Karena Wynn-Moylan, Bangalow
Re: Jack Dods’s letter on the Bangalow development. Jack may have been ‘born 23 years ago’ but the rest of us in Bangalow weren’t born yesterday.
We object to the current proposal for Station Street precisely because it is the antithesis of good design. It is nothing more than a sixties block of flats with a nod to 19th century decoration on the front.
From the sides and rear it is a masonry monstrosity that will dominate the surrounds.
There are very real issues of danger to children and pedestrians with the accessing of the building through Station Lane and the vexed question of just how refuse disposal will be managed in the small space that is Station Street.
But the real reason why Jack should take another look at this design is that is extremely environmentally unfriendly.
Eight small units with small bedrooms and low ceilings and no passive solar heating and cooling, it will need banks of air conditioners to make it livable in the summer months for its residents, which, in addition to providing a drain on power sources, will also be a source of irritation for residents in streets around the site.
It is also right beside the A&I Hall; it is naïve in the extreme to think that the noise from this constantly used venue will not be an irritation to future purchasers, thereby leading to complaints which, justified or not, will have to be investigated by the local constabulary.
The developer, however, has no concerns about any of this; like Jack, he doesn’t live right in town and he will have no control or interest in the end users of this development.
And there were many objections to the new proposals for development in the areas that Jack has listed, but as all that land was actually zoned for residential blocks little can be changed as to their use.
In 1990, when the people of Bangalow were about effecting major and substantial changes to their town to make it a better living space for both the community and visitors with the Mainstreeting Program, Jack was just one year old; and ironically it was a crew of passionate and idealistic young architecture students (just like Jack) from Sydney University, led by Professor Henry Sanoff, who brought about the congenial, attractive streetscape that is Bangalow today.
That same attractive streetscape that has made it so popular with residents and visitors now has developers trying to cash in on that appeal.
Medium-density housing is a good idea, but it has to be environmentally friendly, comfortable and sustainable medium density, not this little set of boxes with three shops underneath that is really just a block of flats with another name.
