Millers Point Update December 2016

Rev Fred Nile and local MP Alex Greenwich join Millers Point residents at their Christmas Party

This is an update on the previous blog.

On 31 October 2016 Shelter NSW and the Tenants' Union of NSW held a forum on 'Large-scale relocations of tenants in public housing - learning from tenants' experience'. You may check out the two main presentations on the Shelter NSW website. Professor Alan Morris spoke to his 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’ and Paul Vevers from the NSW Government’s Family and Community Services replied to his report. You can read both presentations here.

On 26 November 2016 Millers Point residents and friends enjoyed a concert called ‘Sing for Joy’ with two choirs. The concert also saw the launch of a crowdfunding campaign for the film called ‘Forced out’.

Keep up-to-date on the campaign to save the Sirius building here. You can read about the pending court case here.

Update on the statistics...

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 1 December 2016 133 properties have been sold for $348.56M with a median sale price of $2.39M and sales in the range $1.54M and $12.30M. (The top price was for a block of 12 one-bedroom apartments covering 7 properties sold in one line.) Based upon sales to date, an updated estimate of funds to be received from these sales is $677.21M.

The stamp duty owed to the NSW Government from existing sales is a further $18.13M or just under 5% of total revenue from sales and stamp duty combined.

There are still 161 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.)

Here’s the NSW Government Property’s latest media release on Millers Point.

Residents
At the meeting of Millers Point Estates Advisory Board on 16 November 2016 Family & Community Services Housing NSW reported:

• 399 tenancies in the portfolio.

• 358 have been vacated.

• Of the 41 remaining tenancies (numbering 59 tenant and household members) to be relocated:
• 11 (numbering 17 tenant and household members) are from FACS Housing NSW and involve 5 residents approved for moving into alternative accommodation within Millers Point and 6 approved for moving outside of Millers Point.
• 28 (numbering 39 tenant and household members) are from FACS Housing NSW and remain unallocated
• 2 (numbering 3 tenant and household members) are from Little Real Estate and remain unallocated 

• 7 of the 41 remaining tenancies (covering11 tenant and household members) are in the Sirius Building and of these: 
• 2 involve residents approved for moving into alternative accommodation, with 1 within Millers Point and 1 outside of Millers Point.
• 5 remain unallocated.

• 28 properties in Millers Point were set aside for remaining tenants and household members. Of these, 15 remain unoccupied. 

Altogether 520 tenant and household members have vacated, with a further 17 committed to moving and 42 still uncommitted to moving.

Postscript ...
The principal real estate agency which has been helping the NSW Government empty Millers Point of its social housing tenants is McGrath Real Estate. You may recall that two years ago McGrath’s then chief executive, John McGrath, named Millers Point as his 'top pick' in the company's annual report. And, between August 2014 and December 2016 McGrath Real Estate sold 103 properties in Millers Point for in excess of $302 million. They are selling many more ... doing their bit to turn Millers Point into an enclave for the wealthy in a more and more divided city.

So it is interesting to hear what McGrath's chairperson, Cass O'Connor, told investors at their recent Annual Meeting: ‘When our society's teachers, nurses, police and emergency services personnel cannot afford to live in the communities they serve, housing affordability can very quickly become a factor in social and economic dislocation.’