Like any of these local battles it is a battle for hearts and minds so you have hit the nail on the head there Streetcorner. One thing you didn't mention is the irony of the White City / Hakoah Club/ Maccabi Tennis Club deal is the only reason they got access to this prime land in Rushcutters Bay was because another property developer, Robert Whyte, was unsuccessful in convincing Woollahra Council to rezone the land so he could build high-rise residential apartments. Tennis NSW tried the same argument at White City as F.R.E.E. are trying now, they wanted to use the profit from residential development to fund an upgrade of the White City Tennis Club and also extract a profit to set up a new home at Homebush and they argued that the "open space" should be rezoned to allow this in the broader community benefit. So it is ironic that Hakoah Club, having profited from selling their Hall Street site to Toga, and with Maccabi Tennis Club benefitting from the fight mounted by Paddington residents to stop rezoning and intensive residential development a White City, that F.R.E.E. now want to achieve what was unable to be achieved at White City, which is to justify rezoning of land to allow a large residential development to fund a community centre. Could you please ask who owned the Wellington Street tennis courts before F.R.E.E. bought them and what did they pay for them? I think the community needs to have transparency on the arrangements between Hakoah / Maccabi and F.R.E.E because it looks like F.R.E.E. is seeking to achieve on this site some unrealistic goals including the replacement of low cost housing that Hakoah used to provide in Hall Street on the Wellington Street site? In my view it is a disgrace if this is the case, because this should have been built into the gross overdevelopment of the Hall Street site which yielded millions for the parties involved, that is the very least that should have been achieved. To try to have recreational land rezoned in Wellington Street to compensate for a loss of low cost housing in Hall Street is a disgrace. This is more than trying to have your cake and eat it too, it is inflicting overdevelopment on the broader Bondi community, when the capacity existed to build new community facilities into the Hall Street site.

Dear Twists & Turns, thank you for trying to sort out the paper trail. A long time resident who lived across the road from the tennis courts advised me that the Macabbi club was given the tennis courts back in the 1940's by another Wellington street resident who wanted to see the tennis courts use continue beyond his own life. Macabbi did a good job for the community by maintaining the courts for over 60 years. From what I understand the next purchaser was Allen Linz and a Mr Linver. About three years ago an application was lodged with Council for the large 'Fitness Network' type complex, once it was clear that Council was not going to approve the development, based on it's size and traffic issues the application was withdrawn and the property was offered for sale. The asking price was, (apparently) twice what the property was worth as tennis courts with a private open space zoning and as such other developers steered clear of the site. With the current zoning in place FREE could occupy the site and erect a reasonably sized Community Centre - if it services the whole community, not a minority group only. But this is not what FREE are applying for as they want to rezone the site to allow residential development. Should this be approved then whats to stop FREE selling the site to Toga or any other developer and using the proceeds to build a smaller community centre elsewhere. That one of the reasons why the local community is very cautious about supporting the rezoning proposal. We have to take a long term view, once open space is gone its gone. In ten years time a 3 story building of over 2,000m2 could become anything following further applications to rezone. Just look at the original Hakoah, if it wasn't a Community facility could you imagine Council approving such a building?

We would like to clarify some points that have been either misrepresented or misunderstood about our proposal which has many positive points, both environmental and social. We would like to set the record straight and invite you as individuals or as a group of people to our office to properly introduce you to our communal non-profit organisation. We would like you to come and visit on Sunday from 4pm to 6pm at our present premises at 25 O’Brien Street. Your view & opinion of our community is important to us –even more important than the council decision to support or not to support our application. We all live as in one highly destly populated area . We probably see each other in coffee shops, or the beach, on public transport or shopping centres or we live next door to each other, we are nebours -our goal is to have a harmonise relationship with everyone, it’s very important to us! – right now elements within community & council trying to divide our communities & our people , everyone has its own agenda – we should remember –these people who wish to control groups or communities will use tactics such as – first Divide than Conquer . Remember United we Stand – alone we will Fall. We believe anyone who makes a decision to – object or support it should be base his or her opinion on an informative assessment . We will respect your opinion & your decision as long as you been properly informed about this project . Harmony and trust in any relationship is a key for successful coexistence – we will never want to copmrimise that with our neighbors – that is why we will continue our campaign to educate the public about our project , and hopefuly we will be standing side by side , as one community in the near future

Today, we are surrounded by people we may call leaders – in local government. But we are suffering from a scarcity of genuine leadership. Where are these people really leading us, and why? After witnessing so much deceit and such frequent abuse of power, many of us have stopped trusting our leaders. Still, no matter how cynical we may grow, we resign ourselves to the fact that we need someone to keep our various houses in order. Since we are so preoccupied with our own lives, we are willing to elect or appoint officials to manage the affairs of the municipality. But is a leader merely a manager? What should we expect from our leaders? And do we really need leaders in the first place? Please comment:

Waverley Council voted on Tuesday night to reject F.R.E.E's application for rezoning. It was not unexpected news given the recommendation of Council officers for the rezoning to be declined. A previous application for rezoning of the site by Maccabi Tennis Club had also been declined. Councillor Wakefield moved an amendment to the motion that was accepted which aimed to set a timetable for Council to present an offer of suitable Council land on which a F.R.E.E. community centre could be built.