Tweed's grandiose high rise schemes labelled "deluded and one-dimensional"

Tuesday, 13 August 2002 10:00

Total Environment Centre coastal campaigner, Fran Kelly, said: "the proposal for a 61 metre concrete block rising out of the Tweed would benefit almost no one but those in the development game currently being played out in the Tweed . Talk of it being an economic miracle for the area are deluded and one-dimensional."

"Latitude 28. Where on earth did that slick name come from? Perhaps it refers to the latitude that has been applied in the effort to approve this monster. It is higher, bigger and more obtrusive than anything allowed under existing regulations yet, predictably, is being promoted by the development-hungry councillors in control of the Tweed," said Ms Kelly.

"The extent of inappropriate development in the Tweed is already like a bad dream. It's bordering on the tragic in terms of the effects it will have both socially and environmentally in the not too distant future," said Ms Kelly.

"Each time such a proposal such as this appears, everyone is told the project must happen immediately or else a scenario similar to the end of the world will occur. In most cases, the opposite is true. Bad planning and developments have caused major costly and often irreversible problems such as foreshore erosion, flooding, property loss, overflowing and collapsing infrastructure, and the loss of fisheries, public access, water quality, scenic values and wildlife," said Ms Kelly.

"At the same time as this proposed building rising into the north coast sky is being touted as the answer to all Tweed's problems, another proposal is in the background to fill in, slice up, destroy and develop more than 200ha in the flood plains of the Tweed River," said Ms Kelly.

"What will it take for the council to be stripped of its planning powers? Add the latest high-rise and lowland destruction proposals onto everything else that has happened since the current councillors took hold and we might as well call the Tweed "Gold Coast II,"

Ms Kelly said TEC would be calling on the NSW Government to reject the Latitude 28 project in its current form, to prevent remaining flood plains around the river from being filled in, and to remove planning powers from the councillors as was done in the 1980s.