Green Ban Dilemma For Zoo
The Sun Herald
Saturday April 10, 1993
SYDNEYSIDERS have been given the stark choice between saving the endangered orangutan species or a piece of harbour foreshore bushland.
Unionists have threatened to place a green ban on a proposed housing development site earmarked to finance a multi-million-dollar orang-utan exhibit at Taronga Zoo.
The secretary of the Building Trades Group of Unions (BGTU), Alf Rankin, made the threat in a letter to the executive director of the NSW Zoological Parks Board, Dr John Kelly.
The letter follows an application by Taronga Zoo to Mosman Council to rezone 0.8 hectares of land in Whiting Beach Road for 10 luxury houses. Net profits from the land sale would be used to build a $3-million orang-utan exhibit and other animal facilities at the zoo.
Mr Rankin said: "The unions have been requested by the Endangered Parkland Protection Committee (a community conservation group) to place a green ban on the site to save the bushland.
"We would be hopeful the issues in dispute could be amicably resolved by discussion and agreement. Of particular concern is the preservation of foreshore bushland next to the zoo."
Mr Rankin has asked for a meeting with Dr Kelly, together with concerned residents, to avert possible action.
However the executive director of Taronga Zoo, Glenn Smith, said that a senior unionist would be invited "to discuss rather than negotiate" the rezoning.
He said a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) study of the area found the land had no conservation or recreational value.
"It would not be worthy as an addition to the Sydney Harbour National Park," Mr Smith said. "This land is not parkland but an existing residential street with two houses, two hay sheds and a tarred road.
"We have already started on the building for the orang-utan exhibit, and we were hoping that the expected $3 million to $4 million net profit from the sale would go towards the exhibit and a number of other projects.
"If a green ban goes ahead, we may be forced to abandon the other building projects to finance the orang-utan exhibit."
Meanwhile, BGTU assistant secretary Andrew Ferguson has reaffirmed the five-year-old green ban on a controversial housing estate, Wedderburn Grange, near Campbelltown in Sydney's west.
Mr Ferguson made the statement in response to Prospect Electricity's announcement that it would provide electricity to the estate.
The company in possession of the land, OUB Australia (OUBA), has been assured by Prospect that electricity will be available to any purchaser of the available 22 rural/residential blocks.
Environmentalists claim that the site has one of the few remaining urban koala colonies in Australia.
OUBA is using the sale as a means to recover the outstanding debt of $3.5 million owed by its former client, Yap Yan Pin, now known as Ripela (in liquidation).
Three developers have gone into liquidation while trying to push ahead with the housing estate.
© 1993 The Sun Herald
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