An Agenda for Redfern Waterloo Changes in 2007 – State Election Issues

The Redfern
Waterloo Authority (RWA) was established in December 2004 by an Act of NSW
Parliament. The Bill was introduced by the Labor Government and was passed with
the support of the Liberal Opposition following some amendments in the upper
house by the Liberals, the Greens and the Cross benchers and the government.
The 2007 State Election will be the first election to be held since the RWA was
established and hence it is an opportune time to question political parties and
candidates about what they have done in the past parliamentary term about
Redfern Waterloo and what new policies they propose to address the concerns of
those that live in the area.

While the
operation of the RWA is governed by an Act of Parliament, the Act gives the
Minister for Redfern Waterloo, currently Frank Sartor, immense powers over how
the RWA operates. The Minister decides who will be on the RWA Board, what
consultation and advisory committees will exist and who will be on them. The
Minister also decides what will be and will not be in the Redfern Waterloo Plan
and how it will be put together. A new Minister could make the RWA operate a
very different way and could address many of the concerns REDWatch have
detailed in this paper. When REDWatch lobbied Minister Sartor in 2004 over the
RWA Bill, the Minister said that he hoped he would have the RWA bedded down so
well that no Minister following him would want to change things. The RWA of
2007 is very much a product of its first Minister, and it remains to be seen if
his successors will want to change what he has put in place. The 2007 NSW State
election holds the possibility of a change of Minister for Redfern Waterloo,
either through change of Government or Ministerial reshuffle. There are a
number of things REDWatch would want to see a new Minister change.

The Redfern
Waterloo Authority (RWA) has now been in operation for over two years. It has established
its operational processes, published most of its plans and it is now embarking
on the implementation of the plans. The RWA has argued that there had been lots
of studies and reports about Redfern Waterloo and that the important thing for
the RWA was to get its plans out and start doing something. At the RWA’s inception
REDWatch was told to wait until all the RWA plans were finalised before you
criticise us. With two years’ worth of Plans and community experience of the
RWA, 2007 is an opportune time to look at how the RWA’s activities can be
improved.

REDWatch’s
membership is made of people not affiliated with any party as well as people
involved with all major political parties. REDWatch does not support any
political party. REDWatch does encourage residents to be actively involved in
all aspects of their community life including politics. REDWatch wants to see
policies from all political parties that seriously address the needs, concerns
and aspirations of those that live and work in Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlington
and Waterloo – the suburbs generally referred to as Redfern-Waterloo.

Ideally
REDWatch would like to see a non-partisan approach by political parties to work
with the communities that live in Redfern Waterloo to find lasting solutions to
the areas issues.

Below we
have highlighted some of the issues of concern to the community that can be
addressed by either changes in Government Policy or by the way the Minister for
Redfern Waterloo and the RWA implements the Redfern Waterloo Act. The following
outline may assist people wanting to raise these issues with political parties
and candidates during the 2007 NSW election.

Failings in Community Consultation and Engagement

The NSW
Government has taken control of parts of Redfern Waterloo away from a
democratically elected local council and handed control of these areas to a
state minister. In addition the Minister for Redfern Waterloo was appointed to
be responsible for co-ordinating all state government decisions concerning the
area. A substantial amount of power and responsibility was vested with the
Minister. The availability of opportunities for the community to discuss their
concerns with the Minister and to have input to the decisions was of major
concern to the community from the outset and was the topic of the Minister’s first
communication with the community. In April 2005 the RWA advised the community “How
Your Voice Will be Heard” through its newsletter announcing the Minister’s
decision. The newsletter explained the “Community Consultation Framework” as
having three elements linking the community to the Minister: Community Forums,
Ministerial Advisory Committees and RWA Working Groups. What was proposed was
not necessarily what was delivered.

No Promised Community Forums have been Held

The direct
link between the community and the Minister the newsletter said was “A Community Forum to meet at least four
times a year will be open for members of the public to attend. The purpose of
this Forum is to provide the Minister with advice on the broad strategic
direction of the Redfern-Waterloo Plan and provides the community with a direct
link to the Minister”. The Minister has never implemented this undertaking.
The only Redfern Waterloo public meeting attended by the Minister since his
appointment as Minister for Redfern Waterloo was held specifically for public
housing tenants. While the RWA have held a couple of community meetings the
meetings have not been attended by the Minister nor have they performed the
functions the Minister promised for Community Forums.

