Several members of the community continue to rally against a proposal to privatise the majority of Explorer St housing, a subject of discussion for many years now.
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The proposal was based on the NSW Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) Communities Plus project formula which allows for only 30 per cent social housing but 70 per cent private housing on public land.
Plans for Eveleigh include constructing 4,250 new homes, of which only 1,260 will be social housing.
Explorer St has also been included in the NSW Government’s Rezoning Pathways Program which means that the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE), instead of Council, will be the ones taking charge of the planning and development decisions for the area.
During a Council meeting with the local planning panel, City of Sydney Councillor Linda Scott put forward an urgency motion about the decision to include Eveleigh in the program. Cr Scott submitted a motion that will allow the City of Sydney to back a significant percentage of social and affordable housing on Explorer Street.
Community group REDWatch, which has been campaigning against privatising Explorer St public housing for years now, believes being the planning proposal authority was not the main job of DPE and they did not have the experience and expertise to deal with the community.
Some locals also believe removing Council from planning decisions means community concerns are not sufficiently addressed especially in terms of social and affordable housing.
“That’s taking a site that is 100% public housing and turning it into a site where less than 30% of the total dwellings planned for the site are social housing,” said Cr Scott.
Greens MP Jenny Leong shares the sentiments of locals, saying that rezoning plans like the one proposed for Eveleigh break apart established communities and do little to address housing unaffordability.
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Ms Leong mentioned about the devastating impact of the sell-off of Millers Point public housing, which involved evicting hundreds of tenants out of their homes and moving to other parts of the city.
If the privatisation of Explorer Street public housing will continue, many tenants in Eveleigh will also have to face the loss of their homes.