Hundreds of Inner Westies Gather To Reject Council’s Pro-Developer Housing Vision

Over 430 people at a public meeting held in Marrickville on Sunday 27 July overwhelmingly rejected Inner West Council’s misleading and poorly publicised ‘Our Fairer Future’ draft local development (LEP) plan.

The grassroots-organised meeting heard from speakers who were locals and experts alike, such as architect Eddie Ma, who explained what a Local Environment Plan is, and who tackled (with public housing advocate Rachel Evans), the definition of housing ‘affordability’.

The draft Plan requires developers to commit to providing 2% affordable housing – but affordable in this context means 75-80% of market rates. Ma provided case studies for what this means currently: for example a 2-bed apartment in Marrickville requires an income of $190,000 pa to be ‘affordable’.

The meeting decided the definition of ‘affordable’ should be based on a proportion of household income (25-30%) rather than what the market dictates. The attendees also preferred a greater proportion of 3- or more bedroom dwellings to be required in developments than currently specified.

Rachel Evans pointed out that “governments have commodified housing since Prime Minister Robert Menzies began the mass sell-off of public housing in 1945,” and that around 10% of all private housing lies vacant most of the year. “We really don’t need more private housing,” she argued, “we need mass, beautiful public housing to solve the housing crisis.”

Former independent IWC councillor John Stamolis noted that “council’s plan is loaded with incentives for developers, but offers little in terms of new amenity, services and open space for the huge increase in population.”

The scale (which would increase the number of dwellings in the IWC up from 80,000 by 31,000 plus – nearly half as much again) was also rejected.

Inner West Council has the second-lowest amount of open space in Sydney, and the Plan shirks providing that — as well as all other amenities.

He also observed that existing low-cost housing would be demolished for high rise, but with the vastly increased cost of building labour and materials there would be no guarantee of low cost high rises dwellings for rent or purchase. A show of hands demonstrated that only a small number of people wearing YIMBY t-shirts had any belief that an increase in supply would lower the cost of housing in the area.

Local resident and builder Martin Berzi noted that the financial figures in the Plan don’t stack up, and foresees that developers will have to go beyond the limits. Build-to-rent will provide 30 per cent more density and a chance for more ongoing profitability for the developer-owners. But such a model is based on tenants renting indefinitely, maybe all their lives, with no security of tenure. How can this ever be described as providing ‘homes’?

The meeting clearly did not find the Plan’s claims of affordability, place-based planning, and ‘preserving what we love about the Inner West’, to be credible.

The very next day Monday 28 July, the Council’s General Manager advised councillors that due to the volume of submissions — more than 1221 — voting on the Plan would be postponed to the September council meeting.

There’s also talk of a council organising its own public meeting beforehand.

Coincidence? Organisers of the Marrickville meeting, Better Future — a hastily convened group made up of community members from existing groups such as Save Dully and Save Marrickville plus other individuals outraged at the Plan’s outcomes — would like to think otherwise.