Waterloo’s housing future

BY KRISTEN TSIAMIS

Communities Plus is the new mechanism the state government has put in place to develop a large number of public housing estates, one of which is in Waterloo. It will involve the building of high-rise integrated public housing blocks in Waterloo, Ivanhoe, Riverwood and Telopea.

But what does Communities Plus mean for the public-housing residents of Waterloo? Geoff Turnbull, member of the RedWatch Co-Ordination group explains.

Mr Turnbull outlined the Communities Plus program as “ the new mechanism the government has put in place to redo a large number of public housing estates around Sydney and the state. It sets out the processes the government proposes to use. Waterloo will come under that policy direction.”

Mr Turnbull thinks that the future of public housing will be most successful with a mix-housing model, with high and low-rise blocks being mixed. “I think we will end up with a mixture of public housing around the state, in some places its feasible to do high rise estates, in some places it’s not. It’s certainly a model; the question is going to be whether the model being looked at is going to work and how they’re going to put that together.”

Before this happens however, Mr Turnbull said that the underlying issues with public housing need to be addressed, or the same problems will continue to plague the government.

“In other places like Minto taking a social mix approach, mix of different families and tenure types on the same street. How do you do this in Waterloo? Public building/private building? Mix within the same building the public and private? How do you deal with government putting higher needs people into public housing and ensuring tenants aren’t creating a nuisance – these issues have to be worked through.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) said that there was a social housing reform needed to keep public housing sustainable.

“To achieve the scale of social housing reform needed in NSW and to make it a sustainable change requires the involvement of the private sector and not-for-profit Community Housing Providers (CHPs).”

“FACS will work with private sector developers and CHPs to deliver more social housing, integrated with private and affordable housing to create a better social housing experience for the whole community.”

The key to providing the best public housing possible for citizens, is to increase the financial amount allocated to public housing. Without this, Mr Turnbull said the problem of maintenance issues and overcrowding will continue.

“One of the things that gets complained about a lot is maintenance, and a new estate might cut down that problem for a while, but ultimately the only way his can be solved.”

“Sell off land to redevelop public housing but doesn’t change financial amount. That might decrease footprint, but it is not a model that works in perpetuity.”

Mr Turnbull said that whilst there are several positive points to the program, there are also some areas that need to be bolstered in order for this new way of order to work.

“They have to look at models that will be much more resilient over time – the model at the moment is one where you transfer public housing out of government and to community housing providers – they’re not for profits set up to run a community in affordable housing. CityWest is an example, it’s owned by the government, runs a mix of tenures in most of it places so there are people with very little income and benefits, and people with mixed income (up to $95,000) which can cover costs.”

“Having rationed public housing means that most people are unemployed or on benefits which then means that you end up with very little rent income to be able to cover incoming costs. Department of Housing has been selling off 3.5 units of housing per day for 10 years to be able to keep system going. Clearly not sustainable, and it’s the reason why we have long waiting lists that we do.”

The future of Waterloo public housing residents will become part of a plan put to community consultation, said the FACS spokesperson. Residents will have the final say as to whether high-rise public housing will be the way of the future for public housing in Sydney, with the planning process.

“Before any changes are made to social housing in Waterloo FACS will develop more detailed plans in consultation with the community. The first group of tenants will not need to move until at the earliest mid-2017.”

“Given the size of the redevelopment many social housing residents will be able to relocate into new housing on the site. Residents who relocate off the estate will retain the right to return. FACS will work with tenants to ensure that they are supported through the redevelopment process.”