Controversial plan to redevelop historic Paddy’s Markets won’t go unchallenged

By HENRIQUE MONTEIRO

City of Sydney councillors have passed a motion opposing the redevelopment of Sydney’s historic market district, Paddy’s Markets. 

In December of 2022 Sydney Market Limited (SML), the current operator of the market, proposed a redevelopment that would see 3000 square meters of the iconic market be sublet to Doltone House, a luxury venue company.

The plan is to transform Paddy’s into a “high-end food and beverage precinct”.

City of Sydney Deputy Mayor Sylvie Ellsmore put forward a motion at a recent council meeting to protect Paddy’s from redevelopment, which passed unanimously.

Sydney residents have rallied in support of keeping the markets are they are. Ellsmore said that “tens of thousands of people have signed petitions in support of the markets”.

“The community concerns include gentrification of the markets, loss of an important social value heritage market in the city, concerns about food security if one of the few low-cost food markets in the city is lost, and the treatment of the historic stallholder.”

Newtown Greens MP Jenny Leong said “proposals like this are framed as ‘renewals’ but threaten to displace the very communities that make Chinatown special”.

Leong criticised the decision to remove longstanding stallholders from the markets.

“There can be no justification for moving stallholders away from the locations they’ve been in for years to make way for a corporate events company with no existing ties to the site” she said.

Relocation notices handed down, stallholders to be out by March

SML sent relocation notices in December of last year informing owners they would be relocated on the March 20, 2023.

Yi Ming, a stallholder and shareholder in Paddy’s Market for over 25 years, said that he was not consulted about this change.

“There was a lack of duty towards us as shareholders,” Yi Ming said.

“How can you take away my possession to give to others?”

He informed City Hub that 10 years ago he paid $300,000 to buy his stand, a significant economic investment due to the stand’s prime location. Now, himself and others are being forced to move to the storage area of the market to make way for Dontone’s high-end food precinct.

“No one wants to buy my stand now”, Yi Ming stated.

“We lost everything.”

Council weighs in on loss of markets

Cr Ellsmore addressed in the council meeting how rising prices are becoming the norm in Sydney, while also criticising that the privatisation of public infrastructure.

“Everything across the City is becoming more expensive. Handing over of public land across the City to private companies is part of the same issue,” Ellsmore said.

Paddy’s Markets has existed in Sydney since 1834. It has brought tourism and attraction to Haymarket in various forms for over a century.

The location of the market is a public land site managed by the NSW Government, under current arrangements with private operator SML, marking a continuous trend of controversial privatisation and gentrification of Sydney’s historic sites.

The plan to change a market that exists for over a century must have Sydney residents wondering which institution will be next.