Ministerial Advisory Committees that have never
seen the Minister

The
Minister proposed three Ministerial Advisory Committees (MACs) made up of an
equal number of representatives from government departments and the community
to advise the Minister. The community representatives were appointed by the
Minister and some concern was expressed about how representative of the
community those appointed were, especially as some also worked for the state government.
While there have been a number of meetings of each of the MACs, to the best of
our knowledge the Minister has never attended any MAC meeting. All meetings are
chaired by an RWA employee or Board Member, who may brief the Minister or
provide his staff with minutes, but either way this provides a very filtered
perspective of any issues of concern raised by community representatives. [Due
to the RWA’s role in implementing Government policy in Redfern Waterloo there
is usually much greater knowledge about what is being planned behind the scene from
the government MAC members. They are often involved in preparing policy
documents or involved with or aware of cabinet, CEO, Senior Officer and other
inter-departmental discussions to which the community representatives are not
privy.] The MACs have provided very limited opportunity for community input and
acted more as a sounding board for the RWA and Government on their agenda.

RWA Working Groups without community representation

According
to the Minister’s April 2005 consultation diagram, the MACs were to directly
advise the Minister while Working Groups were to advise the Minister through
the RWA. The Working Groups do not necessarily include representatives of the
community. Human Service providers are concerned that many of the decisions
about human services in the area have overlooked important local needs because
the decisions are primarily being driven by representatives of government
departments and the local experience is being excluded or when expressed it has
not been listened to. REDWatch considers that all Working Groups should include
at least two community representation with relevant experience who have links
to a local community group or service provider.

The Missing Community Council

Under the
RWA’s predecessor, the Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project (RWPP), the NSW
Premier’s Department operated a Community Council. The Community Council was
made up of elected representatives (local MPs and councillors) and state government
selected representatives from some the sectors of the community. While some
voiced concerns about the make up of the Community Council and the way it was selectively
used by the RWPP, the Council potentially provided a broad representative
community body to dialogue with government about the changes proposed. While
REDWatch pushed for a similar community council under the RWA, the proposal was
not accepted by the Minister. REDWatch hopes the Minister will commit to
establishing a broad based Community Council to advise the RWA and the Minister
across the range of the RWA’s activities after the election.

Inquiry Concerns about Community Engagement remain

The Redfern
Waterloo Partnership Project came in for significant criticism in late 2004
from the Legislative Council’s Inquiry into Redfern Waterloo. The Inquiry found
that the Government needed to substantially improve their Community Engagement
processes. REDWatch initially welcomed the RWA proposal for a Minister who
could be held politically responsible for Redfern Waterloo. Since the
establishment of the RWA the concept of partnership with the community and
other tiers of government has been dropped from the state government’s
programme for Redfern Waterloo,
leading much less engagement with the community. This is in contrast to the Upper
House Committee’s findings that the government should improve its community
engagement processes.

Encouraging Community Based Planning

The
decision by the NSW Government to switch from the RED Strategy’s proposal for Council
controlled redevelopment of Redfern Waterloo to a state government controlled
Redfern Waterloo Authority indicates a State Government view that State
Significant developments and the increased densities required to accommodate
population increases across Sydney can not be handled by Local Councils and local
communities. This position has manifested in various forms as the Minister for Planning
has called in other major projects such as the CUB site.

REDWatch
does not accept the “all communities are anti-development” argument. Experience
in both Australia (eg North Sydney) and in the USA (eg Seattle) show that
communities will accept city wide growth targets and even, as is the case in
Seattle, agree to plans for increased densities. Communities however want a say
in where growth is best placed and how it is best handled to maintain important
community space and local amenity. REDWatch has often been painted as being
anti-development and yet in May 2005 REDWatch proposed to the RWA a process for
a community driven planning framework for developing the Redfern Waterloo Plan
required under the RWA’s Act. REDWatch does not oppose development in Redfern
Waterloo; our argument with the RWA has been about process. Of course not
having had input into the formulation of the RWA Plans has meant that REDWatch
and other community groups have focused on the short comings of the plans.

