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A legal challenge mounted by local residents against the approval granted to the Crown Resorts casino tower at Barangaroo has been dismissed, clearing the way for the project to get off the ground.

Millers Point Fund Incorporated (MPFI) is a volunteer-run community action group led by former City of Sydney chief planner and councillor John McInerney and made up of local residents concerned about the development of Barangaroo. MPFI had challenged the validity of the approval granted by the NSW Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) to the Crown Resorts casino tower at Barangaroo.

According to MPFI, the PAC was required under law to decide whether or not to approve the location of the Crown Sydney building by reference to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, untainted by the location determined under the Casino Control Act 1992. Maintaining that the provisions of the Act only related to licensing of a casino and were not intended to override any of the planning law controls for physically building a casino, MPFI said the PAC breached the law by not properly exercising its planning law powers.

However, Judge John Robson of the Land and Environment Court of NSW dismissed MPFI’s challenge, stating that “the applicant has not made out any of its grounds of challenge”.

Welcoming the decision, Crown Resorts said the tower at Barangaroo designed by Wilkinson Eyre would be completed in 2021.

Image: The proposed Crown Resorts tower at Barangaroo by Wilkinson Eyre. Image: Courtesy Wilkinson Eyre