The proposals for the future of Waterloo South produced by the City of Sydney Council (CoS) and Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) are now public. CoS decided it needed to match LAHC’s number of units (yield). As a result, Waterloo South will become the densest residential development in the CoS local government area with 3,300 units within 12 hectares, which includes over two hectares of parks and new streets.
The dispute is no longer about how many units go into the development, it’s now about how and where to stack the Lego blocks. LAHC prefers to stack them high so it gets better returns from high-rise apartments, so its plan has 12 buildings from 15-32 storeys. The new CoS proposal is a mid-rise solution with most buildings at eight storeys with up to 13 storeys along George Street and three 27-30 storey towers to give LAHC the yield it wants.
High density creates liveability challenges for any community, and CoS has increased the density of the proposal it initially thought the site could handle. As 30 per cent of the community who will be living at this site will be social housing tenants, many with high and complex needs, the question needs to be asked: Is the density now proposed appropriate? That important question for tenants will no longer be contested between Cos and LAHC, even though the NSW Government Architect expressed reservations about the density at the Central Sydney Planning Committee (CSPC).
On the day Council was to vote on the CoS proposal, including to enter further negotiations with LAHC over providing public infrastructure, LAHC’s Minister, Melinda Pavey, accused CoS of holding up social housing.
The next day Planning Minister Stokes issued an ultimatum that if LAHC and CoS could not resolve their differences by March 12, he would end the deadlock by appointing the head of DPIE as the alternate planning proposal authority, with advice from a panel of three independent experts to assess this project within 10 weeks.
Minister Stokes is reported as saying the CoS plan is superior to LAHC’s one, but that it is incumbent on CoS to get to an agreement with LAHC. He is also saying that LAHC is mistaken if it thinks he will do its bidding for Waterloo.
A key focus of the CoS proposal is how to make the high density provide the best possible amenity. Some of this is done by minimising high-rise and some by wider and better located streets and buildings, deep soil planting for trees and less people per building. The CoS design guide for Waterloo was mentioned specifically as being of a high standard at the CSPC meeting. It is unclear how the design guide would work with LAHC’s high-rise.
CoS has reduced its initial call for 50 per cent social housing and now accepts Communities Plus’s 30 per cent. CoS wants 20 per cent affordable housing rather than LAHC’s 5 per cent with the remaining 50 per cent private. CoS has conditioned increased floor-space on LAHC meeting the CoS tenure mix.
Increasing affordable housing increases the cost side of LAHC’s development as it would replace high return private units that fund the project. CoS says some of its changes make it possible to reduce LAHC’s costs.
The Redfern Waterloo Aboriginal Affordable Housing Campaign’s request for developments on government-controlled land in Redfern Waterloo to deliver 10 per cent Aboriginal affordable is also proposed by Council but they note this cannot be assured under planning law.
If the NSW government rather than LAHC could deliver Aboriginal affordable housing this would go some way towards meeting CoS’s aims and LAHC’s project financial viability. In an ideal world, government would invest in social and affordable housing rather than selling public land to pay for it.
An African proverb says when the elephants fight, the grass is trampled, and when the elephants make love, the grass is trampled. Irrespective of what the elephants get up to it remains to be seen if the public tenant grassroots will get any real say in what happens or have any guarantee that their lives will improve as a result. At some point, after the deal is done, there will be a public exhibition.
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Links to the proposals can be found on the REDWatch and CoS websites.
