Millers Point is in the news again, with an excellent article by Tim Barlass in the Sun-Herald that focuses on the residents of Millers Point, and some political and historical context by Evan Jones at New Matilda.
(Millers Point resident Robert Goodsell, 94. You'd like to think that he shouldn't have to worry about being evicted. Photo from the Sun-Herald.)
Not
yet in the news is the outcome of the social impact assessment that was
conducted recently for NSW Land and Housing Corporation, as part of the
NSW State Government's review, announced in October last year, of its
continuing ownership of the Millers Point properties.
We
understand that a draft report is with LAHC. The stated intention of
the SIA consultant was that the drafted report should be made public,
for discussion and feedback, before the final report goes in to LAHC. We
look forward with interest to seeing the draft.
Interested in redevelopments of social housing estates? You may like to keep in touch with the Residents’ Voices Project.
Residents’ Voices is a global network where social housing residents are the experts. Two current projects are a website and book.
The Residents’ Voices website provides a resident-led forum for tenants to share their experience and knowledge of being a social or public housing tenant and, where necessary, to challenge the views of non-residents. Through this website you can get involved in a redevelopment debate, contribute to an existing Residents’ Voices project or start a new project. You will have the opportunity to highlight the issues that are important to you and your community and to share your stories with other tenants in different streets, states and countries. The website also has video snap shots.
Residents, community workers and researchers from Inner Sydney, Western Sydney and Chicago are also collaboratively writing a book that challenges the misrepresentations of public housing tenants and estates. This book is about challenging policy assumptions and validating the experiences of residents.
The book will outline a suite of public housing tenants experiences and observations that critically investigate poverty, place and disadvantage. Drawing on empirical case studies from the US and Australia the contributions will challenge conventional approaches to researching poverty, place and disadvantage. The central aim of the book is to challenge the representations and misrepresentations of public housing tenants and estates by validating the narratives and knowledge of residents.
Over the last decade policy-makers in the US, UK and Australia – often through a public, private or non-government housing manager – have set out to ‘de-concentrate’ poor households. These policy interventions have been justified and undertaken in the absence of conclusive research data about the many drivers of concentrations of disadvantage. International inquiry into poverty, place and disadvantage has been dominated by conventional research methodologies that have failed to determine whether the geographic concentration of disadvantaged households exacerbates disadvantage or contributes to the reproduction of poverty.
When participatory research methodologies are used to collaborate with the residents of so-called ‘disadvantaged places’, questions and definitions of poverty, place and disadvantage are radically restructured. The book will argue for an approach to understanding and addressing disadvantage that draws on the knowledge of the residents themselves. Currently there is a call out for residents to participate in the book.
For more information about the book project contact Dallas Rogers.
Telephone: 0432 295 605
Email: d.rogers@uws.edu.au
The broader university research project that Resident Voices is part of is being supported by the Australian Research Council, St Vincent de Paul Society, The Tenants' Union of NSW, the University of Western Sydney, Flinders University and Centre for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University, Chicago.
As we mentioned in our last post the NSW State Government is proposing to increase heights and density along Anzac Parade South.
Kingsford and Maroubra from the air (photo: Bidgee)
Some social housing estates are included in this process.
The Government is about to start consulting with the community on these projects and like Randwick Council, who provided this information in a recent e-news bulletin, we think it is important residents know what is going on and how to be involved.
We liked the following in the Draft NSW Urban Activation Precincts Guideline:
“Community engagement is important when investigating potential changes to a precinct. In addition to the formal public exhibition process, community reference groups may also be established where the Department considers it appropriate. These groups should include a broad membership from the local community. The purpose of these groups will be for representative members of all sections of the community to access information and provide better informed feedback throughout the investigation process. Other community engagement techniques may also be used, tailored to the individual precincts.”
We think major changes to social housing make it appropriate to have a community reference group. Local communities know what local communities need.
The Anzac Parade South Urban Activation Precinct (UAP) was recently announced by the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure. The UAP aims to revitalise existing areas to deliver homes, jobs and infrastructure.
The result of the process will be a proposed rezoning for some of the precinct. This may include medium or high density apartments within an easy walk of public transport.
Housing NSW have provided an update on what may or may not happen to 2,500 social housing dwellings in the UAP over the next 20 years. Read more what they say on a factsheet here.
Yes, it is important that governments and communities plan for the future. However, it often seems to us at the TU that governments seem to take a much more detailed interest in the lives and homes of its citizens in social housing than other citizens.
While no one can argue with the need for appropriate development and increased housing, we hope the government agencies involved don't forget that research demonstrates the disturbing effects that dislocation can have for people living with disadvantage, the elderly and those on very low incomes. The experts on these impacts are the members of the communities effected, whether that is Randwick, Minto, Airds, Erskinville or Riverwood. We should all remember to listen to them.
