Waterloo South rezoning proposal

This information was placed on the City of Sydney website on 29 May 2020. On the City website it was spread over a number of pages but for ease of access we have bought this together in one document and only used some graphics.

This media release was issued on Sunday 31 May 2020 jointly by Melinda Pavey, Minister for Water, Property & Housing, Rob Stokes Minister for Planning and Public Spaces and Gareth Ward Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services.

This is the text of the print edition of The Sunday Telegraph article of 31 May 2020 page 27 entitled "Megacity reaching for the sky in a smaller way". This article contained some information about LAHC's revised proposal for Waterloo Estate as well as some details of what was proposed on the Southern portion of the estate.

Clover Moore responded to the announcement of the Waterloo South lodgement on Facebook on 1 June 2020. The text of the post is below.

This letter was issued on 1 June 2020 by Clover Moore for distribution to residents in response to the submission of the LAHC proposal for Waterloo South.

The Communities Plus site contains a number of new artists impressions that have not been seen elsewhere. It also shows the new map dividing Waterloo Estate into South, Central and North precincts.

Below you will find REDWatch's analysis of the material released by Council and LAHC about the rezoning proposal for Waterloo South LAHC have submitted to the City of Sydney Council. This material was sent out as a REDWatch Email Update to Members, Supporters and Agencies

In their first newsletter since issuing the Preferred Plan in January 2019, this is how LAHC advised Waterloo public housing tenants of the details of their Waterloo South master plan. Tenant representatives and agencies had requested LAHC to provide a similar level to that which was released in January 2019 if they changed the plan. There is not even a plan of what LAHC is proposing, only some artists impressions which are meaningless for a rezoning proposal.

Following representations from REDWatch, Agencies and public tenants, the City of Sydney has released a plan showing proposed heights and layout of Land and Housing Corporation's proposal for Waterloo South. In releasing the plan the Council has reworked their web page to show the LAHC proposal alongside the 2019 LAHC Preferred Master Plan and the Councils's own 2019 proposal. Council has made it clear that "It is likely changes will be made to the proposal the corporation has submitted as the process of review will continue during the assessment phase."

The City of Sydney has produced an excellent webinar based on their presentation to REDWatch on 9 July 2020. The webinar is on the Council's Waterloo South webpage. This webinar is highly recommended as it provides an excellent explanation of the LAHC proposal and the approach Council is taking to assessing LAHC's proposal.

Following the June 2020 REDWatch meeting, REDWatch wrote to LOrd Mayor, Clover Moore regarding the release of Land and Housing Corporation's proposal for Waterloo South. Below you will see our letter to Clover and her response which has addressed the concerns that we have raised with her about the lack of transpaency of the Waterloo South proposal, for which Council was being blamed.

The Waterloo South Social Sustainability Study contains a table with recommendations from the report and Land and Housing Corporation's (LAHC) response to those recommendations. As this is a key indicator of what LAHC has committed to in delivering a socially sustainable development we have extracted the table and made it easily accessible. The full amended Waterloo south social sustainability report can be downloaded from the City of Sydney Waterloo South webpage https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/policy-planning-changes/planning-proposal-request-waterloo-estate-south. Parts of this table were missing from the initial version of the report released. When this was fixed it threw out page numbering so the adjusted report does not have page numbers in the first section and page titles were also deleted.

REDWatch made a submission to the Department of Planning Industry and Environment on the draft guidelines for Social Impact Assessments (SIA) being required on all State Significant Development Applications and State Significant Infrastructure in November 2020. While the LAHC sites are currently with Council rather than DPIE we have argued in our submission that the Social Impact Assessments should be extended to cover such redevelopments. The SIA Guidelines were originally put together for mining projects and redevelopment of settled inner city public housing communities throw up many different social impacts. You can read our submission here.

The City of Sydney (CoS) Council released its proposal for the planning controls to govern the proposed Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) redevelopment of Waterloo South on 10th February 2021. The Council proposal is part of the papers for the Transport, Heritage and Planning Committee on Monday 15 February 2021 where Councillors will consider the proposal from Council staff. The proposal is also considered by the Central Sydney Planning Committee (CSPC) at 5pm on Thursday 18 February 2021 before going to the Council Meeting on Monday 22 February and then to the Department of Planning Infrastructure and Environment for approval for public exhibition later this year. Below is some information on the proposal documents and the original Land and Housing Corporations proposal made public by the Council.

This response to Council's Waterloo South Planning Proposal was issued by Counterpoint Community Services to City of Sydney for the Council Committee and the Centrral Sydney Planning Committee's consideration of the waterloo South Planning proposal.

The Analysis below was produced by REDWatch and circulated by our email distributiuon lists on 19 February 2021. This analysis seeks to explain some of the key issues arrising from the Council Planning Proposal and some of REDWatch's concerns.

This is the text of the Media Statement Rob Stokes Minister for Planning and Public Spaces released on Twitter on Tuesday, 23 February 2021

THis is a copy of the statement that appeared on the DPIE website on 17th March 2021 advising the names of the advisors to the departmental Secretary who will determine the Planning Proposal to be exhibited for Waterloo South.

News that Council had been stripped of its role over Waterloo South and that DPIE would take over planning with the assistance of an Independent Advisory Panel cane during a meeting of the Waterloo NAB's Waterloo Redevelopment Group (WRG). The attached is a response from Michael Shreenan as Acting Chair of the WRG to the announcement.

Groundswell Redfern Waterloo letter jointly produced the following letter to DPIE Secretary Jim Betts and key stakeholders regarding the Minister's decision that DPIE would take over control of the planning proposal for Waterloo South. The statement was sent to all the key stakeholders including the independent panel members. Organisations adding their support to the letter includes Counterpoint Community Services, Inner Sydney Voice, REDWatch, Redfern Legal Service, Tenant's Union NSW, Shelter NSW, The Sydney University Settlement and Milk Crate Theatre.