Bridge Housing wins on 600-660 Elizabeth Street

REDFERN: Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) announced a consortium led by Community Housing Provider Bridge Housing with infrastructure advisor Capella Capital to develop the site opposite Redfern Oval which includes the PCYC. Construction is expected to start in 2025 and be complete in 2028 with Hickory as the builder. LAHC expects to use its social housing for some relocations from Waterloo South.

As a not for profit, Bridge will use its developer margin to build around 40 homes it will own and operate as low- to middle-income affordable housing units. It also proposes 80 affordable housing units for key workers, 11 specialty disability homes in addition to the 100 social housing units it will build and operate for LAHC. Only 100 market homes are proposed, half the 200 in the rezoning proposal. There will also be “3,500 square metres of community space as a hub for local services, potentially including the PCYC subject to funding, and Bridge Housing’s new head office with community meeting space”.

Bridge has said that “10 per cent of all of Bridge Housing’s allocation of homes will be dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tenants” and it has given a “commitment to engagement with First Nations communities to find opportunities for involvement in the further development of the project”. This goes some way towards the outcomes sought by the Redfern Waterloo Aboriginal Affordable Housing Campaign.

This site was part of a master plan for a public-private partnership redevelopment approved by South Sydney Council in 2002. When a developer could not be found, LAHC sought approval in 2007 to build the public portion between Walker and Morehead Street itself, which was completed in 2010.

The original walk-ups on the Elizabeth Street site remained fenced off until, after a campaign to formalise homeless people sleeping in them failed, the housing was knocked down. The site sat vacant since as demand for public housing increased. It was a focus for protests of government housing inaction and the sale of government owned land to fund new housing rather than government funding new social housing on land it already owned.

For more information visit Bridge Housing’s Redfern Estate Page and the Elizabeth Street Tab on the REDWatch website.

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Geoff Turnbull is a co-spokesperson for REDWatch.