BY ROBYN MARSHALL
BRISBANE — Every square inch of green space is precious in the overdeveloped, inner city ghettoes — which may be why 150 people turned out on February 24 to protest the building of more townhouses on one such area of green space which has been a park for over 100 years.
CSR's now-closed sugar mill occupies a large piece of prime riverfront real estate at the bottom of New Farm, an old inner-city Brisbane suburb. A very small triangular part of the CSR site, on the corner of Welsby and Lamington streets, has always been a park, where the company allowed its employees to enjoy a lunch break and Christmas parties amongst leafy 100-year-old fig trees.
Giant developer Mirvac has now bought the site from CSR for $30 million, with a plan to build over 330 residences, 13 of them on the park. As part of a deal, Mirvac agreed to give the Brisbane City Council $635,000. Some very old fig trees are destined for woodchip, as they can't be accommodated in the plan, and others are to be moved.
The sale has taken place without any consultation with the local community and with the agreement of local Labor councillor, David Hinchcliffe, who argues that no further parkland is necessary because of the presence of New Farm Park nearby.
However, New Farm is in the midst of a wave of development, with the population of the area doubling in the last year alone, due to a population shift back into the inner city and the building of large numbers of expensive flats and units.
Three days later, two well-dressed residents handed out leaflets to save the park outside the Mirvac-owned Sebel Hotel. Mirvac Queensland chief executive Chris Freeman said he was outraged by the protest and that it interfered with his legitimate right to do business. He called in police and lawyers, who warned the women that civil court proceedings would be launched against them and that a disturbance complaint had been lodged.