Business and flats will follow arts to Eveleigh

However, much starker changes are in store for the site.

The Redfern-Waterloo Authority is planning a business and residential zone between the arts precinct and Redfern railway station, and medium-density housing at the Erskineville end.

Yesterday the authority's chief executive, Robert Domm, said: "In the second half of this year, with RailCorp's agreement, we hope to take as many of those large blocks to the market as possible."

Developers will be able to build residential blocks up to 10 storeys high.

Work will start next month on a 12-storey building for Channel Seven and Pacific Magazines in the Australian Technology Park. A $6 million pedestrian bridge to span the rail tracks will be finished by next year.

The community group REDwatch fears that some heritage buildings, such as the large erecting workshop in the Eveleigh railyard, will not be saved.

A REDwatch organiser, Geoff Turnbull, criticised the Government's decision to sell the old Redfern Public School site to help fund the development.

Darlington Public School was only taking children from within the area, he said. "In the next few years, within its feeder zone, you will have the CUB development, the Block development and the CarriageWorks development."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/business-and-flats-will-follow-arts-to-eveleigh/2007/01/05/1167777279278.html

[REDWatch Clarification – The Former Redfern Public School Site was not sold to fund the Eveleigh development. It was sold to the Federal Governments Indigenous Land Corporation because it was considered surplus to NSW Government requirements. The RWA initially proposed the site be used for a housing development. The community facility proposed by the ILC is widely regarded as a better outcome for the community. REDWatch argued however that the Redfern Public School site should not be sold but rather kept in NSW Government ownership so the land could be re-used in the future for a school to meet the needs of the increased population proposed for the area. The current pressures on the Public Schools at Darlington and Erskineville will substantially increase with the proposed doubling of the areas population].