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You are here: Home / Government Sites Plans & Activities / Waterloo Public Housing & Metro Station Redevelopment / Waterloo South Stage 1 / Healthy Waterloo: A Study into the Maintenance and Improvement of Health and Wellbeing in Waterloo (2019 HIA)

Healthy Waterloo: A Study into the Maintenance and Improvement of Health and Wellbeing in Waterloo (2019 HIA)

Back in 2019 Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) did a Waterloo Health Impact Assessment (HIA) with a focus on impact of redevelopment announcements and relocations. There were a number of tenants involved along with some NGOs (including REDWatch), Council, SLHD, Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) and Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC). When the HIA was being finalised DCJ and LAHC met with SLHD and wanted a number of changes which were made. One of those was to change the report name from Health Impact Assessment to Healthy Waterloo. The final report then went up to the Health Secretary for sign off but the DCJ Secretary pushed for report not to be issued and there it sat in limbo until it was shaken out in 2025. This post links to the final report.

In mid 2025, following the formation of Homes NSW and it taking a different approach to running public housing, REDWatch wrote to the head of Homes NSW and asked if Homes NSW now under new management would be prepared to allow the 2019 report, as submitted to the Health Secretary, to be officially released. 

Homes NSW was happy in principle with the report to be made public even though it was old but expressed concerns about the recommendations which were out of date with the commencement of the Waterloo redevelopment.

With this in principle agreement of Homes NSW and in consultation with SLHD, REDWatch asked HERDU, who had initially undertaken the study for Sydney Local Health District, to review the study to address Homes NSW's current concerns. 

HERDU reviewed the document, removing the recommendations and made changes that would allow the report to be publicly released as a HERDU document rather than as an official SLHD document. The revised document was cleared with Homes NSW and SLHD before release.

The study is now publicly available through the University of NSW Library Portal as Healthy Waterloo: A Study into the Maintenance and Improvement of Health and Wellbeing in Waterloo. This puts this historical study into the public domain so it can be accessed for subsequent studies like the Waterloo South Social Impact Assessment.

The full citation is: Lilley, D., Standen, C. & Lloyd, J. (2025). Healthy Waterloo: A Study into the Maintenance and Improvement of Health and Wellbeing in Waterloo. Health Equity Research and Development Unit, International Centre for Future Health Systems, University of New South Wales. https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31229

The final recommendations in the 2019 Draft report have been deleted, but were supplied to all those involved with the HIA in 2019. In addition, some copyright images have been deleted and accompanying text edited as appropriate to meet UNSW requirements. Otherwise, the report is as prepared in 2019 for approval before being blocked in 2019 by the Department of Communities and Justice, and Land and Housing Corporation.

As a participant in the original working group for the HIA, REDWatch holds copies of the earlier reports, the original recommendations as well as the recommendations changed to initially accommodate LAHC and DCJ concerns. 

How this report was made public is an interesting case study of how a community organisation like REDWatch can sometimes help break a longstanding inter-government deadlock.