THIS Wednesday night, Bathurst councillors will decide whether or not the private Bathurst Integrated Medical Centre (BIMC) is allowed to proceed to DA stage.
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The vote is technically about whether or not to allow our local height restrictions to be lifted for the BIMC, but in reality, this vote is about irreversibly scrambling at least four big eggs in Bathurst's future basket of town planning and financial management.
The first egg to be scrambled is our existing Bathurst Health Precinct because co-locating our public and private health services, while we still have the chance, is critical for achieving the best possible health services in Bathurst.
Some proven examples of smart public-private co-located health are Canberra Hospital, Nepean Hospital, and Royal North Shore Hospital.
Any future private hospital in Bathurst should be co-located and directly connected by a purpose-built walkway right into the public health services. No ambulance rides are needed if it's walkable - unlike what the BIMC will create if located in the CBD.
Key advantages include attracting more doctors (who can easily service both sectors on any given day), more efficient and productive service delivery and, of course, better patient outcomes.
To support co-location, council should prioritise relocating its works depot out of the health precinct and create an investment prospectus for private equity that targets co-located public and private services as top priority.
We don't want two half-baked health hubs in Bathurst, we need one excellent health precinct that's world class and for everyone.
The second scrambled egg will be our CBD Precinct because cramming a six-storey private hospital development into our CBD is simply bad town planning for the character, vitality and congestion of our city.
When was the last time you heard your partner say: "Let's go out tonight, darling - the hospital cafeteria has great food and live music!"
Who seriously wants to see our CBD become a hospital ward?
Daily, the proposed BIMC will increase traffic congestion by forcing untold numbers of patients in to and out of the CBD totally unnecessarily for all those who just want to access health services and get back home ASAP.
Locals and visitors alike want good, engaging development in our CBD, like entertainment venues, food, dining, cafés, restaurants, bars and mixed retail shopping, and great local businesses - not corporate-scale sick beds.
The third egg to be scrambled by the proposed BIMC is our Heritage Conservation Area, which is similar but different to the CBD Precinct.
Bathurst is known as Australia's first inland European settlement and our architecture predominantly reflects this prized status while ever we preserve this unique history.
Building the BIMC sets a powerful precedent and 'breaks the seal' to turn Bathurst into a city where architecturally 'anything goes'. And most of it will go up and up and up, dwarfing our heritage assets, majestic courthouse, churches and, of course, belittling our Carillon as the heart of the city.
I'm no purist on the height issue because going up a few levels outside our Heritage Precinct (or well hidden behind heritage streetscapes) is totally fine with me (especially for future housing) but just don't ruin the joint in the process.
The fourth scrambled egg is, in my opinion, a looming financial disaster for ratepayers because of council's co-funding of the BIMC car park.
To build the whole BIMC development, council is expected to contribute as yet untold millions of dollars to the car park to secure general use. User-pays? Fair enough, one might think.
But I believe this raises serious problems.
First, any private sector business development that relies on council cash is fraught with risk. If a private company investment can't stand on its own two feet, that's not council or ratepayers' problem.
Secondly, any councillor who votes yes on Wednesday must first answer the key questions:
- How much cash is council on the hook for? (Answer: don't know)
- What value is council getting for the final price? (Answer: can't say)
- When (date) will council's cash actually be available? (Answer: no clue)
- Where is council's cash coming from? (Answer: no idea)
The usual funding options include state or federal grants (probably years down the track, if ever), new loans with high interest debt, increasing council rates, or major cuts to existing council projects and services. Which will it be? And why on earth would any councillor allow the BIMC to proceed without knowing these critical but basic financials?
Truth is council does not know the answer to any of these questions but voting to allow the BIMC to proceed before the finances are sorted out is, in my opinion, reckless and irresponsible.
What's worse is that council approval on Wednesday is falsely leading the BIMC proponents to believe council is good for its cash contribution when in reality it's not clear and frankly unlikely in the foreseeable.
Ratepayers also have a right to ask what better parking improvements could be made around the entire Bathurst CBD with, say, $25 million, rather than sinking it all into one site that, in my opinion, is basically cross-subsidising a private development.
An additional game-changer has also hit this debate, and that is the recent $200 million public health investment from NSW Government. This money is long overdue, but when the BIMC was first presented to council there was no other health boost on the horizon, and we were all desperate to welcome anything.
Now there's $200 million on the table, which is about three times the value of what the BIMC proposes, and it's for all Bathurstians, rich or poor, because it's public money.
While Wednesday's vote is narrowly defined as a height issue, there are many eggs in this BIMC basket with real, costly and irreversible consequences for ratepayers - unless these issues are resolved first, and definitely before giving Wednesday's gateway decision the green light.
PS - I fully agree Bathurst needs a new private hospital because demand is growing with our population, but private equity will always fill this gap because there are good medical profits to be made in Bathurst - just make them happen in the Bathurst Health Precinct (see Egg#1) to get a bigger bang for the dollars invested, not in the CBD.
