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Rozelle Tram Depot
  See also page on Light Rail

architect

 George McRae

location

 south of Harold Park Raceway, next to Jubilee Oval, Glebe Point.

date

 1904

style

 Federation Warehouse

construction

 brick walls, steel and glass sawtooth roof. Heritage listed (see below).

type

 Utility
  Rozelle Tram Depot is a large tram depot in Glebe that has stood effectively empty sine the 1960s.
It is currently owned by the Harold Park Raceway, who would like to develop it into flats. As the site is heritage listed and sits in the middle of parkland, a stalemate has ensued.
There are also about half a dozen old trams in it that were until recently in near perfect condition (having been sourced for a proposed heritage tram route in the Rocks that was later abandoned). They have now been heavily vandalised (see recent picture below).
 
  A tram departs the Rozelle Depot (adjacent to Harold Park) bound for Sydney University and the city (c. 1955).   
 
  An R1 class tram at Stop 30 in Glebe Point Road opposite Palmerstone Avenue (January 1958).
 
  Circa 1919.
 
 
 
  Above- the depot in 2008.
 
  Above- the trams inside the depot in around 2000. They were still in very good condition then. The following pictures were taken in 2008 and show how brutally they've been vandalised..
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
Sydney, the largest city in Australia, once had the largest tram system in Australia, the second largest in the Commonwealth (after London), and one of the largest in the world. It was extremely intensively worked, with about 1,600 cars in service at any one time at its peak during the 1930s (cf. about 500 trams in Melbourne today). Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, an average of more than one tram journey per day was made by every man and woman, infant and child in the city. Patronage peaked in 1945 at 405 million passenger journeys. The system was in place from 1861 until its winding down in the 1950s and closure in 1961. It had a maximum street mileage of 181 miles (291 km), in 1923.

In 1997, more than 30 years after trams disappeared from Sydney streets, the Metro Light Rail, a privately owned single line, opened. There have been various proposals to extend this line into the CBD and inner suburbs but none has come to fruition.
 
A while ago these Trams were part of a daily telegraph article, gues what was to happen (the tram shed was to be rebuilt (so emptied and such) and then the 4 R class trams in the shed were to be put on static display for the people who were going to be buying the APARTMENTS, of all things they were going to turn it into a static display for apartment owners only.

Tramsheds public meeting

A public meeting attended by about 100 people has condemned a proposal to develop 122 dwellings on the former tram depot site in Maxwell Road, Glebe.

The development is proposed by the NSW Harness Racing Club which acquired the site from the NSW Government several years ago. It would occupy a large part of the site and rise to approximately the same height as the existing main grandstand. In addition, 222 car parking spaces would be built underground. The proposal also includes 1,600sq.m. of commercial studio space, a childcare centre and a small exhibition of trams that is called a museum. The DA in no way improves the harness racing facilities at Harold Park, or the needs of the community, but is aimed solely at making money for the club.

The Society, and other community organisations, has long regarded the sheds as having much potential for community and artistic use, including a market, artists' studios and/or performance spaces. We have already made some progress generating ideas for the site and also contacted other interested organisations.

In the application, the proposal does not really restore the sheds, as a multi-storey apartment block would compromise a considerable part of them. The site is currently zoned open space under which housing is prohibited, but the developer is claiming existing use rights..

The resolution

The resolution passed at the public meeting held at Benledi on 9 March reads:

This meeting of concerned residents calls on the City of Sydney and, if relevant, the Central Sydney Planning Committee to reject the current application D04/01624 for 122 dwellings proposed to be built at Rozelle (Glebe) Tramsheds because:

1. The Tramsheds are zoned Open Space and a residential development is not permissible under LEP 2000.

2. The Tramsheds do not have existing use rights of any kind. The original use ceased in 1958 and the only subsequent approved use also ceased many years ago.

3. The Tramsheds are an important reminder of one of the most extensive public transport systems in the world, Sydney Trams that, unlike those that still provide outstanding service in Melbourne, were replaced by the less efficient buses. As such they are a Heritage Item under LEP 2000, and any future use should retain the original structure in its entirety.

