New beginning for The Block
- Author:
- Max Chalmers
- Posted:
- Thursday, 17 January 2013
A long-term project to rebuild The Block in Redfern could begin as early as July this year if financing for the project can be secured.
The NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure has announced its approval of a development application (DA) forwarded by the Aboriginal Housing Company – the company that owns and manages the site. The project is known as the ‘Pemulwuy Redevelopment’.
Aboriginal Housing Company CEO Michael Mundine is confident the long-awaited redevelopment will finally be able to commence.
“I’m really confident. I think our main obstacle was the DA approval,” he told City News.
The development will see the construction of 62 affordable housing dwellings which will be reserved for local Indigenous residents. The cost of renting these dwellings will be subsidised by the fees collected from commercial developments on the site including a 42 unit student housing facility, childcare centre, community gallery and gymnasium.
The Department of Planning and Infrastructure said the development would meet several strategic goals while NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell said it would lead to “a vibrant new housing, community and cultural precinct close to transport and the University of Sydney”.
Despite the government’s praise, some elements of the application had caused controversy. The student housing units had attracted criticism from locals concerned they would lead to an influx of non-Indigenous residents into the area.
However, local groups such as the Redfern Eveleigh Darlington Waterloo Watch (REDWatch) have voiced support for the plan in its current incarnation.
REDWatch spokesperson Geoff Turnbull said by developing a source of revenue, the Aboriginal Housing Company would be able to maintain control of the site and prevent dependence on government funding. He praised the inclusion of both commercial and subsidised residential elements.
“Together that will actually mean that affordable housing will manage to be sustainable in the long-term which is the most important part of the exercise,” said Mr Turnbull.
The major question now is one of funding. While the Department of Planning and Infrastructure waived $142,000 in DA fees, it is still unclear how initial construction costs will be met.
Both the Aboriginal Housing Company and DeiCorp, the company charged with designing and building the development, remain positive.
Greg Colbran, Pemulwuy Project Manager and DeiCorp’s Development Manager, said the Aboriginal Housing Company had become a “professional development company”.
“[We] can handle not only the day-to-day running of their housing sector, but [are also] capable of running the Pemulwuy Project from development stage to completion of construction and beyond.”
Mr Mundine said funding for the commercial elements of the project would come from the banks while the Aboriginal Housing Company would turn to the government for the remaining grants. He conceded there was still work to be done.
“We’ve got to cross our ‘t’s and dot our ‘i’s,” said Mr Mundine.
An artist's impression of the Pemulwuy Project
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January 25th, 2013 @ 10:58 am
As Geoff Turnbull said to me last year, there’s no Town Planning in Redfern. We were talking about the secretive Block redevelopment in Everleigh St opposite Sydney’s second most major train Station – Redfern Station (running down towards Central Station). I had been to a supposed “public” meeting about it at Redfern Town Hall, attended by about ten people – including some Sydney City councillors in the tiny audience. The unadvertised meeting was run by some “consultants”, who only wanted to talk about giving some more Council owned “community” land in the Block area – to the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC), represented by ex-boxer Mick Mundine and some younger guys with him. When I tried to question why the public hadn’t been invited to this meeting (the first one I’d found out about, but only because of Geoff Turnbull’s newsletter he occasionally emails to me) Mundine and his mates walked out – cutting the audience in half.
I would have liked to ask him about why his Gym was being moved up from the end of Everleigh St and reconstructed near the station – instead of an Aboriginal heritage centre being featured there (as elders I’ve talked to appear to prefer). Also there are the heritage Aboriginal murals on walls at the top of Everleigh St to be demolished, so a cover can be put over the railway line opposite Redfern stations main exit – providing the only “open space”/plaza in the proposed redevelopment. Mundine and company was probably still there when I asked the secret “public” meeting whether it would be better to build the proposed 62 AHC Block family housing units on donated vacant government land closer to Erskineville. I said there were problems with the Aboriginal community custom for putting up visitors in their homes in the Block – because that Block housing is so close to Sydney’s most connected railway stations. It created an unstable population that was magic for drug dealers to hide out in and a free for all 24/7 market for their customers coming by train.
What seems to really be driving this Block commercial redevelopment though, are the major “partner” developers – the constructors of high-rise blocks of flats (with windy balconies) on the other side of the railway line and Sydney Uni which will benefit most from the market rent student housing being built down the Block on former park and playground. The overdevelopment Block proposal was indeed designed by Sydney uni students as a class project. Currently the Everleigh St Block area is a lawn – where AHC houses were finally all cleared after initially being slowly demolished (by neglect and organised vandalism) for decades. This land should be retained in Aboriginal ownership and be better used for cultural projects – such as how the Rocks precinct was preserved, including some good civil green open space. Not just for another multi-storey commercial shopping precinct and white yuppie student housing.
Maybe not quite another Opera House visionary project, but something better befitting modern Aboriginal struggles for equality and justice – rather than just a monument to the Mundines. Something Charlie Perkins, Ma Shirl and other Aboriginal greats of recent memory would be proud of. Something that local Aboriginal kids can visit and be proud of. Contact us at Save Our Sydney on unemployedembassy.magix.net to support our campaign