Alert and  Alarmed

[The Kinnears' Ropeworks site, Geelong West, Victoria.]

Evan Jones

Woolworths and Coles Supermarkets stores have been predominantly located in urban precincts and key regional centres. Urban saturation, coupled with the two giants’ ambitious expansion strategies, has fuelled the intense pursuit of regional and rural sites and hitherto unattractive urban sites. Graeme Watson, a former Woolworths executive and now property consultant, noted in mid-2002:

The supermarket chains are approaching saturation coverage; there are limited new opportunities and they must secure locations. … The scramble is on to achieve irreplaceable positions in prime locations.

A&A has considered dissent by communities against the retail giants attempting move into their area in suburban Oatley (20 August 2005) and country town Maleny (8 May 2006). Now confront an ongoing conflict between residents of Geelong West, regional Victoria, and Woolworths.

The Kinnears Ropeworks factory in Geelong West was closed down in 1999 after a century in operation. Geelong West was built around this significant employer. The site was bought by Brile Pty Ltd, an entity associated with a sitting local Councillor whose portfolio responsiblity was planning.

In 2001, the factory building, the dominant building on the site, was demolished. A Ropeworks Action Group spokesperson notes:
For over a century this large industrial complex [originally Donaghy’s and Son’s] had shaped the surrounding street grid and social and economic relationships in the local community, as whole families, for generations, lived and worked in the immediate area.

In 2002, the developer proposed a ‘three big box’ development for the 2.45 hectare site, comprising a Coles Bi-Lo supermarket and Spotlight and Mitre 10 stores.

The Ropeworks Action Group was formed to oppose the development. The Geelong Council rejected the proposal in 2003, preferring a development emphasising a combination of open space, residential and strip shopping.


[The local cultural scene, getting along nicely without Woolworths]

In late 2003 Woolworths purchased the site and soon publicised its intention to build a full line supermarket and accompanying car park. This purchase occurred in spite of Council’s immediately previous rejection of a ‘big box’ proposal for the site.

At the same time, State government funding was obtained and an independent consultant developed the Pakington Street North Urban Design Guidelines for the precinct which were subsequently endorsed by the Geelong Council. The Woolworths’ proposal contravenes the guidelines.

Moreover, the site is still zoned industrial and would have to be re-zoned for commercial usage.

Ironically, Woolworths currently occupies a smaller site not far from the Ropeworks site but as lessee decided not to repurchase occupancy rights or to contest their sale to its rival Coles Myer. The combination of the decision to relinquish an established site with the decision to purchase a site for which a ‘big box’ development had been explicitly repudiated highlights implicitly that confidence of Woolworth’s executives that adverse Council decisions and community opposition can be surmounted.

It has been four years since the first development proposal, and two and a half years have elapsed since Woolworths purchased the site. The proposal remains at an impasse.

Of those locals who do support the Woolworths’ proposal (centred on the publican of the hotel adjoining the site), many do so because their priority is for the derelict site to be developed as a matter of urgency.

Woolworths has taken the position that the proposal (centred on a 3,800 square metre supermarket) is non-negotiable. The company has made modifications to the original proposal in response to opposition from the Ropeworks Action Group, but the modifications are marginal (the main shopping centre entrance in the plan was moved from its siting directly opposite the Waratah Street Primary School entrance) and the proposal remains essentially intact.

The commercial proposition is itself questionable. A Council report of September 2005 estimated that the developed site would have to cannibalise existing retailers with the need to attract 30-35 per cent of trade from an area whose expenditure is only growing marginally, and that ‘this enormous impact will result in significant closures and alterations to the retail environment’.

Naturally Woolworths has thrown resources at the public relations front. Woolworths hired retail consultants Urbis/JHD to do an ‘Economic Impact Assessment’. Urbis/JHD, singing for its supper, duly came out in November 2005 offering a glowing assessment of the proposed shopping centre’s positive contribution to the entire precinct, by bringing more customers into the area. This is a different story to that of the Council report.