4. The current proposal is not an adaptive reuse of a Heritage Item. It destroys most of the fabric of the Tramsheds and the significant sandstone escarpment, and detracts from the view of the Sheds when viewed from any point except directly in front.

5. The proposal contravenes both the density and height restrictions of LEP and DCP 2000.

6. The proposal violates sound town planning principles. The site is on low-lying land adjacent to a watercourse, isolated from any residential street and accessible only via a private road. Such land is normally reserved for non-residential use, and in Glebe especially for recreational use. This would conform with existing land use patterns around Sydney Harbour.

7. The existing building has the advantage of large uninterrupted internal spaces with excellent natural lighting from the roof, features that render it ideal for recreational, community, display and creative uses rather than housing.

8. The proposed dwellings along Maxwell Road will seriously impact on the amenity of nearby residents.

9. The proposal has unacceptable traffic impact on the local street system and the park, with the only access for all vehicles being over a public park. This contravenes a condition of the 1994 development approval.

10. The poor design and scale of the apartment development is contrary to the design principles and design code in the State Government's Policy for Design of Residential Flat Development, and results in unsatisfactory future amenity for residents.

11. The form, extent and design of the development are incompatible with and will have an unacceptable impact on the heritage significance of the Tramsheds and the local Conservation Area.

12. The proposal should not even be considered unless and until a satisfactory overall Master Plan for the various components of the Harold Park site has been prepared with public consultation, so as to cater for and recognize potential adverse impacts between uses and on the local neighbourhood.

13. New South Wales Harness Racing Club, however it came to acquire a valuable Government site, cannot find a use for it related to racing, and this was the purpose for which the land was originally acquired using grants from the Racecourse Development Fund. It is not an appropriate owner or developer of the Tramsheds, and should relinquish ownership, preferably to the NSW Government or the City of Sydney, so the site can be restored and used in a manner appropriate to its Open Space zoning.

14. The development should be assessed in relation to the environment, heritage architecture and amenity for residents of Glebe as a whole, taking into account the massive impact of the Australand development on Blackwattle Bay on all these factors, and especially on traffic from this and other developments.

9 March 2005

Source : http://www.glebesociety.org.au/AboutTGSI/Planning/Tramsheds_resolution.htm
 
The route

As per request, a bit of info about trams in the Sydney suburb of Annadale. A tram turned off Parramatta Road into Ross Street and travelled along Ross Street, Minogue Crescent, the Crescent and then along Victoria Road and across the Iron Cove Bridge and onto Ryde I think.

There wasn't a Minogue Crescent then. There was a Crescent Street and it ended about about half way along Harold Park race track. The tram went through what was probably parkland or open land or bush and The Crescent started at Rose Street and Nelson Street but did not actually run along The Crescent, but just to the west of it. It joined The Crescent at View Street.

Clearly a road was built that followed the tram track, probably when the tram line closed. The tram line perhaps closed in 1953. It was never a dead halt. Bits were closed progressively.

A short line ran behind the Harold Park race track, north side to the Rozelle tram Depot, almost to Maxwell Road. By a current map, the depot looks to be in Forest Lodge.

The Lilyfield tram turned off Crescent Street at its end, now seemingly also called Minogue Crescent and travelled through open land and across a bridge over Johnston's Creek., now referred to as a stormwater channel. There seems to be a walking trail there now that follows the tram route and the footbridge across the creek may well be the original tram bridge.

The tram went down Taylor Street and turned right into Booth Street which changes to Moore Street. It then turned into Catherine Street and the Lilyfield terminus was at Lilyfield Road, back then called Abattoir Road.

A tram line continued along Moore Street and again slightly north and overland next to Moore Street West. The Leichhardt Bus Depot was the Leichhardt Tram Depot. The line ran along William Street to Norton Street and I expect this was only for working operations. A tram ran along Norton Street from Parramatta Road on its way to what seems to be a Balmain connection, via Perry Street, Balmain Road and Darling Street.

