The building that for the last 21 years has housed the TAP Gallery has been sold giving the community that has been built around the venue 8 months to find a new home.
The new owners won’t move in until July next year when the building is understood to see its last exhibition as they are rumoured to be turning it into an office space.
Manager of the venue, Lesley Dimmick says that TAP is more than a building and that all they need is a roof over their heads.
“TAP Gallery is an organisation, not a building,” she said.
Recent difficulties with the City of Sydney have put an enormous strain on the TAP community.
In July of this year a complaint was made about the fire safety of the upstairs theatre space an the council subsequently deemed it to be a fire hazard.
The TAP gallery then spent over $10,000 in a two stage process to bring the safety of the building up to the required level.
They had already completed the first stage, and were set to begin the second.
“We made all the doors push outwards, we’ve done a huge clear out of accumulated paintings that we since removed because they saw the storage of the paintings as a fire risk, and we’ve put non-slip material on both our exits,” Ms Dimmick said.
But in November, the City of Sydney Council informed the gallery that they had never had the correct zoning to operate a theatre space.
“This all started from just one complaint and it’s been an ongoing hell from there. We spent an immense amount of money on fixing the fire hazards only for them to hit us with the DA problem and tell us we can’t use the space anyway,” Ms Dimmick said.
“We have to hire a planning Lawyer to prove legally that we are a non-profit organisation running a community arts centre so that we can resume our performance, whether it be here or in another building.”
“We really thought that we would have the full support of the council. I’m surprised that council didn’t show more understanding especially given that they knew the building was up for sale and how much pressure we were already under.”
The council assured City Hub that they continue to work with the Gallery and to find it a new home.
“The City of Sydney continues to work with TAP Gallery to resolve the issues associated with the use of the building for performances. The discussions have involved external planners, planning lawyers and fire safety experts, and are continuing,” a spokesperson said.
“City staff have also provided information on accessing City-owned spaces through our accommodation grants program, and will continue to provide support if the gallery needs to relocate.”
But Ms Dimmick says she has been let down by a lack of support from the council.
“What they’ve done is made it very difficult for us to gracefully move on. We were aware that the building was up for sale and we were preparing for the move. But the trouble with council has knocked us back financially and ruined our goodwill with our community,” she said.
Everyone in Sydney thinks that the TAP Gallery has closed down permanently, not just the performance space.
TAP has been running a pozible.com campaign to recover some of the money they spent bringing the fire standard up and that will be used to purchase a new site.
So far they have raised $4,010 of their $10,000 goal.
