Caritas Mental Hospital

Latest News August 2008

1 August 2008 - Keep Caritas for Community Health

A development application is expected to be lodged with the NSW Planning Department for a $100 million residential and retail complex on the site of Darlinghurst’s Caritas mental health facility by the end of the year.

St Hilliers Property purchased the site from St Vincent’s Hospital earlier in 2008 for $20 million.

In April 2007, NSW Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, approved St Vincent’s and Mater Health to sell and redevelop the Caritas site at 299 Forbes Street, and relocate mental health services to the main St Vincents Hospital campus. The plan will allow St Vincents an integrated mental health, drug and alcohol and community health facility on the Darlinghurst site in partnership with the NSW Government.

Last year Minister Sartor rezoned the Caritas site for mixed use, to allow a combination of commercial and residential that will “complement and respect” the historical character of the area.

In turn, St Vincents has demolished their existing O’Brien building and begun construction of an eight storey replacement building, 228 car parking spaces and ancillary facilities.

St Hilliers have permission to modify the existing Caritas House and Caritas Cottage - both items on the City Heritage Register. They also have permission to build up to 112 residential units in new buildings of 5-7 storeys; plus create a basement car parking for up to 142 vehicles at the Forbes Street site. The site will incorporate around 1,100 sqm of retail and restaurant space.

Darlinghurst Residents Action Group (DRAG) has raised concerns over the sale of a site that has been used for mental health since 1850.

In particular that:
* The density of the proposed development on this site is overwhelmingly opposed
* The heritage impact on the buildings and surrounding heritage conservation area with some of Sydney’s oldest colonial buildings, the gaol and courthouse precinct is seriously detrimental.

DRAG suggests instead, that Caritas development use the model proposed by State Government and City of Sydney Council in Ultimo, where up to 700 new affordable, social and private housing units are planned. Under such a model, a portion of heritage housing stock could be transferred to Council, a community housing association and or a co-operative housing organisation to manage the site for low-income housing with a priority to mental health housing.

NEWS Archive:
NO MERCY: THE PROPOSED SALE AND RE-DEVELOPMENT OF CARITAS (THE FORMER DARLINGHURST RECEIVING HOUSE)

4 November 2006

St Vincent’s Hospital has joined forces with the Department of Health to sell-off Caritas a site used for public mental health uses for 140 years. Caritas forms part of Sydney’s most significant old sandstone civic precincts. The unique triangular heritage-listed site adjoins the Darlinghurst Cop Shop and faces the old jail and Supreme Court. The block, bounded by Forbes, Bourke and Burton Streets, almost touches Taylor Square at its apex. It also nurtures a rare patch of theraputic green space.

An application is before Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, for re-zoning the site from hospital special uses to unrestricted use: no height controls. Freehold crown land is being transferred from the Crown to the hospital to be sold for residential development. The partners, St Vincents and NSW Health Department, propose an open slather commercial and residential development (12, 7 and 4 storey-mixed residential and commercial). Caritas is Latin for love or mercy and there’s not much around in this deal. The Minister has unfettered approval powers under the new ‘Part 3A’ amendments to the planning laws.

DRAG has written in opposition to the concept plan for the re-zoning and re-development of the Caritas Mental Health site. (Letter to the Director, Department of Planning, on 3 November 2006). DRAG and like-minded groups are campaigning to have the site remain in public ownership for community psychiatric services maintained there or community housing.

St Vincent’s held a public briefing one week before the close of responses with the Department of Planning. The meeting was selective and not widely advertised. The Department of Health has been undertaking a long process of closing, shifting or consolidating community mental health services.

The deal is: St Vincents proposes consolidation of its mental health services on one site, the O’Brien Building. This was not their first choice. The preferred option was to retain Caritas. The cost to demolish and rebuild the O’Brien Building is $43 million. The Iemma Government is contributing $23 million. This will see Caritas re-housed (but not expanded) and ‘integrate’ the mental health facility (27 beds) and 20 drug and alcohol beds and co-locate several small services. The sale proceeds are split: $20 million to St Vincents and the balance to Treasury. Both parties have a vested interest in maximising development on the site.

Stunned residents were informed the hospital has already advertised for Expressions of Interest proposals to start construction in early 2007. The “envelope” proposal is monstrous and out of all proportion with a Heritage Conservation Area and heritage listed buildings. The Minister of Planning’s Part 3A consent therefore is mere tinkering with consultative appearances.

The Part 3A process introduced to the Environment Planning and Assessment Act (1979) by the Department of Planning in October 2005 was initially proposed to address a ‘planning backlog’ and larger projects of State significance. Instead, the 3A process is a fast track to development approval without community consultation or the alternative to development approval refused by the Local Council and the Land & Environment Court. As it has unfolded, Part 3A is a backward step offering a less consistent, less transparent process and has taken away citizens appeal rights.