Trams came down Parramatta Road as far as Crystal Street and after turning into Crystal Street, they went on to terminate at Canterbury.

Getting a bit far away now from Annadale, but a tram also ran along Glebe Point Road to terminate at Cook Street.

Hmm, I quite enjoyed that. Hope it is of interest. All info is as I can see it, not necessarily correct.

Thanks to http://highriser.blogspot.com/2007/08/trams-in-annadale.html
 
Former Sydney electric tram depots

The main system...

Rozelle - as mentioned above. At Harold Park racecourse. Used for truck storage IIRC for some years. In the 70s or 80s, some pointwork was recovered from the forecourt. I believe that the scissors crossover at Loftus is ex-Rozelle. The corridor cars there were collected by a group with a name like the city tram association. Legal issues have arisen, but I think some or all of these trams have a claim on them by the SPER.

Dowling St - Cnr of Dowling St and Dacey Ave Moore Park. Now site of the Supa Centre. The largest depot in Australia, with 345 cars on 27 roads. Was used for storage until being deolished in the 80s.

Waverley - Cnr of York Rd and Oxford St, probably truer to place it in Bondi Junction. Oppostie Centennial Park. Re-opened in 1960 after conversion for use by buses. A large part of the shed survives, along York Rd.

Tempe - Cnr of Gannon St and Princes Hwy, Tempe. The home of the Bus and Truck museum ( http://www.busandtruckmuseum.org.au/  ). The most intact of the former depots. Currently under threat of sale or demolition.

Newtown - next to Newtown station. Not sure of its current status. According to 'Trolley Wire' magaine, the Sydney Tram Museum have been involved in heritage discussions with the architects preparing reports for redevelopment of the building (along with Rozelle)

Ultimo - off Harris St, trams entered by Mary-Ann st. Now part of the Powehouse Museum complex, although not open to the public. The building is substantially intact.

Rushcutters Bay - on New South Head Rd. I have no idea of the fate of this building, although it was a small structure in a high-value real-estate area. I doubt it is still there, although I'd have to check when I'm in Sydney next.

Fort Macquarie - blah blah blah, now the site of the Opera House...

Leichardt - William St. Never opened as a tramway running shed, but converted to bus use, and is in use as such today.

Randwick Workshops - not technically a depot, some of the site was reused for the UNSW, some of the buildings are still intact as part of the bus depot.

Depots on the isolated systems outside the main Sydney system

North Sydney - Where the Big Bear shopping complex now stands on Military Rd. Part of the facade was incorporated into the shopping centre in the 80s, although I don't know what is there now.

Manly - I haven't seen it although I know it still stands. Last saw trams in 1939 when the Manly system closed.

Enfield - A small 5-road depot, in (I think) Tangarra Rd. Served the isolated Burwood-Ashfield-Cabarita-Mortlake system, which closed in 1948 or 1949. The building is still there IIC, having been converted for bus use.

Rockdale - off Bay St. A 3-road tin shed serving the Rockdale-Brighton le Sands line which closed in 1949, this depot is long gone. There is a vacant block where it once stood.

That's about it for the electric tram depots.

Parramatta steam tram depot demolished late 1990's, and is now the site of Burger King.
 
A buck each way
SMH April 5, 2005 Copyright SMH


Sprint to finish ... a $2 property transfer may pay an $11 million dividend for Harold Park.

A government agency transferred prime real estate to a Sydney club for $2 - and helped it save taxes. Jock Cheetham and Ross Duncan report.

'Big trots - crowd runs wild," roared The Sun-Herald's front page on February 14, 1960. "Part of a record crowd of 50,346 people ripped down a fibro wall at Harold Park last night to watch NZ pacer Caduceus win the Inter-Dominion pacing championship."

It seemed half of Sydney had converged on Forest Lodge, near Glebe, to witness the £15,500 event, billed as Australia's richest horse race. Those who weren't pulling down the fibro wall "climbed lamp posts, stood on grandstand roofs and on the roofs of cars to watch the race", the paper reported.

