Doing their Block: blueprint for change upsets Redfern

The Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, released the built environment plan yesterday, which he said would encourage economic growth in the area and create up to 18,000 jobs.

The plan includes a $6 million pedestrian and cycle bridge to link Australian Technology Park with North Eveleigh, replacing a controversial tunnel proposed in the draft plan in February.

Other changes include the preservation of the Marian Street Park near Redfern station after a campaign by local residents. In the original plan, it was to be the site of an 18-storey office block.

Towers of up to 18 storeys will still be allowed on the other side of Gibbons Street, and a new town centre will be created around the station.

But the Aboriginal Housing Company, which owns the land at the Block on Eveleigh Street, says the increased residential density allowed at its site was much less than that allowed in similar areas in Redfern.

The limits put on the site by the Redfern-Waterloo Authority have dashed the company's plan to build 62 new homes for Aborigines on the Block.

"Really, it's about what everyone else is getting ... that's the most poignant issue here," said Peter Valilis, the company's project manager.

The community group REDWatch agreed that the Block's revised density was still insufficient, but said that otherwise the final plan had included several improvements.

A spokesman, Geoff Turnbull, described the decision to preserve Marian Street Park as "possibly the biggest win for the community ... because there's so little open space in the inner city".

New plans to convert the former Redfern court house and police station into a $10 million community health centre also "showed the Government has been prepared to made some positive concessions", he said.
 

An artist's impression of the footbridge linking Australian Technology Park with North Eveleigh. Photo: Oculus