In the Caritas application, the state is vendor, developer and consent authority with public interest nowhere guaranteed.

As Elizabeth Farrelly observed (in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 November 2006) the way Caritas qualifies as a major project is dodgy. The legal definition stipulates any building over $15million which provides “professional health care purposes”. The new integrated “service cluster” at the O’Brien building at $41million stretches the definition to farce. The O’Brien development also proposes a significant proportion of commercial tenancy and a massive underground carpark (which is not part of the deal with the government). Caritas is a straight commercial re-zoning and only indirectly (for the purposes of funding) can be considered as “state significant”.

The Iemma Government’s pledging of $23 million for upgraded facilities is commendable. Everyone has friends or family who has suffered in someway. For these reasons, consideration of alternative options and transparent debate is imperative. The Minister should not approve this poorly considered request for re-zoning and proposed building ‘envelope’.

DRAG supports socio-economically mixed communities in the inner-city and sustainable and successful communities where people want to live. Overseas model show mixed income communities are overwhelmingly judged successful. The schemes generally meet the expectations of developers, residents and housing managers and had become pleasant places to live, learn and work and in many ways, Darlinghurst has been a model mixed community for decades. We wish to see this continue to ensure an economically productive and accessible inner-city.

DRAG’s specific concerns as submitted to the Minister are:

1. Caritas is Special Purposes site (Zoned 5), which, by convention, if changed to another use reverts to the adjacent zoning. This means the FSR and densities should be comparable to that of Darlinghurst Goal and Courthouse or that of the surrounding zoned residential area and its Victorian townscape of predominantly 2-3 storey residential and mixed commercial buildings.

2.Transfer of perpetual lease of Caritas site to freehold title: The site has been used continuously for 140 years for public mental health. St Vincent’s was granted a perpetual lease on the Caritas site in 1962 as long as it provides mental health services on that site. The sale and development does not provide and increased number of beds. Sale and commercial development is not the best use of the site.

3. Loss of public benefit: This is not the best re-use of the site for public benefit. A comparable re-use of the site to benefit public mental health could be community housing which incorporates some standard of psychiatric care.

4. Heritage Loss: The site and the adjoining civic buildings form one of Sydney’s most significant civic precincts. The integrity of this civic precinct would be lost forever under this proposal.

5. Caritas is part of a Heritage Conservation Area and includes three buildings on South Sydney Council’s Heritage Register. The civic precinct comprises the Darlinghurst Goal (architect Mortimer Lewis 1836), Darlinghurst Court House (architect Mortimer Lewis 1835-44/enlarged by James Barnet 1886), St Vincent’s Hospice, Green Park and Sacred Heart Church (Federation Gothic style to a design by James Nangle in 1911 on the original 1852 foundations.) The adjacent school hall was built in 1880.

The key building on the Caritas site is the Darlinghurst Receiving House designed by architect James Barnet 1886 and sympathetically enlarged in 1930. The site contains several other heritage buildings, including the stable for the old Police station, gatehouse, retaining walls and well. The 1960s buildings are of little value.

6. Height and Density is out of Scale with a Colonial Civic Precinct and Victorian mixed-residential neighbourhood: The proposed new building heights (12-storey tower, 6-storeys and 4-storeys) would overshadow the precinct and are completely out of keeping with it. The 12-storey tower is very significantly higher than any building in the Darlinghurst area (apart from the Horizon Building built on a Federal Government site and hence beyond the reach of local or state controls). The height of the buildings will destroy the views to and from the Courthouse and Goal and the area’s heritage streetscapes.

7. Loss of Open Space: This proposal diminishes the amount of open parkland space in the inner-city.

8. O’Brien proposal: No interior use plans appear to have been on public exhibition. SVH must give an indication that the O’Brien re-development will be used for public health purposes not for commercial benefit. The 3-level, 200-plus car park underneath the new O’Brien building is clearly not needed for mental health purposes.

9. Treatment Benefits: SVH say their preferred option was to stay on the Caritas site and upgrade the 1962 built facilities. Co-location may lead to improved treatment but as this is a serious public health issue and a major public investment, a public debate on treatment should be held. Clearly there are opposing professional views on treatment. The Department of Health has been undertaking a long process of closing, shifting or consolidating community mental health services.

10. Need for a St Vincent’s Masterplan: In mid-2005 a residents and Garvan meeting (attended by around 100 people) overwhelmingly expressed concern about St Vincent’s refusal to release for consultation its overall plans for the site (master plan).

11. Integrity and probity of tender and planning assessment process: The ‘project control group’ (Department of Health, Treasury, Premiers’ Department and the South East/Illawarra Area Health Service) all stand to benefit financially from maxmising development on the site.

DRAG Contacts on Caritas: Jo Holder, T 9331 6621; Julia Perry, T 93312129;

Media: Norman Thompson, 0419 296 144.

DRAG ALERTS

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