Article: Salvos may face demolition for rail link project

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Salvos may face demolition for rail link project

Salvos may face demolition for rail link project
CLAY LUCAS AND RICHARD WILLINGHAM
July 15, 2010

A SALVATION Army hostel for the elderly under construction in Footscray may have to be partly demolished to make way for the government's controversial Regional Rail Link.

The charity is nearing completion of the 120-bed hostel for men with alcohol problems. The hostel, in Buckley Street, is on the site of the former Footscray Pool.

A Salvation Army spokesman said last night the government had summoned the charity to a briefing next week to discuss the impact on the hostel of the compulsory acquisition.

Premier John Brumby yesterday apologised for the government's botched handling of the acquisition of homes - two days after announcing details of the $4.3 billion project at a business lunch.

He said he was sorry that Footscray residents were informed by the media, not public servants, that their homes would be bulldozed.

''I'm sorry that those people weren't contacted, they should have been,'' Mr Brumby said. ''I regret that it wasn't done as well as it should.''

The apology came as more Footscray residents were told -- in one case more than 36 hours after the media - their houses might be taken for the project.

David Engisch has lived in his Edwardian home in Albert Street for the last five years. He was shown a map of the proposed train line by transport department officials late on Tuesday, but was not left the document. ''They still have not said, 'You will be acquired.' It looks pretty obvious [we] will be, otherwise they would not have sent someone around to see us,'' he said. Mr Engisch said he could not understand why his house was being acquired when, on the opposite side of the tracks, there was a large amount of railway land.

Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the process of telling people their property would be acquired had been atrocious, especially so in the case of the Salvation Army hostel. ''If they are going to have to knock the thing down, there will be a huge gap in accommodating people in that area,'' he said.

A spokeswoman for the Regional Rail Link project, Ilsa Colson, said the transport department was ''having discussions with the Salvation Army about whether there will be any impact on their building and, if so, how it is best managed''.

On Tuesday Mr Brumby said ''every effort'' had been made to contact affected home owners, but declined to say sorry.

A letter from Transport Minister Martin Pakula, promised to affected residents on Tuesday, was posted yesterday.

Local Greens MP Colleen Hartland, who has arranged a meeting for distressed residents on Sunday, said a letter was not enough.

''If I can go and doorknock every house and if I can organise a community meeting and bring people together by Sunday afternoon with the resources of two staff I think they could have done a lot better,'' she said.

Law firm Aitken Partners will be at Sunday's meeting to discuss residents' options.