The Old Windmill was built by convict labour and is Queensland’s oldest building.Markus RavikThere are training colleges and a Bond University campus servicing many international students. Private hospitals and medical offices abound.
The suburb’s wealth is most visible in its private schools. Locals complain St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace senior students park their expensive cars in limited residential spots,and there are families who own flats solely to make their kids’ commute to the grammar schools easier. They retreat to their actual homes on the weekends.
I understand the reasoning about what Brisbane is gaining from the stadium plans;but it is worth considering what we’re losing.
There’s disadvantage and transience too. I’m perversely proud the gates of Brisbane Boys Grammar faces shelters and boarding houses. I hope it inspires those kids – blessed like me with luck and opportunity – to practice humility.
Residents live among the rise and fall of the great ridgelines of Gregory Terrace,St Pauls Terrace,Wickham Terrace and Leichhardt Street. Streets twist and jerk as if rejecting attempts at logic,packed with workers’ cottages that now fetch millions.
Two longtime locals told me the skyline began changing when restrictions on the suburb’s tin-and-timber character were loosened,allowing cottages to be lifted for carports. High rises will change it further,such as an 18-storey tower on the site of the former Spring Hill Hotel set to deliver 126 apartments.
What puzzles them most is:why encourage high density living then tear up their green space? Residents are appalled by the Victoria Park stadium plans.Council spent years creating a thoughtful masterplan for Barrambin,only to throw it out. It felt like whiplash.
I bite my fingernails pondering thefuture of Centenary Pool,my beloved gym,full of unpretentious people who make exercise more bearable by their presence. There’s been no indication of where members will go while the new centre is built,or if there will be anything to return to.
The historic Spring Hill Baths are a delightful place to swim,but they can’t host school swimming carnivals or learn-to-swim classes – and there’s no room for a gym.
I understand the reasoning about what Brisbane is gaining from the stadium plans;but it is worth considering what we’re losing. A place of nature where you can picnic,walk or bird-watch. A place that gives an increasingly high density city somewhere to breathe without a cost. A place within 15 minutes’ walk of its surrounding suburbs – that great marker of connected communities – where you can just be.
We’re sentimental,yes,but not stupid. We know change is inevitable. But there seems to be an attitude that if you live in the inner city,you either don’t have a community or you’re not entitled to one.
The value of Spring Hill land may be rising. But there’s value in our unique past and present,the light and the dark. I have a home here,not just an investment,with community,connection … and chicken-fried chicken.
Maybe that’s what I’ll tell the next real estate agent who calls.