REDFERN: The first round of face-to-face community consultations for the redevelopment at 600-660 Elizabeth Street was recently completed. The second round of community consultation could be in the latter half of 2020 which will be the public exhibition.
If you’re a local and didn’t hear about the consultation what information did you miss out on? An opportunity to meet various technical and planning consultants working on site development studies, to ask questions and have your comments documented. The community consultation boards can be downloaded from www.communitiesplus.com.au/major-sites/redfern.
On July 8 last year the Minister for Social Housing Pru Goward announced that the Redfern Elizabeth Street redevelopment would be the nation’s first build-to-rent (BTR) model. Under a BTR model there is no cost to the NSW government to build additional social housing stock. The government enters into a long-term lease for around 40 years with a private consortium which will build, finance and manage the estate. At the end of the lease period, land and dwellings are handed back to the government.
The Redfern Elizabeth Street site is proposed to have 500 apartments with up to 35 per cent dedicated for social and affordable housing spread across three buildings of varying heights from five to 19 storeys.
Unlike the Waterloo redevelopment, the Redfern Elizabeth Street 1.1-hectare site is bare land with the exception of the PCYC, a long-time youth facility, which will be relocated.
Since the Redfern Elizabeth Street site was designated a State Significant Precinct on September 2017 there has been a parallel process of technical development studies alongside a tendering process. In January this year three bidders were shortlisted. They are: Fraser Property, Hume Community Housing Association and Capella Capital; John Laing and Compass Housing Services, and; Lendlease Building and Evolve Housing. The winning consortium will design the development application in line with Land and Housing Corporation requirements.
The partnering community housing providers (CHPs) are to provide wrap-around support and management services for social and affordable housing tenants on very low to moderate incomes. Each CHP is a registered Tier 1 housing provider. The combined properties of all three CHPs is just under 14,000 properties.
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George Barrett recently moved from Counterpoint Community Services to Inner Sydney Voice where he replaces Nina Serova who takes up a position as communications officer. If you would like to talk more about the Redfern or Waterloo redevelopments, contact George on 9004 2449, email cd@innersydneyvoice.org.au, or Adam Antonelli at Counterpoint, phone 9698 9569 or email wrcd@counterpoint.org.au.
