The surest sign of a healthy shopping centre is the presence of stores in competition with one another. That ensures that the customers are wooed with the lowest prices - and given the best of services. It is therefore disappointing when Wollongong council gives as one of it's reasons for refusing to approve a $ 110 million factory outlet centre at Kembla Grange - that it would " undermine existing shopping centres and confidence in the city ".
We already suffer escape spending when bus operators take regular loads of shoppers on day trips to similar factory outlets in Sydney. This proposed 35,000 square metre development would not only give the building industry a shot in the arm, but manning the complex would provide a plethora of badly needed jobs.
Twice this matter has gone before council - and twice it has been rejected, despite overwhelming public support and the presentation of a petition asking council to have a change of mind.
Unfortunately council approval depends on the actual site being rezoned and this provides a convenient excuse for rejection. At present, this land is zoned for future manufacturing industry, and a factory outlet does not fit this description. The size of the proposed factory outlet would not fit into any existing shopping centre, hence it requires new thinking to become reality.
It seems that once again the city of Wollongong will have shot itself in the foot. This innovative business and the jobs it will create is being sought by others and there is every chance that it will simply relocate to another site here in the Illawarra - but not within the Wollongong city boundaries.
So - we get the worst of all worlds. Employers usually prefer workers who live locally, hence jobs are more likely to go to Shellharbour residents, and this factory outlet will still compete with the shopping centres in Wollongong - but without delivering any benefits to this city.
Work has started on an expansion of the Wollongong Mall. Does this factory outlet rejection mean that our council will now seek to stifle any new retail developments in Corrimal, Fairy Meadow and the other northern suburbs - on the grounds that they are protecting the Mall ?
It is indeed the start of a very slippery slope when new developments are rejected on the grounds that they provide unwanted " competition " in the business world !
Its called Crony Capitalism - this is where the regulatory arms of government get into bed with or compromised by pre existing support and networks with existing companies, so when the merest whiff of possible new competition surfaces, they feel obliged to squash it on behalf of the existing businesses. The classic in Wollongong is GPT. The Council and others turn themselves inside out to give them what they want. And GPT representative made in abundantly clear they did not want this DFO at Kembla Grange approved. I read the 66 page Council staff report recommending against this rezoning and a greater work of fiction claiming to be a factual report to educate Councillors I have not seen. It said, amongst other things, that the industrial land needed to remain industrial as a jobs creation scheme and cited the regional Strategy which claims 30,000 manufacturing jobs will return to the area. They also said this land must be kept industrial and empty after 21 + years of no sign of anyone wanting to use it for industrial purposes, because manufacturing jobs are higher paid jobs compared to retail jobs. The developer had been trying to over 5 years to get the DFO built -with 800 construction jobs and 1,000 retail jobs - with REAL jobs now earning REAL money however the Council staff preferred the earning potential of fantasy jobs, because they paid more! The land will be vacant another 20+ years. Meanwhile Bluescope Gas and Pipe industrial zoned land next to the proposed DFO closed down last week, with 56 manufacturing jobs gone. Bluescope intend to sell the industrial zone land. So there will be lots more vacant industrial zoned land sitting around - waiting, waiting for the Chinese and Indians to suddenly decide to send those jobs back to Wollongong.
ReplyDeleteIn the weekend Mercury Mayor Bradbury - no doubt conscious of the backlash for excessive and unwarranted protection of The Mall - is suddenly talking about the need to "protect" Wentworth St Port Kembla and Shellharbour Square so they do not become shopping ghost towns. Interestingly Shellhabour Council have contacted the DFO developer and are begging him to set up in their area. So Shellharbour Council have no worries a DFO will steal jobs from existing retailers or if they do, they accept it as normal part of being in private enterprise. So bottomline - Wollongong Council have rejected a $120 mill investment and one of the largest job creation schemes in the region because they want to protect existing [unused] industrial zoned land and not real [fantasy] 30,000 manufacturing jobs.