Community Consultations in Developing Plans

REDWatch
and many other groups and agencies in the area have been concerned about the
RWA’s failure to listen to the variety of voices in the local community and
find ways to incorporate the community as partners in the decisions made about
the area’s future. The RWA has instead formulated Plans that have often already
been signed off on by government departments and cabinet before they are shown
to the community for comment. As a result little of substance changes and
community insights and input are denied. This was especially so in the Human
Services Plan and the Employment & Enterprise Plan.

This
“development exhibition” style is not robust consultation as it fails to
involve the community in the formulation of the plans and the only provides the
opportunity to a comment on the draft plan. In the case of the RWA Built
Environment Plan there were a large number of changes following public
exhibition. In large part these changes resulted directly from the RWA rushing its
formulation of the draft plan and not doing the work that should have been done
before its release. The final Built Environment Plan hence included a
significant amount of new material which the community had no opportunity to
make any comment upon at all.

In contrast
the City of Sydney
has undertaken a number of consultations concerning their planning responsibilities
in Redfern Waterloo in the last year. These have involved opportunities for
input to consultants and council officers prior to the preparation of plans in
addition to the “development exhibition” consultation phase. There usually has
been a lot of community input into the plan or review before it goes out on
exhibition. REDWatch is of the view that the City of Sydney approach to consultation sees the
formulation of better decisions as well as greater community acceptance of the
decisions made when compared to the process used to date by the RWA. We note
that the City recently hosted a talk on the Seattle approach to community involvement in
planning and that the City may move further towards facilitating more community
level planning. The City’s direction is similar to the process proposed to the
RWA by REDWatch in May 2005.

Dialogue Experience with the RWA

REDWatch
has held a number of meetings with either Robert Domm,
the RWA CEO, or with RWA Human Services staff. REDWatch is pleased that the RWA
has always been prepared to accept REDWatch invitations and explain their
current plans. These discussions have always been informative about the RWA’s plans
and some of the thinking behind them. Regrettably the meetings have seldom seen
any of the concerns raised at the meetings taken up by the RWA as issues that
need to be investigated or taken into account in the RWA plans. The impression
is very much that community concerns are not on the RWA agenda which is being
driven almost only by the NSW Government and Department agendas. Many local
service providers and other groups, including Gary
Moore who as Director of New South Wales Council of Social
Services (NCOSS) co-chaired the RWA’s Human Services MAC, have raised similar
concerns.

The Need for a Shared Vision

When the
RWA Legislation was introduced the Bill didn’t include Objects. The inclusion
of general Objects was one of a number of changes REDWatch managed to have
changed in the Bill. REDWatch has argued in our submission on the RWA Built Environment
Plan that when the RWA combines their various Plans into a single Redfern
Waterloo Plan they also need to incorporate a vision statement of what the Plan
seeks to achieve. Without this we can end up with activity but no clear vision
of where the RWA is heading. REDWatch does not want to see another “motherhood”
statement incorporated as the vision for the RWA. REDWatch believes that the
RWA should use the opportunity provided by the need to develop a vision statement
to consult broadly with the community and to develop a vision that is shared
between the communities that make up Redfern Waterloo and the Government. Some
elements of what might be in this vision statement can be found in some of the
RED Strategy documents which resulted from a brief earlier consultation with
the community.

The Challenge of Working Together

When the Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project was
disbanded, the concept of partnership with the community was dropped from the
Government lexicon. It is not clear if this was a consequence of the Minister
chosen to establish the RWA, if it was a change of Government policy or just a
smart way getting around the Inquiry into Redfern Waterloo’s criticism of the
government for not actively engaging the community. Whatever the reason it is
opportune to call again for a Partnership between the Government and the
various communities of Redfern and Waterloo.

With most
of the RWA’s Plans now public, and with the RWA entering the implementation
phase, it is time to re-visit the concept of partnership. We largely know now what
the Government wants from its involvement in Redfern Waterloo. It is now time for
the Minister and the RWA to listen to what the various parts of the community
want and to see if both can be achieved in some way. To do this there is a need
to build a new partnership between the community and the RWA.

