Originally Posted by
PiperCameron
Good question. The mix of government "requirements" and private enterprise makes WSI an interesting project. For the longest time it was a slowly-developing train wreck only maybe now just coming back on the rails - maybe.
Perhaps this is normal for government-funded projects (I wouldn't know) but in the private sector one usually has to provide all the paperwork up front to get a planning permit. For this one, it seems the Federal Government bought the land, WSI Corporation was given approval to start the design/build process and with the build half-complete they only now think about generating an EIS that includes noise impacts from flight path planning they haven't really thought much about?!?
It's all very confusing.. for sure there'll be a few dents here and there before it's finally open for business.
It was probably smart to do it this way, slightly underhand, but the only way to push through what is sorely needed infrastructure. Pretty easy to see the reaction happening now as flight paths are released, if that happened prior to breaking ground the project would have stalled into a mire of NIMBY politics. Easier to say "the airports way out there", let people think it's only going to bother a few horse breeders and then stick them with reality that big jets need to fly over your house to position to land. Look at the issues Melbourne is facing vs locals that moved there well after the airport plan was developed in the 70s. If they just went ahead and built the runway there would be no leg for them to stand on, but because they made the flight paths and alignment public early on its getting bogged down in politics. YSBK has always been on a finite time frame, Sydney is enclosing it, at least its another airport that will kill it, rather than its training areas being filled with ever spreading housing.