The crowd "hooted" when the second-placed Apmat's driver lodged a protest. But the "hoots turned to cheers" when stewards dismissed the protest six minutes later. There was never a night like it at the trots - and there hasn't been since. Half a century later, the track's still there, but the biggest prize may be a chunk of land next door.

These days the club's directors are involved in another form of speculation: the property game. The heritage-listed "Rozelle" tram sheds next to the track are set to be developed into a huge apartment complex.

The club stands to make $11 million from selling the land to a development company, the club's directors reportedly told members. The developer, Murlan Consulting - led by Iain Murray, world champion sailor and yacht designer - plans to turn the tram sheds into 122 units, commercial spaces and a child-care centre.

Once the second-biggest depot in Sydney, the Rozelle tram sheds housed 200 trams in its heyday, servicing Glebe Point, Leichhardt and Balmain until 1958. The 1904 building is one of the most complete tram buildings left in the city, still housing six old corridor-style trams under a rusting roof.

The controversial plan has galvanised parts of the community, which has organised opposition - despite the developer's promise to preserve a significant part of the building and restore and display some of the trams. But the controversy runs beyond community concerns over the $53 million development to how the club came to own the property.

Five years ago the NSW Harness Racing Club, which runs Harold Park, paid $1 for the tram sheds site, which is about the size of a small football field. An adjacent patch of gravel, where horse trailers and cars park on race nights, was thrown in for another $1.

The story behind what appears to be one of Sydney's best land deals dates to the 1980s. The Harold Park club says it paid full price for the land years before the $2 deal. The club's chief executive from 1988 until early last year, Peter V'landys, says the Racecourse Development Fund granted Harold Park club money to buy the land in 1988 and '94. The fund was a portion of TAB profits set aside for industry investment.

To avoid duties, the fund wanted the Government authority that oversaw the industry, Harness Racing NSW, to own the land, V'landys says. "But the money that was allocated went to the club," he says of the original sales in '88 and '94. "So Harness Racing NSW didn't actually pay for it, even though it went into that organisation's name." Harness Racing NSW agrees with this version of events.

Because Harness Racing NSW was a statutory authority it "didn't have to pay stamp duties", V'landys says. "You didn't have to pay land tax and council rates, etc. So it was much more cost effective."

V'landys was quoted in the club's paper, National Trotguide, in 1996 as saying: "By taking this approach the club saved $70,000 in stamp duty and $50,000 a year in council rates."

In the 1990s, the tax-exempt Harness Racing NSW was accountable to the Government. In 2002 - at the time the development deal was being finalised - the law changed and Harness Racing NSW became a commercial body not subject to government control. (Its regulatory work was split off into a separate body, the Harness Racing Authority.)

The club eventually wanted to own and develop the two parcels of land, paying a $2 fee in 2000 to have the land transferred from Harness Racing NSW. "It was transferred for that amount because the club paid for it in the first place," V'landys says. The state racing minister at the time, Richard Face, approved the deal.

The land had been bought in two lots in 1988 and 1994 for a combined cost of $2.3 million. For stamp duty purposes, the site was valued in 2000 at $1.6 million - $700,000 less than the original purchase prices.

The club's chief executive, John Dumesny, says the site was independently valued. "You have to take into account what the zoning is and also that it was then within boundaries of Leichhardt Council," Dumesny says.

Four years later the land is expected to sell for $11 million. Boundary changes have since placed the site within the City of Sydney council area.

An Office of State Revenue representative declined to comment on the purchase because "privacy legislation prevents the OSR providing details on individual cases". A spokesman for the state Treasurer, Andrew Refshauge, said: "We can't discuss tax details for individual land owners." A spokesman for the Minister for Gaming and Racing, Grant McBride, declined to comment.

The club is now in a dispute over unpaid council rates for a period in the 1990s when Harness Racing NSW owned the land. The Herald understands the amount sought is $120,000 for 1995-2000.