There is no
reason for those that question or are critical of the RWA to be cut out of the
process. They are after all those who are interested in what happens in their
community and they are prepared to voice their concerns. It does not mean that
the RWA should do what the loudest talkers say but that the Minister and the
RWA need to find ways of listening to the broad range of community concerns and
find ways of working with the community to address those concerns. The Minister
and the RWA need to work at building a genuine partnership with the community
which is aimed at ensuring that the existing Redfern Waterloo communities get
the maximum benefit from the RWA and the government’s involvement in Redfern
Waterloo.

Information Flows and Transparency

Information Dissemination and Control

The RWA
have a well established website (although still without a working search
function) and the RWA has producing a reasonable number of newsletters through
which they seek to inform the community about the RWA’s achievements,
activities and the material on public exhibition. The RWA have however not
always resisted the temptation to use the Newsletters to ‘spin’ their position
on Redfern Waterloo. Who can forget the RWA Update issue with the Open Letter
from the Minister to Mick Mundine at the height of the RWA – AHC standoff over
the Block as an example?

The
Minister’s media management also includes a policy of not inviting local media,
community leaders or key information disseminators to public launches and media
conferences related to Redfern Waterloo. While this might avoid the Minister
being asked difficult questions by people who have local knowledge it also
means that RWA / Government stories which have not been picked up by mainstream
media do not readily get out to the local community in a timely manner.

While the Local
Council engages with local residents groups as well as local Chambers of Commerce,
the RWA has incorporated into its Built Environment Plan only involvement with
the Redfern Waterloo Chamber of Commerce (RWCC). While the City of Sydney has links to
Chambers of Commerce and Residents Groups on their web site the RWA only links
to the RWCC and has no links to residents groups. A request for a link from the
RWA website to the REDWatch site has been declined on the basis that REDWatch
is political. This is despite the fact that the REDWatch website has carried,
at the RWA request, Human Services Consultation documents not carried by the
RWA’s own website.

While it is
common for Government organisations to manage the media it can also further
distance the Authority from the very community it supposedly exists to service.
The RWA needs to find ways to actively engage with community organisations
including residents groups rather than turn them in to their opponents.

The need for transparency

Under Local
Government there is a level of transparency and opportunity for involvement in
decision making which has been lost currently under the RWA. With Council,
meeting dates for committees and council are known in advance, as are the
agendas and the minutes detailing what has been decided. If there is an issue
of concern on the agenda those interested can contact council officers,
councillors and address committee meetings. None of this is possible with the
way the RWA has been established by the Minister. While in Council sensitive
matters can be considered in camera, in the RWA everything is conducted away
from public view and only becomes public if thought worthy of mention in a
newsletter or on the website or it is mentioned in conversation by RWA staff. REDWatch
is of the view that the RWA should conduct its activities in a transparent
manner similar to local council.

RWA Board, committee
meeting and Ministerial Advisory Committee dates and agendas should be publicly
posted on the RWA website so people know when meetings are being held and what
is being considered. Minutes of such meetings should also be publicly posted as
should Ministerial Decisions and Delegations. There is probably also a case for
Board and committee meetings being open for the public to attend. After all even
a council administrator conducts meetings in public.

Under
Council, Development Applications (DAs) that receive significant opposition are
usually dealt with by Council Committee at which proponent and objectors can
speak. Currently the RWA deals with all DAs under delegation and there are no
mechanisms for objectors to verbally put their case. Council also make
available, in council officers’ reports, details of submissions received on a
matter under consideration by Council. This transparency is important for those
concerned about an altered decision to understand why changes have been made.
While the RWA has released some submissions on its Human Services Plans, the
RWA has not released submissions on the Employment & Enterprise Plan or the
Built Environment Plan, or any of the DAs the RWA has handled.

REDWatch
accepts that, as is the case with some council decisions, some market sensitive
material needs to be kept confidential. The existence of such material should
not prevent meeting times, agendas and minutes being made publicly available as
is the case for Councils.

