SMITH&CO. - 132-172 SMITH STREET, COLLINGWOOD

In my opinion, the Smith & Co Apartment development is just getting uglier and uglier, as it looms more and more over Smith Street, and it is still getting higher, like Jack's beanstalk.

I think it is awful and so inappropriate for the area. It will dominate and overpower the streetscape of Smith Street, it will not live in harmony with the area. It represents everything that is wrong with inner city development – it is too big, it is a gross over development of the site.

There are some really great developments in the area and here is this piece of ugliness, this monstrosity, smack bang in the middle of them all, messing up the good work that has been done. It is a development that, I am sure, we will look back at in years to come and say, That was a mistake.

The sensitivity the developers have for the area was shown starkly to all the residents of Fitzroy and Collingwood at the very beginning of the build when they demolished a heritage shop at one end of the site to build this new development.

I am not sure how well it will date smack bang in the middle of Smith Street, bigger and squarer and taller than anything that surrounds it. I think it has the potential to go the same way as the Docklands, and that is being unloved, with its juxtaposition to everything else that Smith Street represents. It is clearly designed and developed by people who have far less empathy for the area and far more empathy for their bank balances.

It is a shame. It makes me feel sad for Smith Street whenever I walk down there.