SYDNEY - Sydney residents are familiar with poor planning and development which is translating into more and more people being crammed into less space. Local government continues to cave in to the developers despite the cries for the preservation of open space and proper planning. There is an acute shortage of dwellings and pent up demand is providing developers with the leverage to lay claim to what could have been, and probably should have been, open space.
Sydney has lost considerable amounts of open space over the past 25 years. If the figures I have been given are reliable, the commonly accepted benchmark is 24 square metres of open space per resident. Sydney has 23.6 square metres per resident, ahead of New York's 18 square metres per resident, but behind San Francisco (31 square metres per resident) and Melbourne which has 73.8 square metres per resident.
Local councils make motherhood statements about improving facilities while talking in terms of increasing demand, over-use of existing facilities and shrinking amounts of open space (which they seem incapable of connecting to the Development Applications they approve). Sporting groups are screaming for more facilities, those who prefer to engage in passive recreation activities are lamenting that they are being deprived of access so that the needs of organised sport can be met and dog owners see themselves as marginalised. Rate payers are angry that they continue to foot the bill while their local council ignores them.
The brouhaha over use of space in several LGAs is not dying down. It appears to be a case of passive recreation versus organised sport versus dog owners who can't see why Rover should be kept on a leash; and these groups do not appear to be willing to share space. There appears to be a substantial commitment to organised sport by local councils; a facile response to the figures on childhood obesity and pressure from sporting clubs. Sporting bodies have clout (mostly in the form of Alan Jones and other shock jocks). True, the statistics point to a substantial increase in participation in organised sports, however the lack of training space has been played out in the media as a 'where will the children play?' quandary. Little thought appears to have been given to children who don't or don't want to play organised sport. What happens to the kids who just want to ‘play'?
A number of councils are commissioning recreation studies however a recreation study of a single LGA will not magically provide an accurate picture. Council boundaries are not impermeable, people travel out of their local government area to shop, work, study, play sport, walk along a beach etc.
How should the matter of who gets to use Sydney's open spaces and for what purposes be resolved? Should one group be prioritised over another? Do these spaces belong to any one group and who decides and how? Do we need a comprehensive plan to manage resources across council boundary lines or are our lives over-regulated as it is? Or is it that someone needs to step in to teach the people of Sydney to how to play together nicely?