Government must adequately Fund Redfern Waterloo

RWA Sales Pay for State rather than Local Capital
Works

The RWA was
initially set up as a self funding authority although two years down the track
it seems to have been recognised that, initially at least, the RWA will not be
able to operate without some additional government funds. It is still of
concern however that rather than spending funds from developments in the area
on improving local infrastructure, the sale of land and developer contributions
are planned to be used to re-develop Redfern Railway Station or to try and
address the problems caused by the arterial roads near Redfern Railway station.
While the Town Hall station upgrade is coming from the State Works Budget, the
RWA is expected to pay for most of the cost of an upgrade of Redfern Station by
the sale of development approved Government owned land in the RWA area. The
proposed RWA Works budget only proposes only $1.2 million for new community
facilities for the 18,000 extra people working in the area and for the 2,000
extra residents proposed. By contrast over $15 million in the proposed RWA Works
Budget is earmarked to lessen the impact of the state’s arterial roads on
access to Redfern Railway Station. At the same time existing human services can
not service the existing population let alone the proposed increase and a major
issue is for community services to have adequate accommodation to operate their
services.

Yes Premier – More Money is Needed to Provide Human
Services

One of the
most frustrating government policies impacting on Redfern Waterloo is the Government
decision imposed on the RWA that there will be no new human services funding
for Redfern Waterloo. The expectation was that the RWA would reform human
services and that a more efficient organisation of service providers and
programmes would release funds for new initiatives. This logic has been found
to be flawed. The upshot has been that RWA staff have to continually say that
no extra money is available to service providers even though there is a clear
and demonstrate need for new funding if the RWA Human Services Plans are to
work. This is an area that must be taken up during the election campaign with
the government and the opposition parties. It is simply not possible to address
the high needs of the area adequately with existing funding. While this policy
remains in place it makes a mockery of any suggestion that the RWA is
developing a viable Human Services Plan for the area. While this government policy
continues in operation the RWA should at least document the issues which can
not be addressed due to lack of funding. These needs can be taken up in future
budget submissions to the state government by the RWA or the Human Services
Departments. In the meantime the government needs to drop the ludicrous line
that there are enough resources already in the area as all it is doing is
causing antagonism with those aware of the situation and furthering the belief
that the government is not really serious about addressing the areas human
services needs.

Expecting Government Departments to increase Redfern
Waterloo expenditure without extra funding is not sustainable

One of the
significant outcomes of the Human Service Plan was that it recognised that many
of the area’s problems required government departments to commit more money to their
core activities in Redfern Waterloo. Early intervention and education
programmes lifting basic literacy and numeracy are obvious examples. The
concern however is that there was no budgetary allocation to fund these
increased activities. Instead departments were expected to fund such activities
from within their existing budgets. This potentially sees resources to make
aspects of the Redfern Waterloo Plan work needing to be taken from other areas
and other programmes. This might be fine if this is only happening for Redfern
Waterloo but tighter NSW budget restraints and the imperatives of the State
Plan are seeing similar requirements being placed on departments from a number
of different directions. REDWatch is concerned that aspects of the Human Services
Plan which may make a significant difference to Redfern Waterloo will not
eventuate due to the lack of budgetary support. Candidates and political
parties should be asked if they will push government to ensure that all government
departments receive sufficient budgetary funding to meet their service obligations
under the Redfern Waterloo Human Services Plan.

A Lack of Planning Integration

REDWatch
and organisations like NCOSS have been arguing since that the RWA was announced,
that there is a need for a fully integrated approach to Redfern Waterloo. Such
an approach would have seen issues looked at in a holistic and inter-related
way. Under the current Minister’s process the Redfern Waterloo Plan is the
combination of the RWA’s Human Services Plan, Employment & Enterprise Plan
and Built Environment Plan. Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) Members have
reported that attempts to look at linkages between their area and that of other
MACs have been discouraged. In REDWatch’s view this separation of all of
Redfern Waterloo’s issues into these three areas is inadequate. Not only are
important aspects missing (such as a shared vision for the area) but also the
important interactions between them. REDWatch has voiced these concerns in a
number of our submissions. We have been concerned that aspects that may be
important to the community but not high on the Government’s agenda will be
missed in the development of the RWA’s plan for Redfern Waterloo. Our concerns
have increased over time. Below we have detailed some examples that currently
do not fit into the RWA’s Plans.

