A new high roller casino will be coming to Sydney in 2019, bringing in plenty more tourism from Asia. While the new venue will benefit the local economy, the project has attracted a great deal of criticism from local residents. According to Business Spectator, the City of Sydney is speaking out against the approval process through which the casino proposal passed.
Councillors and residents are doubtful that enough consideration was given to the project, and they will call for an independent assessment of the new venue. Earlier this year, the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority carried out an investigation of the property and its proposal to determine whether or not the casino operator is free from association with criminal organisations.
These types of investigations are meant to take over a year, but Crown Sydney’s process took just three months. The reasoning behind this reduced timeline was that Crown Resorts had already been through a similar investigation for its Melbourne property very recently. Still, local residents feel that more needs to be done.
“The current approach is a series of piecemeal increases to the proposal without the rigorous and wide-ranging considerations that would be required to be undertaken if such a project was being undertaken by the City,” reads a report from the City of Sydney. Citizens are also concerned about the size of the project.
Since it was initially approved in 2007, onlookers claim that the scope its scope has increased by more than 70%, and this growth does not seem to have been taken into consideration. This week, the City of Sydney will call on an independent entity to evaluate the casino development project. This will ensure an unbiased result, so that the public will know exactly how the casino resort will affect the community in both negative and positive ways.
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