Explorer Street South Eveleigh Rezoning

The Thursday 6 July meeting will be held at 6pm at the Factory Community Centre, 67 Raglan Street, Waterloo. It will also be on Zoom via https://tinyurl.com/RedwatchZoomMeeting. You can find a flyer to advertise the meeting at  Explorer Street South Eveleigh Rezoning Flyer for 6 July 2023.

The DPE rezoning follows and builds upon previous plans prepared by LAHC in 2020 which identified three preliminary concept options. While the design will not be finalised until after the formal public exhibition expected to occur around September/ October this year, DPE expects the key elements to include maintaining the existing South Sydney Rotary Park in its current location (above the Eastern Suburbs Rail line) and increasing the amount of housing to accommodate a larger, mixed tenure community on the remaining 1.16 hectares. The adjoining Rowley Street Bridge Housing properties  are not covered by the site which is accessed from Henderson Road.

It is not known what LAHC has submitted to DPE as a reference for the rezoning. The only document publicly available is the Explorer Street Eveleigh Redevelopment Proposal - Community Information Pack from LAHC’s 2020 options exhibition. REDWatch suggests that those attending the REDWatch meeting review the information pack contents as it is not clear what information DPE and LAHC will present to the REDWatch meeting for feedback.

The Redfern Waterloo Authority in 2010 found that the existing housing on the site was “relatively recent”, “in good condition and may be retained for some time”(BEP2). In 2020 LAHC proposed to replace the 46 two story town houses with a mixed development of 430 dwellings of which 120 are proposed to be social housing of a smaller size. The three options proposed by LAHC were up to 14, 16 and 8 storeys on a site currently zoned to retain its existing 2 storey height. The RWA’s 2010 Built Environment Plan Two (BEP2) proposed heights of 4-8 storeys on this site but did not change the controls. UrbanGrowth took a different approach to the site, building in the potential future development of operational rail land to the north which potentially overshadows this site.

As part of the rezoning investigations, DPE has commissioned WSP (formerly Eltons) to develop its earlier work from 2020 and to prepare a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in relation to the new proposal. In 2020, the SIA team conducted interviews to explore potential social impacts associated with this development including with REDWatch. WSP will re-engage with community organisations such as REDWatch to update the SIA and inform the rezoning proposal. This will be the first SIA for a public housing site DA in the REDWatch area and we are keen to hear community input on what should be covered at mail@redwatch.org.au.

This is a rezoning that will set the height, floor space and other controls for this site. What then happens on this site will be determined by LAHC and the new government. Housing Minister Rose Jackson, at the last REDWatch meeting provided the principles that the new government wish to apply to developments of public housing land. You can see an account of what she said on the South Sydney Herald website in the article Minister looks to rework Waterloo South.

You can learn more about this site on the Explorer Street tab of the REDWatch website. The other key sites that currently contain little information are the Explorer Street sites for LAHC and DPE.