Public Housing policy and the RWA

While much
has been said by the RWA about Redfern Waterloo’s high unemployment levels and
high human services needs seldom is this linked to the high level of public
housing in the area and the government’s public housing policies. It is current
NSW government policy, resulting from federal funding restrictions, to limit
new public housing admissions to people with the highest needs. As the number
of people wanting housing increases the level of needs of those entering public
housing also increases. At the same time the government is introducing limited
tenure leases so public tenants whose situation improves can be moved out to
allow access for a higher needs tenant. All this has the effect that over the
life of the RWA we expect to see an significant increase in the needs of public
tenants in the area which, if not properly met, will also see an increasing
impact on everyone who lives and works in the area.

Human
Service providers say that the existing level of human need in the area is not currently
being matched by sufficient human services. If as a result of changes to
government policy the needs of public tenants increases then the tenants and
the community should be assured that the government services necessary to meet
this increased need will also increase. The NSW government’s current position
articulated by the RWA is that there will be no additional government funding
to meet existing unmet need and that in the longer term public tenants in the
area will be diluted by a doubling of the areas population.

The
interconnections between public housing admission, human services and
unemployment also impact upon unemployment. The RWA’s Employment and Enterprise
Plan has to take account that those that they successfully help into employment
will be pushed out of public housing into an inner city housing market they
will not be able to afford. Their place in public housing will be taken by
probably a higher needs person requiring higher levels of support to get a job.
These interconnections link together the yet unseen RWA affordable housing
policy (needed by the person who has a job but looses public housing), the RWA
Employment and Enterprise Strategy (which will need to be ongoing as each
public housing tenant it helps will be replaced by a higher needs tenant) and
the RWA Human Services Plan (which will need to service higher needs public
tenants more of which are likely to not be able to be made readily “job ready”).

The RWA
Plans are predicated on government being able to solve the problems of those
that live in the area. This is a laudable objective with which REDWatch is in
agreement. Our concern is however that the results of this hard work in the
eyes of the RWA Plans seems to be that the human services needs in Redfern
Waterloo will be reduced while current government housing policy indicates that
the level of need in the area will actually increase and required increased
human services expenditure. Effective integrated planning for the future of
Redfern Waterloo will need to address and service an increase in human services
needs. To date we have not seen in the Human Services Plans how the RWA will
address this.

Planning Services for the Aged

Redfern
Waterloo has a significant aging population. Some current aged services, such
as for those with dementia, are at capacity. There has been a strong voice from
the community that there is a need for increase supported accommodation and
nursing home beds in the area. It was argued by many in the community that
Rachel Forster hospital should not be sold until after there had been an
assessment of the needs for aged and supported accommodation in the area. This
is clearly an example of the linkage between human services and the built
environment. On the Human Services side people were told it was a matter for
the Built Environment Plan and on the Built Environment side people were told
that this was not in the Human Services Plan priorities. From the community
side people want to see some work done on what are, and will be, the aged care
needs of the community and then how these can be met within the RWA Plan. The
current RWA solution of publicising local services more so everyone knows about
them when they are already at capacity will not supply a long term solutions to
the areas aging population.

Planning for the Area’s Future Needs

Prior to
the establishment of the RWA the NSW Government closed down Redfern Public School
due to declining enrolments. At the same time they also tried to close Erskineville Public School. Today Erskineville is
expanding and Darlington
Public School is only
taking children from within area. In the next few years Darlington
is supposed to pick up children from the new developments in Eveleigh, The
Block and the CUB site. Redfern Waterloo is already picking up population from
developments on the ACI site end of Waterloo.
This is all prior to the RWA unveiling its plan to double the areas population
and dilute the concentration of public housing tenants. The City of Sydney Council is already
documenting a baby boom where those expected to leave the city to have children
are staying in the inner city. All this points to the potential need for not
only childcare and pre-school places in Redfern Waterloo but also potentially
for a new school. REDWatch has argued that the RWA should have retained the
former Redfern Public School in State Government
ownership so it could have been re-used for a public school if required. The
RWA has taken the position that the decision to close the school pre-dates it
and that as it is surplus Government land it could be sold. Redfern schools retention
in community use, rather than as the initially proposed by the RWA as a housing
development, is considered a good result but this does not negate the broader
issue that forward planning work should have been done by the RWA on the
projected needs of their plan before any government land was sold. The RWA view
is that should the area need a new public school in 20 years time then the
Government will have to buy up inner city land at that time. This seems very
short sighted to REDWatch and to many in the community. REDWatch would like to
see the findings of a study of the projected community needs for the expanded
Redfern Waterloo community before any further publicly owned land, including
the former Rachel
Foster Hospital,
is sold off by the RWA.

