‘High-risk’ threat to Rosehill mini-city bid

A proposal to relocate the Rosehill race track to a new location at Sydney Olympic Park could be derailed due to concerns the endangered green and golden bell frog cannot easily be relocated.

The plan to redevelop the Rosehill racecourse into a 25,000 mini city hinges on the development of a new racecourse in metropolitan Sydney, with Sydney Olympic Park’s historic brick pit touted as an option.

During an upper house probe into the proposal on Thursday, Sydney Olympic Park Authority chief executive Carla Armanet dashed hopes of potentially relocating the protected “high-risk” bell frog colonies, which live in the wet lands of the sunken brick pit - though this does not exclude other sites from being chosen for a new race course.

“The work that’s been undertaken over the last 24-odd years at Sydney Olympic Park with the green and golden bell frog is that it’s a habitat that doesn’t easily relocate,” she said.

“I don’t have full details of all studies that have been undertaken to date, but the survival rate is not high.”

The NSW government is considering a large-scale bid by the Australian Turf Club (ATC) to redevelop Rosehill Racecourse into a mixed use site with space for at least 25,000 new homes and a metro station.

The plans for the current Rosehill site are in the second stage of the three-level unsolicited proposal (USP) process and will be contingent on a vote from the ATC’s 11,000 members slated for later this year.

While Ms Armanet wouldn’t directly say whether SOPA would object to the construction of a racecourse at the brick pit, she said the zoning constraints would make things “challenging”

She also said the department had yet to be consulted on the suitability of the site and whether the government could circumvent ecological concerns by building a racecourse on the nearby cliff tops.

Racing NSW chair Saranne Cooke said it was a “prerequisite” for the board that a Class 1 racetrack be built in another Sydney location.

While the Sydney Olmypic Park site was an option, she said the regulatory body was currently conducting ecological and planning work, and warned there would be “a lot more to come if it gets past the first hurdle”.

Asked about a potential Warwick Farm site in Western Sydney, Dr Cooke said initial assessments had found it would be “very expensive”.

While Ms Armanet wouldn’t directly say whether SOPA would object to the construction of a racecourse at the brick pit, she said the zoning constraints would make things “challenging”.

Office of Sport chief executive Karen Jones also said she had not refined any “detailed plans” about relocating Rosehill’s training facilities to the Sydney International Equestrian Centre’s Horsley Park site.

However Ms Jones said the organisation would “fully co-operate through the unsolicited proposal process,” once they are called to do so.

BUREAUCRATS DENY PROPOSAL WAS RUSHED

Earlier on Thursday, senior bureaucrats denied the evaluation process was anything out of the ordinary after the committee raised questions over the speed of progress.

Following a meeting between NSW Premier Chris Minns and the ATC’s head of corporate affairs and government relations Steve McMahon, who is Mr Minn’s friend and Labor ally, on October 30, 2023, departments took four days to progress the idea to a four-option strategy on November 6.

Department chiefs were grilled over the fast turnaround of the proposed project, which was officially announced to major fanfare in December least year.

The ATC then officially submitted their USP on March 28 this year.

Premier’s Department secretary Simon Draper said the ATC would have been aware that the government was pursuing locations for other metro stations and extra housing when they first flagged the proposal.

“I don’t think there’s any great conspiracy or surprise about that. It was a well publicised, worst kept secret,” he told the committee.

“The government was trying to find additional station locations and build housing around those stations.”

However, Independent MP Mark Latham questioned whether there were issues with the “speed with which the cabinet office was moving on, doing it too fast and maybe some corners were being cut?”

In response, the Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade (DEIT) director of commercial transactions Rowan Fisher disagreed.

“The USP process, as we’ve described before is, is a very robust and structured process for government examining proposals from the private sector,” he said.

The DEIT executive director of commercial transactions Katie Knight said the USP process was robust.

Both Mr Fisher and Ms Knight confirmed they had not received any communication from the Premier’s office in the time between Mr Minns and Mr McMahon meeting and the first meeting between the department and the ATC on November 8 on USP guidelines.

Ms Knight also backed an unsolicited proposal process for its “really robust guidelines”.

“It has a very staged approach. It has a rigorous assessment and decision making, separating criteria, so I recommended it as the appropriate path,” she said.

In an earlier sessions, Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan also said the Metro West line’s proposed 2032 opening was not dependent on the success of the Rosehill proposal.

As it stands, tunnelling has yet to reach Rosehill and only design costs have been invested in the project, with Sydney Metro bosses “hoping” to provide advice to government in the “coming months”.

Should Rosehill’s USP be approved, the project still needs the backing of ATC members.

Mr Minns has described it as an “once-in-a-generation” opportunity; however, he acknowledged the decision was in ATC members’ hands.

“We’ve really made it clear from the very beginning that this is a decision for ATC members. We don’t own the land, the land’s owned by the members of the racecourse, and there’s no compulsory acquisition,” he previously said.

“But we’d be crazy just to walk away from a proposal that could see more housing for young people on a brand new public transport line for Sydney.”