We pay our politicians to be our voice for the public interest, particularly when they are pitted against the profit motive that drives the private sector. We pay them to be custodians of public land. And though we don't pay them to be arbiters of good taste, they usually have views on everything from wind farms to architecture.
But when it comes to the biggest development on the Sydney skyline in decades – the 275-metre casino, hotel and apartment tower at Barangaroo – being built on public land just 30 metres from the harbour's edge, there is a strange silence.
Instead it has been left to Sydney's architects, the City of Sydney and independent member for Sydney Alex Greenwich to argue that putting such a massive building so close to the harbour's edge is a travesty of planning that severely compromises the public domain.
James Packer's Crown casino tower has reached the final hurdle for approval. It is now before an independent Planning Assessment Commission and on Thursday it held a day of public hearings. A Design Advisory Panel – three eminent urban architects – has been highly critical of the way the tower impinges on public space and narrows public walkways. Its recommended changes have been largely brushed aside by the Department of Planning, which has recommended that the " iconic" building be approved.
But as many of the speakers, including two former government architects noted: this is about a building being built in a public park. At no stage has any planning authority given the green light to it being sited where Crown and Lendlease propose.
Graham Jahn, the head of planning at the City of Sydney, pointed out with dramatic montages how the casino tower could be moved back into the built section of Barangaroo, in keeping with the original concept.
Professor Peter Webber, a former government architect, mocked the use of the word "iconic".
"How can a building, housing a gambling venue and apartments, be an icon?" he said.
But it was the Australian Institute of Architects NSW president Shaun Carter whose plea to the PAC brought the room to absolute silence.
"You are the last check and balance for the people in this process. Now, it is up to you to protect the public's interest," he said.
"I for one don't want to be remembered as the people that chose a private exclusive casino over a harbour-side public park. A park that will live on perpetuity ... that will be a gift to this city, a gift for our children and our children's children."
