Claytons Based Consultancy: A Housing NSW Specialty

On 26th August 2010 Housing NSW convened a Community Renewal forum in Sydney’s  Redfern Town Hall. It rapidly became apparent that the main purpose of the forum was to tell the tenants of the Redfern and Waterloo Estates that Housing NSW was going to ‘Social Mix’ their Estates.

The Federal government recently funded Master Planning for the Redfern and Waterloo Estates for the redevelopment of 1,000 public housing dwellings in the estates. There are some 4,500 households in the area and nine high-rises. The maths dictate that the majority of the dwellings to be redeveloped are in the Low to Medium rise, three storey Walk-up, or terrace house category of dwellings. Along with the redevelopment comes a massive increase in population density to enable delivery of Housing NSW’s Deconcentration of Public Housing policy.  Housing NSW was not able to provide any clarity around how this was going to be implemented and the impact on the existing tenant body of doing so. The only certainty was that there is a finite land mass on which it is to be achieved and the clotheslines will go.

On the day Housing NSW said upfront that there had been a political direction that Social Mix had to be implemented. The only thing up for discussion was the manner in which it would be implemented. This position was consistent with Housing NSW’s announcement at a Communities and Renewal Forum held on 8th June 2010, and at the HNSW Hava Cuppa with a Designa presentation of Wednesday 11th August 2010 that they had received a political instruction to implement Social Mix in the Redfern and Waterloo Estates. A noticeable absentee from the Housing NSW dictionary on every occasion was a definition of Social Mix.

Amongst the information that was not supplied was how Social Mix was to be achieved. Perhaps the reason for this omission was that in all other instances in Australia and overseas Social Mix has involved exporting the ‘disadvantaged’ from where they had been living and scattering them across ‘advantaged’ areas. In the case of the Redfern and Waterloo Estates Housing NSW wanted to import ‘advantaged’ people and scatter them across ‘disadvantaged’ areas. Waterloo in particular was going to be subjected to yet another Social Engineering experiment. The Waterloo Social Engineering Laboratory doors were again opened for business.

Housing NSW did say that the Walk-up areas of each Estate were going to be ‘Mixed’, yet was not able to say what their intentions were regarding the High-Rises when asked. This led into a question as to how individual multiple tenancy buildings, especially the towers, were to be ‘Mixed’. Was it to be apartment by apartment, floor by floor, or building by building. Again Housing NSW was not able to say what their intentions were.

The issue of how the capacity of the Human Services in the area would be expanded to meet the needs of the new Socially Mixed community was met with bland generalities, not specifics. In another government authority convened forum Housing NSW had said that it was having trouble ensuring supply of Human Services to the existing Public Housing tenant body in the Redfern and Waterloo estates. There was nary a peep about Housing NSW’s much vaunted and cited Human Services Accord from the Housing NSW staffers who were steering the day’s events.

There was a glaring omission from the Agenda. It was Community Renewal, the alleged purpose of the Forum. As HNSW unpacked its intent to ‘Social Mix’ the Estates the reason for the failure to discuss Community Renewal became visible. To discuss Community Renewal would be an admission that Social Mixing the Estates, either in full or part, would involve destroying the current Housing NSW tenant community and its relationships with the broader community of the area.

As people were leaving the forum they were asking each other why the design of the new buildings and facilities for the Estates had not been on the agenda, especially since the planning for the redevelopment of the estates was being funded by the Federal Housing Affordability Fund.

The question hanging in the air was “were the State government’s plans for the estates driven by desire to cash in the value of the land, or concern for the wellbeing of the Public Housing Tenants, both current and future”.

The lack of an announced consultation framework for the redevelopment of the Estates was perceived as a ploy to avoid accountability and transparency on the part of Housing NSW. The absolute insistence for supply of a Consultancy framework by Housing NSW when they are taking part in someone else’s consultancy was commented on, and contrasted, by the departing tenants.

The failure of Housing NSW to produce a Consultancy framework for another parallel State government funded Planning framework for the Redfern and Waterloo Public Housing Estates, known as the Built Environment Plan phase two, was also commented on by the departing tenants.

The overall feeling amongst the departing tenants was that there had been ‘consultation’ without a Consultation framework – rather like drinking a Claytons based cocktail which, by its very nature, increases the body’s sugar content with no effect on the mind. But then, the consumption of alcohol, the drink you have when you do have a drink, is forbidden on NSW Government owned property under its own regulations. Housing NSW appears to have successfully extended the Claytons concept to Community Consultation.

Ross Smith - Waterloo

References:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/discounts-to-lure-buyers-to-public-housing-20100606-xn81.html
www.smh.com.au/news/Redfern-plan/Towers-demolished-as-aid-to-social-levelling/2004/11/28/1101577354910.html
http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/publication/PDF/specialreport/SpecialReport-JointGuaranteeOfService_Oct09.pdf
www.redwatch.org.au/issues/public-housing
http://www.redwatch.org.au/issues/public-housing/redevelopment/mix
http://www.redwatch.org.au/issues/public-housing/redevelopment/mix/100824redw

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