Breathing space — Local Paddo

‘Space’ is a perennial buzzword in Paddington. The double-edged sword of inner-city living is that what we gain in convenience, we sacrifice in square metres and closet storage.

But the limitations of tiny terrace courtyards give residents a unique opportunity to embrace the suburb as a communal backyard, a third space that extends our home life beyond our front door.

“[In Paddington], 95% of residents live in a terrace house, flat or apartment, with minimal or no outdoor space, so their backyards are our parks, sports fields, playgrounds and the harbour,” says Woollahra Council Paddington ward councillor Harriet Price.

“The pandemic highlighted an increased use of and demand for access to open spaces. They help us lead healthy lives by connecting us with the community and our natural environment.”

But as developers increasingly eye off remnant pieces of spare land, and formerly shared spaces become the sites of new constructions and developments, does Paddington have enough space for people to breathe?

Are there better ways for us to use the under-employed spaces in our midst? And is there a way for big institutions that are pressing in around the Paddington heritage precinct to better coexist with the community?

These questions arise as cranes and bulldozers increasingly appear in the neighbourhood. In the Edgecliff corridor, between Paddington and busy New South Head Rd, the demolition of most of the White City tennis club, to become the Hakoah Club, is a noticeable new development.

Scheduled to open next year, the project includes pools, community venues, sports grounds, two multi-use courts, nine tennis courts, as well as a fitness and wellness centre. But access to the club will be membership-based and according to reports, club members will have to invite non-members to join to use the facilities.

It’s the same story on the southern side of Paddington, where the new Allianz Stadium boasts what it calls 'the world’s most beautiful gym', with two pools, three levels of gym equipment, a golf simulator, spa treatment rooms and café. Tennis courts are also planned.

But access is for members and their guests only and membership availability is tight. The stadium’s external spaces on Moore Park Rd have offered some public access, including to basketball hoops, and their high public use demonstrates demand.

Another parcel of land closed to the community for some time is the Paddington Bowling Club. In 2021, the already shuttered club and disused greens were handed to traditional owners in a native title giveback. The greens and club now remain permanently shut, with no immediate plans for reopening.

Maintaining inclusivity to high-demand spaces in the area has been a driving concern for Price and NSW Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich. The pair advocated for public access to Sydney Grammar School’s Weigall Sports Complex, currently under construction on Neild Ave, Rushcutters Bay, which includes a pool and numerous multi-use courts.

As a result, nearby neighbours, including Paddington’s only social housing tenants, and other bodies such as Glenmore Rd Public School, will be offered access to the facilities for eight hours a week.

“It makes good sense for private schools and clubs to share their facilities with the community,” Price says. “I would like to see generous community-use conditions as a mandated requirement of any future school development approvals, not just in this local government area but throughout the state.”

Sydney Grammar won’t be the first private school to open its gates to the community; Ascham has also provided access for swimming lessons and gymnastics classes outside school hours. The additional benefit of Weigall’s multi-use courts is that it will help ease the increasing demand for older children to play sports such as basketball, netball and volleyball close to home.

“Paddington’s pocket parks and playgrounds are wonderful for toddlers and primary school children, and I am proud of the new Gugara Park in Brown St,” Price says. “However, children soon grow up and need more challenging outside play opportunities, away from their screens.”

More families are choosing to stay and to raise their families in Paddington, with young people aged between 8-14 years old now making up 12% of the Woollahra municipality. This growing demographic prompted the proposal of the Rushcutters Bay Youth Recreational Area, which would include a basketball practice area and play elements for scooters, bikes and skateboards.

“With more demand for recreational facilities and space at a premium, we often see access to public open spaces contested,” Price says. “But more spaces, like the proposed Rushcutters Bay Youth Recreational Area are desperately needed.”

The Rushcutters project is awaiting lodgement of an application for approval under the Heritage Act.

The balance between progress, access and preservation is a delicate one and dates back decades. In the book, Paddington: A History, cultural landscape expert Helen Armstrong writes that apart from Rushcutters Bay and Trumper Park — which date back to the late 1800s — most of the open space in Paddington, such as the Royal Hospital for Women Park and the Paddington Reservoir, are relatively new. Even our much loved pocket parks are more recent additions.

“They were mainly created from the 1970s to the 1980s, when traffic management changed many residential streets; including the introduction of planted roundabouts, calming gardens and street closures,” Armstrong writes.

The Paddington Society, established in the 1960s to save the suburb from NSW government plans to put a freeway through Paddington, says the preservation of public spaces and buildings requires community effort.

An example is Juniper Hall, arguably the suburb’s most treasured landmark, which the Paddington Society helped save from becoming a shopping arcade. These days, the building is owned by the National Trust and is leased for 99 years to aged care billionaire Peter Moran. There are plans to restore the house and for a part of it to become a public art gallery. That said, it has been closed to the public for some years, with exhibitions not having been held at the house since before COVID.

“Peter and his family have a well-respected reputation for restoration, care and management of historic buildings,” the Paddington Society’s Ester Hayter says. “For many years the family have opened spaces of Juniper Hall to the public for a variety of art exhibitions and are planning, in the open northern areas, to build a new art gallery.”

Hayter believes the gallery, when built, will be “a welcome addition for community access” and public use of a privately managed site.

Something Paddington could better utilise is its underused shopfronts and vacant upper-levels in shops and clubs. Former local Barbara Gruber took advantage of these in 2021 when she transformed the streetscape of Five Ways into an open-air art gallery during lockdown.

Gruber says the idea sparked when she noticed people stopping out the front of her house on their lockdown walks to look at a fish sculpture she’d hung outside her Brown St terrace.

“I realised how important creativity is and I wondered what if more people shared their lockdown art with their neighbours,” she recalls.

At the time, the Five Ways Pharmacy had closed, leaving the site empty. Gruber asked the incoming tenants if she could use the shop windows to display local artworks and they immediately agreed. Café Gusto jumped on board a few days later.

“With two shops at Five Ways showcasing beautiful children’s artworks, it became easier and easier to get other businesses to join in,” Gruber says.

During eight weeks, 590 artworks by local school children, artists and residents were exhibited in the windows of 30 businesses, including vacant retail properties.

The restrictions of the pandemic challenged residents and businesses to reimagine our public and privately owned spaces and Gruber believes this creative collaboration should play an important role in communities moving forward.

“I pay much more attention now to urban interventions like tiny libraries, urban sharing, guerrilla gardening, parklets, murals and community notes,” Gruber says. “A public space intervention can be very small, but it can create such a great impact for the mental health of communities.”

If there’s one quintessentially Aussie space missing in Paddington, it’s a public swimming pool. And with no room left to build one, Price is hoping to reclaim the area’s rich history of providing public access to the harbour for swimming, potentially around Rushcutters Bay where a structure called the Farmer’s Baths was in operation from 1902 until the 1970s.

Now that’s an idea worth fighting for.