The Dining Experience in Waterloo and Redfern

The planning was meant to be placed on exhibition in March 2008, according to the Redfern Waterloo Authority, the government authority with planning control for the Public Housing Estates in Redfern and Waterloo. This has not happened to date, despite frequent requests from the public housing tenants as to when it will happen.

Paperwork released by Housing NSW on 21st November 2009 at the Redfern Neighbourhood Advisory Board’s Information Day at the Poet’s Corner complex in Morehead Street Redfern said that Housing NSW will be conducting a thorough consultation process as part of the planning process.

The paperwork also said that there was a desire to achieve more social mix, additional affordable housing, and provision of private homes on the same land mass. This claim is a clear indication that some existing public housing stock will be transferred to the nongovernment housing sector, as will some of the land mass. The fact that the RWA and Housing NSW have said that the towers will be retained without specifying ownership raises the possibility that one or more tower will be transferred from the government owned public housing sector.

Will Waterloo and Redfern be yet another chapter in the Housing NSW Non-compliance and Tenant Abuse book whose first chapter was written in the 1970s in Waterloo, with subsequent chapters covering Minto, Airds, Villawood, Claymore, Mudgee, Chifley, Redfern and South Coogee, to name but a few of the chapters? The NSW Ombudsman has written reviews of some of the chapters.

Time alone will tell. In the interim the public housing tenants of Redfern and Waterloo will have to wait for the pudding to be served before passing final judgement. Past experience has taught them the value of Quick-Eze and Mylanta.

Ross Smith
Waterloo

Reference: www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/statements/2009/091121doh

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