Plans for multiple new high-rise developments at Pyrmont show a deeply concerning approach to planning in the historic suburb and a waste of investment at a crucial time for Sydney’s future. New office towers and a $500 million, 51-storey luxury Star Casino hotel give favour to a monument to problem gambling rather than building for jobs of the future. This is not strategic planning, it is simply rubber-stamping developers’ dreams, when we should be prioritising open space, active transport, social and affordable housing, and workplaces of the future.

Pyrmont is Sydney’s start-up hub, a centre of innovation and creativity and COVID-19 has accelerated changing work trends. The NSW Government should build on Pyrmont’s lead in co-working, not focusing on office towers that will only end up white elephants. We are grappling with what the future will look like and how we will rebuild our communities after the devastation of the pandemic. Not one expert has said this crisis calls for more casino towers.

Pyrmont is a cohesive community with a good mix of social and affordable housing. There is a desperate need to increase social and affordable housing to give people safe homes. This should be front and centre of the Pyrmont plan, but the plan does not even commit to keeping the social housing already there.

While consideration of a metro station and returning Wentworth Park to the community are welcome, most of this plan risks being a disaster for Pyrmont and its diverse local community, and a huge loss for the future of Sydney. It’s not too late to do the right thing and invest in the city of the future. I urge everyone to engage in the public exhibition process and give feedback to the government: HERE