What’s in a name you ask?  A lot of angst I can tell you.

Well well well here we are 5 weeks on from the last sitting of the Central Linwood Heathcote community board, and there is still no sign of the families queuing up to move into the warm dry healthy homes in the newly name Bings lane. (Formally 58/1-21 Perth Street)

Let me take you back 5 weeks ago, when members of the Richmond community took time out of their busy day to give the community board a quick history lesson on the wonderful suburb of Richmond, they implored the community board to let the people surrounding the Perth street development to have a say in the name, this could have easily occurred in the two weeks between meetings.

The names that the developer presented were not what the residents wanted and the names that the residents presented to the staff were rejected for one reason or another – thats a whole other blog!  Needless to say in my view a completely inappropriate backup name was chosen, Bings Lane – Mr Bing didn’t even own the land that 58 Perth Street resides on.  Click HERE for some history on Bingsland for context.

But instead the community board voted against it because they did not want to hold up title, their reasoning was because it would hold up the families queuing to get into a warm dry home.  Lets get real here! how many families are really going to move into these units?

The Real Reason!

The more likely reason is the developer did not want them to hold up title, because if the community board did vote to let the community have a say in the name, it would hold up the developer getting their deposits for this development, which they needed in order to start another one – I am guessing.  Interestingly the developer sent a lawyer to the community board meeting, and listening to the banter at the meeting, a letter was also sent to the Chief Executive by the lawyer acting on behalf of the developer the week before the meeting, which was used to brief the board before the deputations.

Our communities just don’t have the resources to lawyer up, so once again the existing communities have been left out in the cold, while the developers and short stay visitors to our fair city are warm and dry in their cosy new Airbnb homes.

Don’t you fine folks think that this was an opportunity to give a little bit of power back to the long suffering residents and Ratepayers of Perth Street? Rather than further lining the pockets of a greedy developer?  Or should our current Government and Council be 100% focused on building more houses no matter the cost to the wellbeing of the communities that are impacted?  

As always I am interested to hear your views – catch you on the flip side.

THE BINGSLAND BLOGGER

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