When the NSW State Government first embarked on large scale public housing estate redevelopments back in 2002, two estates were first on the block: Minto and Erskineville.
The long, continuing saga of the redevelopment of Minto is a tale for another day (or days). The tale of Erskineville is very different: here the proposed redevelopment was stopped in its tracks by tenants and neighbouring residents who wouldn't accept the loss of this quiet, green, historic patch of the inner-west, and who convinced the NSW State Government to change its mind.
The 'Save Erko Estate' campaign is the subject of a documentary film, an excerpt of which appears below – or you can watch the entire film online.
Over the last 10 years, estate redevelopment has become an increasingly big thing for Housing NSW – and for the many tenants who have to live with it. Looking ahead, it's only going to get bigger.
When news breaks that your estate is to be redeveloped, it can be hard to know where you stand. Should I go? Should I come back? Should the redevelopment happen at all? Plans get made and revised. People come and go. Work starts and stops. Promises may be made, and broken.
The purpose of this blog is to try to keep track of what's happening with estate redevelopment, on the ground in each estate. We'll try to log announcements, events and changes of plans as they happen, and link back to earlier information so you can see how things may have changed.
In doing so, we'll be taking our information from official public statements and documents by Housing NSW, the NSW Land and Housing Corporation, and the responsible Ministers, from media reports, and from tenants and workers on estates – so please tell us what you know in the comments or by email.
Hopefully all of us – tenants, advocates, housing officers, Ministers! – will become a bit better informed, and a bit wiser, about how social housing estate redevelopment is actually going, and how it might go better.
Millers Point is the site of the first social housing in New South Wales – in 1900, during an outbreak of bubonic plague, the NSW Government resumed the wharves and surrounding land, almost accidentally becoming a landlord to the workers who lived there. Before that it was one of the first suburbs in colonial New South Wales.
Now the future of social housing in Millers Point is under a cloud – or, in the NSW State Government's words, 'under review'. Finance and Services Minister Greg Pearce announced the review in the media late last year, and subsequently confirmed in Parliament that the Government was considering the disposal of 208 social housing properties in and around Millers Point. This would represent all of the social housing in Millers Point and Dawes Point, and would follow the 36 properties already disposed of, or slated for disposal, by the previous State Government.
As part of the review, the NSW Land and Housing Corporation has engaged a consultant to conduct a social impact assessment (SIA). We understand that a preliminary report from the SIA may be made around the middle of this year, with the final report to come later in the year. As for the review itself: we don't know when that will conclude.
One thing is clear already: there is very strong feeling amongst tenants that no-one should have to leave their homes and that social housing must be maintained in and around Millers Point. In February a packed meeting of tenants elected a committee – the Committee of Residents Elected by Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks, or 'CoRE' – to represent their interests in the review process. Tenants can contact CoRE by email: coremillerspoint[at]gmail[dot]com.
A bit more background. The social housing at Millers Point has an unusual history – quite apart from its genesis in the black plague. For decades the properties were owned by the Maritime Services Board, and were transferred to the Department of Housing in the 1980s. And because of this unusual history, the buildings are unusual too.
Many of them are listed on the State Heritage Register. About 50 of the properties were used at some time as boarding houses; in fact, after the Department of Housing took over, 35 boarding houses continued to operate under long-term leases. The last of those leases ended in 2009; since then, some have been managed by a community housing organisation, Bridge Housing; some have been let to individuals; some have been left vacant; and some have been disposed of. Late last year (and apparently separately from the current review), the Land and Housing Corporation lodged applications with the City of Sydney to change the use of its remaining boarding houses to individual occupation, ahead of their disposal.
About the disposals that have already happened, or that have been slated to happen. In 2006, the State Government announced that 16 vacant properties would be put up for sale to private owners – actually, not quite sold, but rather disposed on 99-year leases. Of the 16, 10 were former boarding houses. Proceeds from the disposals were supposed to be used to fund social housing acquisitions in the inner west. In 2010, a second tranche of disposals was announced – 20 vacant properties this time, and they will include at least some former boarding houses – but we don't know when these disposals will actually take place. Again, proceeds were supposed to go to social housing in the inner west... giving the troubling impression that the same benefit (more social housing in the west) keeps getting trotted out for each new lot of disposals. A proper accounting of the disposals and acquisitions has not be done.
The TU is in contact with CoRE and will present some of their work on the future of social housing in Millers Point in another post soon.
In the meantime, why not have a look around this wonderful neighbourhood yourself, either on foot or via youtube.
