Glebe housing to be rebuilt

By Laura Cathery

NSW Housing tenants in Glebe are furious they will have to relocate, while their homes are rebuilt with no guarantee they can return.

Housing NSW and City of Sydney Council are in the planning stages of increasing the existing 134 social housing units on Elger Street to 153 units, with a further 83 affordable houses on surrounding streets.

The Glebe Affordable Housing Project will be partly funded by the additional 250 privately owned homes and retail, which will also be built in the area.

Liberal councillor Shayne Mallard said the urban renewal project was a good thing as the current public housing properties are obsolete.

“Public housing apartments were often built with three bedrooms in the 50’s. Now, the biggest demand is for one or two bedroom dwellings,” he said.

“It’s important to match the right property with the right tenants. Its logical that once redeveloped you don’t put a family of six in a small one bedroom place.”

A Housing NSW spokesperson said tenants would have the option of returning to the new property if it still met their housing needs.

“When a tenant is relocated, Housing NSW meets with the tenant to identify their needs and preferred location and will try to match them with available properties,” the spokesperson said.

But with a waiting list of 50,000 for social housing in 2008, local resident Peter Anderson, 50, who has lived in Housing NSW property on Cowper Street for 10 years, knows that once he is out he won’t return.

Mr Anderson said a representative of Housing NSW came to his address two years ago and asked him to sign papers, which if signed said that he agreed to leave when the redevelopment starts.

He said he would sign on the terms he can come back home – he has not heard back from them.

“All my doctors and specialists are here,” he said.

“They asked me to sign something. This is one way of telling us not to come back.”

Associate Professor Scott Baum, a research expert on urban and regional socio-economic outcomes, said if the NSW Housing tenants are moved it could disrupt their social networks.

“One would imagine if they’ve got strong social networks in the place they already live in and forcing them to move to somewhere else – depending on where – they will essentially have to start all over again,” he said.

President of The Glebe Society, Lesley Lynch, supports the provision of affordable housing but said the proposed increase should not be at the cost of existing housing tenants.

“In any redevelopment or relocations their rights must be properly protected and they must be properly consulted at every stage of planning and redevelopment,” she said.

Labor councillor Meredith Burgmann, who lives in the middle of the estate, said some of the proposed buildings are too high and they will invade the neighbours’ privacy.

But Cr Burgmann said the housing department have been good when dealing with relocation of her neighbours in the past.

“My experience is that the housing department has been very good when dealing with these issues,” she said.

“And they offer relocation as close as possible to where they live.”

Under Sustainable Sydney 2030, Council aims for 7.5 per cent of all housing to be affordable by 2030.