O'Farrell seeks Barangaroo hotel change

SYDNEY (AAP) - NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has called on Barangaroo developer Lend Lease to show goodwill and scrap plans for a controversial harbour hotel in waters off the Sydney project.
Relocating the hotel over Darling Harbour back to land is one of the recommendations to come out of a government review of the $6 billion development released on Monday.
While the review found Lend Lease had planning authority to go ahead with the hotel, the government is asking it to move a planned 170-metre tower onto the land at the former ports site.
The state government will now negotiate the relocation through the Barangaroo Delivery Authority (BDA), with Mr O'Farrell saying he had "great confidence" Lend Lease would agree to the change.
"The review suggested that in order to show some goodwill Lend Lease consider moving the hotel from on the harbour back onto land," Mr O'Farrell told reporters in Sydney.
"As someone who has always argued that including part of the harbour as part of this tender was never intended, I think this would be a very good and welcome outcome for the citizens of this city.
"I've never understood how a tender for a piece of land like this ends up including part of the harbour."
Lend Lease chief executive and managing director Steve McCann said the developer would "work closely" with the government to consider alternative options for the hotel - but stopped short of committing to the move.
"In doing so we will be considering a number of different things, including our commercial position, the design excellence of the hotel, and any impact on timing of the overall development," Mr McCann said.
The executive director of the Sydney Business Chamber, Patricia Forsythe, welcomed the government's recommitment to the project but said Barangaroo needed a stand-out development.
"There is no doubt that Sydney needs additional five-star hotels, there is no doubt as well that to put Barangaroo on the map it needs to have an iconic development," Ms Forsythe said.
The CEO of the Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF), John Lee, said Sydney was "a little like Bethlehem - it's nearly full in terms of hotel occupancy".
The Barangaroo review - commissioned by Planning Minister Brad Hazzard in response to community anger over the development - criticised the former Labor government and a lack transparency around the project.
The review, conducted by Victorian planning experts Meredith Sussex and Shelley Penn, found no major breaches in planning process but said the project had been marred by a poor public consultation.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating said the review was a "complete rebuttal of the distorted and fallacious claims" of those who opposed the Barangaroo project.
Mr Keating resigned from the Barangaroo Design Excellence review panel in May, accusing Mr Hazzard of trying to muzzle him after he described Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore of standing for "sandal-wearing, muesli-chewing, bike-riding pedestrians".
Ms Moore, who quit the BDA because she believed the public were being "railroaded" over the project, said the review presented an opportunity "for new governance".
"I think the community has felt as though it had been ... left out of the process until now," she said.