Armidale’s city centre could look radically different under a sweeping draft plan that proposes returning cars to the Beardy Street mall, demolishing several buildings, and redeveloping community landmarks including the bowling club and car yards along Marsh Street.
The 108-page Draft Armidale City Centre Vitality Plan, tabled at Monday’s Armidale Regional Council meeting, identifies nine “catalytic redevelopment sites” across the city centre and proposes approximately 16 direct council capital projects, including a new public library, a major new cultural building on Moore Street, upgraded creeklands and Civic Park works, consolidated car parks, and a network of new laneways.
The plan’s most contentious proposal is the conversion of the Beardy Street pedestrian mall into a shared pedestrian and vehicle street, reinstating traffic across all three sections of the mall — east, central, and west. A similar proposal was strongly opposed by the community in 2017, generating petitions and rallies before it was abandoned.
The plan also identifies the Armidale City Bowling Club’s 1.4-hectare site on Marsh Street as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for medium-density and mixed-use redevelopment. The plan makes no mention of whether the club has been approached or consulted, but would see the recently renovated club house and greens gone for commercial buildings and residences.
All of the car yards along Marsh Street and Rusden Street are also earmarked for redevelopment, along with the Moore Street car park and the Telstra Exchange building on Dangar Street, which the plan proposes council acquire and demolish to make way for a new regional cultural facility.
The tourist information centre would also be moving, with that building, the service station and Hungry Jacks building all gone for a car park “providing consolidated offstreet parking to support surrounding properties including the Wicklow Hotel”.
The plan also proposes “targeted demolition of detractory buildings” along a proposed north-south civic spine linking Civic Park to Central Park through the heart of the city centre, though it does not name which buildings are considered “detractory”.
A new public library is proposed for the Council civic site on Rusden Street, described in the plan as the most “shovel-ready” investment available to council. The current War Memorial Library has been at 182 Rusden Street less than a decade, when its 2017 relocation from what is now Nova on Faulkner Street was itself the subject of significant community controversy.
The plan proposes funding through a combination of private investment, state and federal grants, and the council’s Future Fund, which is expected to be capitalised through planning agreement contributions from renewable energy projects in the New England Renewable Energy Zone. The plan acknowledges council’s base financial capacity alone is insufficient to deliver the works described.
The plan was prepared by Sydney-based urban design firm Unique Urban and went through four draft versions between May and June this year before being tabled at Monday’s meeting.
Cr Brad Widders was enthusiastic about what the plan could deliver.
“I’ve got to tip my hat to the staff who put it together,” Cr Widders said.
“If all of this came to fruition the difference it would make in this town would be amazing.”
Deputy Mayor Todd Redwood framed the plan as the culmination of decades of previous work.
“It’s not like someone went out and created a brand new plan,” Deputy Mayor Redwood said.
“What this is is the combination of plans over many decades that this council has put together, and almost none of them have ever landed.”
“This one brings them together, pulls the best parts out of all of them, and puts it together in a comprehensive and cohesive plan.”
It will now be over to the people to see if they agree with Cr Redwood’s assertion that these are the best bits of the plan.
Councillors voted to place the plan on public exhibition, though Cr Dr Dorothy Robinson successfully argued for an extended consultation period.
“It’s such a comprehensive plan, whether we could actually put it on public exhibition for a little bit more than 28 days to give the public time to respond,” Cr Dr Robinson said.
“I would certainly like to see it for 45 days, or even 60 days,” she said, “just to give people a bit more time to read it.”
The council resolved to have it on display for 42 days, and Mayor Sam Coupland encouraged residents to engage with the document.
“I don’t normally do this, but I really encourage the community to have a look at it,” Mayor Coupland said.
“There’s a lot of colour in there. There is a lot of interesting stuff in there. Have a look at what is possible would be my suggestion, give us some feedback.”
The draft plan and instructions on how to give feedback is expected to be posted on the Your Say website sometime this week.
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