Transport and accessibility 

What exactly is the "coordinated movement network" mentioned on page 12? 

How are you going to efficiently transport/move many thousands of people to, from and within the Park, as there will certainly be more than 63,000 people there at any one time during the Olympics.

There must be very convenient public transport options and very limited parking in and around the precinct to discourage travel by car. 

Another railway station should be considered between Roma Street and Exhibition Stations, opposite Victoria Park, connecting the Park and Stadium to Spring Hill and the Aquatic Centre via a new pedestrian and active transport bridge over the rail line and ICB - otherwise, it's going to be a long walk! It is a long way from the planned stadium to Exhibition, Fortitude Valley, Roma Street and Bowen Hills stations all of which are mentioned in the context of the connectivity of the proposed stadium to transport infrastructure.

There will also need to be more Metro buses because the present bus frequency along the Inner Northern Busway will be nowhere near sufficient to handle the number of people requiring transport to and from the venues. 

Victoria Park should be well connected to the Roma Street Parklands via safe active transport and pedestrian pathways. It's not good enough to relegate cyclists to roadways such as Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road on event days - cycling along busy inner suburban roads in Brisbane is dangerous at the best of times. There must be safe, fully connected, dedicated bikeways separated from pedestrians in and around the precinct and to and from Victoria Park to other inner city destinations. 

How are you going to make the hilly site that is Victoria Park accessible to all abilities?

7. What exactly are the "development opportunities" referred to on page 13? 

Victoria Park was public land held by Brisbane City Council for the people under a Deed of Grant in Trust before the Queensland Government converted it to freehold without any public consultation. It was never intended for "development". There should be no highrise residential development in what remains of the Park.

8. What is meant by "Areas of the legacy parkland is (sic) delivered by the Games" (page 39)?

The Games Concept Plan on page 39 indicates that there will be precious little if anything left of the present Victoria Park/Barrambin by the time the Olympics is over, while elsewhere in the document there are indications that the reversion to functioning parkland may take up to a decade. I want to enjoy some semblance of a natural environment in Victoria Park well before 2042!

A word about "Legacy"

The use of the word "legacy" in the context of Olympics infrastructure development in Victoria Park, belies the fact that there is already an historical legacy associated with this Parkland, which was protected and slated for enhancement. What the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan highlights for me is the sacrifice of this legacy to realise the aspirations of sporting organisations, property developers and politicians. It remains to be seen if the utopian replacement "legacy" represented in the artists impressions is actually realised or if they are just pretty pictures designed to mollify the public.

Queenslanders who actually want to spend huge amounts of public money on an Olympic stadium, don't care where it is, whereas thousands of people care about Victoria Park. If we must have another stadium and I'm not convinced of that, there are brownfield post-industrial sites which actually need redevelopment, as was done for the Sydney Olympics.

Kind regards,

Janet

Fortitude Valley