Millers Point Update October 2016

There has been considerable recent media coverage of the forced relocation of residents of Millers Point. Elsewhere we reported on Professor Alan Morris's Shelter Brief entitled 'A contemporary forced urban removal: The displacement of public housing residents from Millers Point, Dawes Point and the Sirius Building by the New South Wales Government'.

Ann Arnold of ABC's Radio National provides excellent coverage of 'the battle over Sydney's heart' in Millers Point. Her 'Background Briefing' segment runs for 40 minutes and you can hear it here.  It first was broadcast on Background Briefing at 8am on Sunday, 9 October. The transcript is now up. Click on ‘Show transcript’ here.  An article about this story is found here.

Ann Arnold and Tiger Webb, also of ABC's Radio National, write about the last days at Millers Point of Florence, Cherie and Barney, some of the few residents left.  Read their stories here.

And, the rally to save the Sirius Building, on which there is now a Green Ban, attracted over a thousand protesters. View this story here.

An update on the statistics of Millers Point ...

You will find the breakdown of properties, tenancies and number of resident at the start of the sale process in SGS Economics & Planning, 'Millers Point and The Rocks: An alternative way forward', Final report, August 2014, Table 1 (Social housing breakdown), p 4. At the outset there were 293 properties, 543 tenancies, 410 occupied tenancies and 590 tenants and household members.  Along the way, Darling House, an aged care facility, also was sold.

Sales  

At 27 October 2016, 105 properties have been sold for $288.09M with a median sale price of $2.46M and sales in the range $1.54M and $7.70M. Based upon sales to date, a revised and updated estimate of funds to be received from these sales is $689.89M.

The stamp duty owed to the NSW Government from existing sales is a further $14.86M or just under 5% of total revenue from sales and stamp duty combined.

There are still 189 properties to be sold, including 79 in the Sirius building. (This figure includes 28 units in a fewer number of properties where sales were ‘deferred’ and the remaining residents at this time given an option of applying for tenancies in these units.)  A further 28 properties are currently list for sale: 13 through Expression of Interest that closed on 1 November 2016, a block of 7 properties to be sold in one line at auction on 30 November 2016 and 8 (2 lots of 2 to be sold as single properties) at auction on 30 November 2016. All proposed sales are displayed here.

Residents

At the meeting of Millers Point Estates Advisory Board on 10 October 2016 Housing NSW reported:

•    399 tenancies in the portfolio.
•    353 have been vacated.
•    Of the 46 remaining tenancies to be relocated, 42 (numbering 59 tenant and household members) are from FACS Housing NSW and 4 (numbering 5 people) are from Little Real Estate.
•    16 of the 46 remaining tenancies (including 2 from the Sirius Building) involve residents approved for moving into alternative accommodation (6 staying within Millers Point and 10 outside Millers Point).
•    30 tenancies (numbering  42 people) are still to be rehoused.
•    15 properties set aside for remaining people remain unallocated, although one of these involves a possible allocation.
Of the remaining 30 tenancies, 5 are in the Sirius Building.

The above information tells us that at 10 October 2016, 42 residents are still to be rehoused, and since March 2014 a total of 548 (590 less 42) - or thereabouts - residents have been moved.

(Note there are differences in our sources. Firstly, there is a difference of 14 in the number of properties marked for sale: SGS's table reports 293 properties to be sold, whereas we refer to 279 properties sold or to be sold. Secondly, there is a difference of 11 in the number of 'occupied tenancies' in  SGS's table  and the number of 'tenancies in the portfolio' reported on by Housing NSW at the Millers Point Estates Advisory Board. The figures here are 410 and 399 respectively.)


Revised and updated on 6 November 2016