Battle to save harbour views in court feud over north shore marina

The proponent of a controversial plan to expand a marina on Sydney Harbour has told a court the proposal would have “no impact” on the heritage significance of nearby sites and would merely alter the view by increasing the number of boats in front of them.

The plan to enlarge the footprint of Woolwich Marina on the lower north shore and increase the number of berths from 45 to 79 has provoked an outcry among residents and is opposed by Hunters Hill Council. It was rejected by the Sydney North Planning Panel last year.

Sydney firm Micheal Fountain Architects launched NSW Land and Environment Court proceedings against the council, asking the court to give the plan the green light. The hearing before Justice Richard Beasley started with a site visit on Thursday.

The marina is located near the state heritage-listed Kelly’s Bush Park – the site of the first “green ban” in the 1970s, when a group of women banded with late union leader Jack Mundey to block a luxury housing estate on the site – and the world heritage-listed Cockatoo Island.

In documents filed in court, the Hunters Hill Trust and Friends of Kelly’s Bush say a “parking station for multistorey boats up to 25m long on the foreshore of Kelly’s Bush Park is fundamentally incompatible with its historical heritage values” and would destroy the “connecting vista across the water to Cockatoo Island”.

Barrister Ian Hemmings, SC, acting for the applicant, delivered opening submissions in court on Friday about why the heritage sites would not, in his submission, be affected by an expanded marina.

Kelly’s Bush would just “have more boats in front of it”, he said.

“You take something like Kelly’s Bush … it has state heritage significance because it was the site of the first green ban,” Hemmings said.

“One asks rhetorically … what is it that the provision of a marina on the waterways in front of Kelly’s Bush does to have any effect at all upon [its heritage significance, as set out in a statement of significance]?

“One can well understand if the green ban … came about because someone had proposed a marina, and we now sought to propose a marina. That would be pretty inconsistent with the significance and the heritage context of that item.”

He said the “aesthetics” of the bushland was “not an identified part of its significance”. Rather, “there is a large parkland there which allows persons to understand the consequence of this first green ban was the retention of a parkland”.

“We walked through it [during the court’s site visit]; it’s a big parkland. It remains. It’s unaffected physically by the development. It remains visible from all vantage points.

“It will now have more boats in front of it, which will be on a fixed mooring rather than a swing mooring. In our submission, Your Honour will be easily satisfied, when the analysis of the heritage concern is done, as we say it must be, in a principled way by reference to the statement of significance, that there’s no impact.”

Likewise, Hemmings said Cockatoo Island was “highly significant for its association with convicts”.

“Again, we ask rhetorically, and we’ll ask it ultimately: how is it [that] the ability to understand the significance of Cockatoo Island … [is] deleteriously affected … because in some viewing locations there will be the presence of … an extended marina?”

The council has said its legal fees totalled $378,000 as at July 11. It has taken the unusual step of asking the community for donations to help meet its legal bills.

Barrister Turvey To, acting for the council, said there was a “rich mosaic of significant heritage places around the marina site”, and the court would need to consider the impact on the heritage significance of not only Kelly’s Bush and Cockatoo Island but the Horse Paddock parkland and Spectacle Island.

Barrister Edward Cox, SC, representing a number of objectors to the proposal including the volunteer-run Hunters Hill Sailing Club, said the proposal would fundamentally change “the class and size of vessels which would be berthed there”.

“Such an expansion would significantly impede recreational boating, whether it be racing dinghies, training children in dinghies, racing yachts or yachts just passing through the area or rowing vessels,” Cox said. “A loss of navigable area in such a narrow waterway is of significant concern.”

The sailing club said in documents filed in court that the size of the vessels proposed was “exponentially larger”. Some would be “larger than a Parramatta River Class ferry” and others would be “longer than an articulated bus and higher than a double-decker bus”, the documents said.

The Save Our Shores residents’ group has amassed more than 900 signatories against the proposal.

The hearing continues on Monday.