Armidale Regional Council has now published the Draft Armidale City Centre Vitality Plan on their feedback portal for residents to comment, but have declined to answer most questions about how the plan came to be and several specific aspects of the draft plan.
Backflips, bollards and budgets
Many stakeholders who would be directly affected by the plan say they were not consulted or even aware it was coming, although most did not want to speak on record. Two referred to bullying by Council as their reason for not speaking out publicly against the latest big plan from “a Council that is supposed to strapped for cash and struggling to do basic maintenance”.
“Last time we raised a safety issue with Council the retaliation was just so intense – I’m not crossing them on a deluded plan that will likely never see dawn,” one said.
One fearless defender of the mall, Beattie Alvarez of Granny Fi’s Toy Cupboard, was particularly perplexed as to how this plan came about, given just months ago Mayor Sam Coupland told her and other mall business owners to ‘stop worrying’ about the mall.
“At one of the ‘ask us anything’ meet ups last year at Hustle, the Mayor publicly said that Council had no plans to reopen the Mall, no budget for it, and can we ‘please stop worrying about that’,” she said.
Coupland couldn’t recall the specific conversation, but confirmed that was in line with his general position, and there is no budget for the plan.
“I can’t recall specific conversations, but my position has been along the lines of “Any plans to reopen the mall to traffic has been scotched by the worlds most expensive bollard being erected at the eastern end”,” he said.
The ‘bollard’ being referred to is the bandstand, not the more important traffic obstacle which has been a key focus of previous opposition to re-opening the mall to traffic in the past, the Reconciliation Fountain in the centre of the mall.
“In reality there is no budget to reopen the mall or for that matter a lot of what appears on the Draft City Vitality Plan,” Mayor Coupland said.
Confusion and coincidences
If there was no plan, no budget, and just months ago the Mayor was publicly telling mall businesses not to worry about the mall being reopened to traffic, how did this plan, which includes re-opening the mall as a centrepiece, come to be?
The only thing that has been able to be determined is that it came from staff of ARC, not elected councillors.
Council has confirmed that the firm Unique Urban was retained directly by Council (that is, there was no EOI or Tender process, staff in ARC chose to go to Unique Urban).
According to the response from Council, Unique Urban were paid “68,000 to provide specialist spatial and graphic design support to Council planners preparing the Draft Vitality Plan over the past 6 months, ensuring clear visual representation of the key concepts recommended by our planners.”
Both Council and Unique Urban did not answer a question regarding whether Unique Urban have any connection to the Unique Urban that was involved in the building of the Broken Hill Civic Centre during General Manager James Roncon’s tenure there.
However, this similarly named business, high in the search results because of recent court cases regarding the Broken Hill Civic Centre construction irregularities that occurred under Roncon’s leadership, and thus a concerning matter for residents, does appear to be a mere coincidence. The Unique Urban planning business retained for this project appears to be a three year old one-man operation in Sydney, and Unique Urban Built, who worked on the Broken Hill Civic Centre, was a large South Australian construction company which was put into administration in 2019.
The Questions Unanswered
In response to 37 questions about the Draft Plan document, ranging from errors in facts and misstatements of history, through to apparent intentional omissions, what consultation and research was conducted, and costs, Council declined to answer, and opted instead to issue a dismissive statement on Friday that contradicted the draft plan document.
Almost none of the questions are answered in the statement, which appears to gaslight those raising questions about the plan as it both dismisses those questions and directly contradicts the language in the draft plan document. In particular, the assertion that reintroduction of vehicle access to the central mall is just a “strategic planning recommendation contained within the Draft Vitality Plan and should not be interpreted as a final Council decision” seems very much at odds with the Plan that describes the re-opened mall as one of two “transformational spines”, on which the entire plan rests.
Main direct contradictions between the Draft Plan and the Statement from ARC
| Issue | Draft plan document says | Statement says |
|---|---|---|
| Status of the mall proposal | Describes the mall conversion as one of two “transformational spines” forming the plan’s core spatial framework — “The Plan establishes the long-term transition of Beardy Street from a disjointed pedestrian mall to a unified shared pedestrian and vehicle street.” | “Should not be interpreted as a final Council decision” and is a “strategic planning recommendation” |
| Scope of community input | “The purpose of consultation under this Plan is not to re-ask foundational questions about whether the city centre should change or what broad outcomes are desired — those matters are already well established through previous plans” | “An opportunity for the broader community to review the vision for the city centre, test its assumptions, challenge its recommendations and suggest alternative approaches” and “Council is at the beginning of a series of conversations with the community about the future of the city centre” |
| Property acquisition | The integrated action plan lists as an immediate (one to three year) priority: “Commence acquisition of the Moore Street car park, City Band building and closed Dangar Street road reserve” | “The identification of catalyst sites should not be interpreted as Council endorsing acquisition, redevelopment or specific future uses of those properties” |
| Level of design detail | Specifies reopening Dangar Street, demolishing the Moore Street car park and Telstra Exchange, “targeted demolition of detractory buildings” along the civic spine, Nightingale housing typology on Allingham Street, and Civic Park works brought forward as a priority | “Does not finalise detailed design outcomes for individual public spaces, buildings or infrastructure projects” |
| How far through the process council is | “This accumulated feedback provides Council with a high level of confidence about what the Armidale community expects and supports…the Vitality Plan does not abstract or reinterpret community feedback; it translates it into tangible planning outcomes” | “Council is at the beginning of a series of conversations with the community about the future of the city centre” |
Consultation is also framed very differently by the statement, which states “the purpose of exhibiting the Draft Vitality Plan is not to announce a predetermined outcome, but to invite discussion about the challenges and opportunities affecting the city centre” and “the beginning of a series of conversations”. while the Draft Plan, and much of the discussion in the Council meeting last Monday, asserted that consultation was not required because the “accumulated feedback provides Council with a high level of confidence”.
Neither the statement, nor any other responses from Council, addressed the failure to acknowledge the community’s strong rejection of previous plans to return traffic to the mall, nor the failure to include any mention of the needs of women, children, elderly, people with disabilities or public transport users in the proposed vision for the city.
The information about how Unique Urban were retained and how much they were paid was only answered after those questions were put a second time.
The Draft Plan is open for feedback until August 17 at https://yoursay.armidale.nsw.gov.au/draft-armidale-city-centre-vitality-plan
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