Canterbury Bankstown Council has received a Development Application aimed at decommissioning the Princess St carpark (Area 6) at Canterbury Park Racecourse, refer DA8910/1997/B. This is a concern not only because of the impact to local residents with the extra 250 cars looking for parking spots in our streets on Race nights, but more because the end game is to rezone the land for proposed large residential apartment developments and this is really not obvious from this application.
The Canterbury Racecourse Action Group (CRAG) strongly recommends you write to Council to object to this DA now !
Please include some of all of the following points in your submission;
1. The Princess St parking (Area 6) is absolutely necessary as it is full and overflowing almost every Night Race meeting, The CRAG team have been monitoring this and found that the Princess St parking area is usually full from quite early in the evening.
2. Alternative parking infield is difficult to find, not convenient for most patrons, has limited accessibility for mobility impaired people, often muddy, unsure under foot and is a long way from the main entrance to the Racecourse. This means cars will likely try to use nearby residential street parking if they can instead and our observations certainly verify this.
3. The athletics field across from the entrance of the Racecourse and Area 6 is used for sports events regularly on Friday nights, meaning competition for street parking near the Racecourse entrance is often intensified during Night Racing putting more pressure on residents.
4. The cumbersome infield carpark entrance is a traffic hazard at the entry/exit point on King St which is just around from a blind bend at the point where James St meets King St. It already contravenes RMS guidelines for designing large Event carparks (Australian Standard AS2890.1:2004), so cramming another 250 or more cars into the infield by closing Princess St carpark should really NOT be encouraged!
5. A condition of approval for Night Racing in the original DA (DA8910/1997) says that every effort should be made to provide sufficient parking so as to minimize the impact on local residents, this DA does not adequately address the impact of the loss of Area 6 parking for up to 250 cars.
6. The Australian Turf Clubs Annual Report 2017, pages 3, 7, 15 etc, states that the ATC have partnered with Mirvac Property Group specifically to develop this piece of land at Area 6 for future apartments. In the interests of transparency and full disclosure, this DA needs to communicate the true intent and be clear about what the end use of this land will be . As a minimum, the DA needs to spell out the longer term plans and impacts on local residents as this is not obvious currently.
7. The Mayors recent announcement (Mayoral Minutes in 28 July 2020 General Meeting) of the “Canterbury Park Racecourse Planning Strategy” to “plan for the future of the Canterbury Racecourse should the Australian Turf Club cease operations on the site”. This means that this DA and all short term change of use plans for Canterbury Park should be put on hold pending the outcome of deliberations for this strategy which is still in its infancy. The Princess St carpark is most certainly still a part of Canterbury Park Racecourse and must be included in those discussions!
8. The ATC have prepared a traffic and parking report as part of their application which relied on the illegal closure of the Area 6 carpark during two of the last and biggest race meetings of the 2019/2020 season, putting pressure on local resident parking and inconveniencing patrons. The ATC did not have permission from Council to do this, it contravened their obligations under the 1998 Night Racing Approval clause above and they certainly did not pre-warn or later apologise to residents or racegoers for the inconvenience. We all know by watching cops shows that any evidence submitted to a legal court shall be inadmissible if collected illegally, this report is just that and Council should not in any way accept its findings as a result!
To object to this DA proposal, please email “Council@cbcity.nsw.gov.au”
and include reference “DA–8910/1997/B” in the subject line of your email,
Submissions close on Tuesday 9th February 2021 so don’t delay !