City of Sydney council is "obtaining legal opinion as to the club's rateability for the period in question", a council spokesman says. The club says it has paid rates since owning the land in 2000. "We're living with the legacy of when these clubs were handed public space on a platter as a public good," says Maire Sheehan, Leichhardt's mayor from 1999 until last year.

"There was local employment, local industry and community participation, including great crowds at the events. That's all gone.

"Now you've got a small group of people holding on to land and operating it virtually like a private fiefdom."

Dumesny disagrees: "Whatever money comes from the sale of that piece of property can only go back into harness racing. It can't be split between members or anything like that."

The Glebe Society is one group leading opposition to the developments. Its objections include increased traffic, heritage impact and no benefit to the community of rezoning open space. The society's Andrew Craig says it would like to see the tram sheds become a community arts centre as part of an arts-led recovery for Glebe.

The club is under pressure from within, too. "Harold Park is the best 800-metre track in NSW, but we need at least 1000 metres," says Paul Fitzpatrick, a trainer, former driver and regional club president, as he leans on a rail to watch a race on a recent Friday evening.

There has been talk of selling the site and moving west towards the demographic heartland of harness racing for at least 30 years. Although the club is officially staying put, the talk continues.

Fitzpatrick watches as one of his horses races by. It's drawn a wide lane, which usually means a bad result - one of the drawbacks of the track, he says.

"The Harold Park site should be sold and a better track developed elsewhere for the future and betterment of harness racing," he says.

The track cannot be lengthened any further, so the industry must leave Harold Park, says Wally Mann, a trainer, owner, breeder and former administrator. "As long as there's a public perception of horses being locked up and not having a chance if they draw a bad barrier on half-mile tracks, racing will be held back," he says. He believes harness racing should be based at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre at Horsley Park, instead of it becoming a thoroughbred training centre.

The club believes Harold Park is the best track and premises in the southern hemisphere, having spent $20 million on the site in 1996, Dumesny says. The stables need upgrading, however, and much of the land sale proceeds will be spent on stables, he says.

How much upgrading is debated within the club. John Starr, a club member and horse owner, says the club told members the estimated cost of building stables had risen from $5 million last year to $9 million. "We can't see why you'd want to spend that much money on the stables," says Starr, who is also a property consultant who runs a chain of 36 real estate agencies.

The club says there has been no tender for the stables yet and declined to give a cost estimate.

Harness Racing NSW does not have a position on the development, says its chief executive, Max Pool. The proceeds of the sale, however, should be used in the interests of the industry, he says.

The club says the masterplan is to leave Harold Park as a racecourse for the foreseeable future. V'landys says while he appreciates and respects any member's viewpoint, it is unfortunate the critics "look at the negatives of all the things the club has done over the years and not the positives".

These include establishing a registered club and getting 200 poker machine licences that are now worth tens of millions of dollars, V'landys says.

Fitzpatrick smiles as he heads off towards the stables. "Old horses, like old people, get slower - but they get stronger." Later, one of his horses, Push Leads To Shove, wins the final race.

PUBLIC PROPERTY TURNED PRIVATE

The first blocks of land on the former Prince Henry Hospital site at Little Bay are expected to fetch $1.5 million each at auction on April 23. The Government's $400 million masterplan includes 850 new dwellings for the 85-hectare coastal site.

The Government plans to tear down the residential towers in Waterloo and privatise $540 million worth of public assets. The Redfern-Waterloo Authority will oversee the process, which includes the possible sale of Redfern police station, Redfern Public School and the Rachel Forster Hospital site.

In 1996 the Government sold eight hectares at Walsh Bay to a Transfield consortium. The $650 million Mirvac redevelopment created 350 dwellings.

Plans to sell the Hunters Hill, Marrickville and Dulwich Hill high school sites lapsed amid controversy, but the Maroubra Bay High School site was sold to Lycee Condorcet, the French School of Sydney, for $11 million.

In 1995 the Government sold the 5.9-hectare site of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Camperdown to Sterling Estates for $26 million.

 

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links

 Sydney's Tram History
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