The sole daily Geelong newspaper, the Murdoch-owned Geelong Advertiser, has done its assertive bit for the Woolworths’ agenda. On 28 March an opinion piece was published by a Peter Moore, a front for a PR flak hired by Woolworths. Moore’s piece was aimed at demolishing the credibility of the community opposition to the Woolworths’ proposal. Moore claimed that the RAG had misrepresented the extent of community opposition by, amongst other ruses, counting duplicated signatures amongst the list submitted.

The Advertiser also reported the Committee of Geelong chairman as claiming that the RAG was obstructing the Council’s planning procedures (ironically he had earlier vigorously opposed the previous ‘big box’ proposal for the Ropeworks site).

The Advertiser agreed to publish a reply by RAG spokesperson Kristin Demetrious (31 May). Demetrious noted that the RAG, as a community group strapped for resources, had inadvertently included photocopied sheets made for its own records within the list submitted to Council. Big deal. Demetrious noted that the RAG is not alone – the Council has received 509 objections (in which the petitions constitute single submissions) to the Woolworths proposal and 72 submissions supporting the proposal.

Demetrious also pointed out that the RAG was hardly obstructing the Council’s planning procedures, as the Council’s guidelines were consistent with the views of the RAG.

How long the Council’s stance remains oppositional is unclear. The Geelong City Council’s elections in November 2004 has been subject to some peculiar scrutiny. It turns out that at least one elected Councillor had been the beneficiary of some undeclared contributions from the Geelong ‘big end of town’.

The stink was sufficient to warrant a State government report on the matter, which has just been delivered. The local federal Parliamentarian, Gavan O’Connor (dumped recently in his own seat for pre-selection by the Victorian Right-wing machine), had some further elaboration in the Australian Financial Review of 11 May. His comments were in the context of a move to raise the minimum reporting threshold for a Party donation from $1500 to $10,000. Says O’Connor:
In my own community in Geelong we are in the middle of unraveling an unsavoury affair involving the secret donations by Liberal businessmen in Geelong to local government councilors and candidates, including some from my own party. …

The locals in Geelong call the Right-wing Laborites ‘Laberals’. Appropriate in the circumstances. And the aim of these donations is the freeing up of the development process.

Royce Millar notes in the Melbourne Age on 9th June:
Geelong is Victoria's second city, yet in many ways it operates like a country town. A small group of political and corporate powerbrokers tends to mingle around business and community projects, blurring the line between the public and private good. …

Disturbing to many will be that council candidates believe it acceptable to receive support from powerful businessmen like Geelong Football Club president Frank Costa, and then preside over major development projects proposed by their backers without declaring an interest.

Woolworths is too big to buy off local Councillors. Assertive shaping of opinion (capitalising on this pro-development culture that tolerates blatant political largess) is more its motif.

In the last several weeks, the Council has rolled over, recommending the Woolworth’s proposal on the terms of the Urbis/JHD report (paid for by Woolworths). Yet at the same time, the Council has handed over the issue to a Panel for consideration. Under the Victorian Planning and Environment Act 1987, the Minister is requested to form an Independent Panel – a ‘roving’ Panel thus detached from the specifics and the personnel of the Geelong West development.

In addition, Heritage Victoria has come out with a heritage order on the remaining three machinery sheds (top right of photo), as representing the remnant of a significant industrial process, the ‘rope walk’. Woolworths has been instructed to return with an amended proposal that incorporates the retention of the machinery sheds.

In the larger picture, the retail duopoly share common interests with the property developers. Confrontation of the property development sector with perennial community opposition to specific projects has involved the development sector belatedly and reluctantly confronting the necessity for acknowledgment of community dissent and the desirability of consultation.

There is a self-interest in this realisation in that consultation may reduced costly delays. But there remains a reluctance in the sector to accept the legitimacy of community interests. Greg Paramor, chief executive of James Fielding, the funds management arm of Mirvac building group, was quoted in October 2004 as claiming:
You get people spoiling for no particular reason except they have time on their hands and they want to take up a cause. They don’t stop to think about of the benefit of the thing that’s being proposed.

That view about sums it up. We’re forced to talk to these people, but we have no sympathy for their position. Some delay will occur with necessary talk, and then it’s business as usual.

The retail duopoly, in league with the developers, has taken the stance that there will be no substantive concessions, and that superior resources will deliver their aims in the long run.