LAHC has announced two new public housing redevelopments in the City of Sydney. It has put proposals for the redevelopment of Franklyn Street Glebe and Explorer Street South Eveleigh out for pre-lodgement consultations until December 11 (see the communitiesplus.com.au website). LAHC expects the two sites together will deliver 850 new dwellings with about 250 social housing units.
The South Eveleigh site is off Henderson Road where Explorer Street, Station Place and the railway workshops bound 46 single-storey bungalows of up to five bedrooms. It is proposed that 430 one- and two-bedroom units will replace these. Large families currently living on the site will be permanently relocated elsewhere, with those needing smaller units able to return.
Successive NSW planning authorities have flagged this site for redevelopment, as well as the railyards behind it. The social housing in Rowley Street, managed by Bridge Housing, is not included in the redevelopment proposal. The park between Henderson Road and Explorer Street cannot be built over as it is above the Eastern Suburbs-Illawarra rail line.
The Glebe redevelopment sits behind the Broadway shopping centre bounded by Franklyn, Glebe and Bay streets. The information kit does not say how many homes are currently on that site.
Minister for Water, Property and Housing, Melinda Pavey, said of the developments: “By deconcentrating disadvantage, we can breathe new life into local economies and deliver more jobs, provide better connections to education outcomes and improve amenities for all residents.”
It is difficult to see how these developments deconcentrate disadvantage when they concentrate a larger number of social housing tenants on 30 per cent of the site and sell off the balancing 70 per cent to pay for it.
In the short term, the developments will reduce inner-city public housing stock and make it more difficult to find places nearby for those relocating from other inner-city redevelopments.
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Geoff Turnbull handles SSH Urban Design content and is a co-spokesperson of REDWatch.