Planning for the Least Powerful

Apart from
diluting the public tenants the RWA has offered no plan for how the increased
polarity will be managed between higher needs public tenants and the
increasingly Redfern Waterloo Manhattan. The RWA plans to date, primarily aimed
at Aboriginal people, have been aimed trying to assist people into employment
and away from dependence on welfare. While this is a very important component
of the government and the RWA’s work, the RWA needs to also recognise that for
every person helped into employment another arm of government will replace them
with a higher needs person. As a result, if housing allocation policy does not
change, high needs people will continue to live in the area, irrespective of how
successful the RWA programmes are. Planning for the future of Redfern Waterloo
needs to work out how to manage the increased polarity in the area between the
least powerful and those who can afford to live in the desirable inner city.
Ensuring that adequate levels of services are available to meet the needs of
the local community is one part of the long term strategy but it is not the
only part. If public housing is to be higher turnover, as is being encouraged
by current government policy, there will be increased social isolation and
reduced support networks among public housing tenants with an increase
likelihood of ongoing anti-social behaviour and conflict between those with few
resources and those who can afford the up market inner city lifestyle. The RWA
and the government have yet to come up with a integrated plan for least
powerful in the new Redfern Waterloo.

Will Current RWA Plans give us lasting solutions?

It is
widely believed that the RWA’s primarily focus is the redevelopment of
Government owned land in Redfern Waterloo and that the Human Services and
Employment aspects have been tacked on to make it look like the RWA is also
addressing the areas social problems. The RWA disputes this but the lack of
resources and planning for long term solutions to the areas problems lends
support to this view for many people. REDWatch’s argued in its May 2005 submission
to the RWA that there should be a strategic framework which showed how the
different aspects of the RWA Plan would fit together to address the areas
issues. REDWatch’s fear then, and now, is that the Redfern Waterloo Plan will
cover what the State Government wants to develop and reorganise but that it
will not provide lasting solutions for the areas issues. At the end of the RWA
process we may find an area with double the current population, a large
population coming into the area to work and an even more disadvantaged
marginalised community. The RWA is yet to demonstrate how this will not be the
outcome. Until they can demonstrate this, scepticism about the RWA’s commitment
to the non-built environment aspects of their operation are likely to continue.

Some Other Planning Issues of Concern

The Need for Improved Co-ordination between Council
and the RWA

The RWA has
been established with a limited life. After 10 years or so the areas the RWA
has taken control of will revert to being handled by Council. Council is an
elected body, representing the broader City communities and hence brings a balance
of the resident’s perspective on issues and process as well its expertise in
handling major development issues. It is vital that Council and the RWA have
excellent co-operation and co-ordination.

The
relationship between the RWA and Council was initially quite strained. In part
this was due to the shared history of the Minister, the City Lord Mayor, some
of the RWA Board Appointees and the ex City now RWA CEO. The decision by the
Lord Mayor to decline a position on the RWA Board due to the secrecy provisions
further weakened the link between the City and the RWA. In the first year of
the RWA the relationship between the RWA and Council was poor. While the
relationship seems to have improved in the last year there is further room for
improvement. It is in residents interests that the City and the RWA take a
co-operative approach to addressing the areas issues be they in the delivery of
human services, complimentarily in planning controls or in putting joint
pressure on government departments for transport changes. Council has an
important role also in monitoring the RWA to ensure that RWA supervised
developments include provision for the increased services needed to service the
increased worker and residential population in the RWA Plans. Any short fall in
such provisions will fall back onto the council.

Building on our Heritage

There are
often many options about how an area is developed. Under the current RWA model
these decisions are made by the Minister and the local community has the right
to comment on the Minister’s plans while they are on exhibition. This does not
always deliver the best outcomes. Currently there is a push by REDWatch and some
of those who have worked at the Eveleigh Rail yards to retain some active rail
heritage use within the RWA’s Eveleigh re-development. The Large Erecting Shop
in South Eveleigh is being used for rail
heritage and this could be retained and developed further to support heritage
tourism and maintain a valuable heritage link to the rail yards that defined
much of the Area over the last 130 years. Currently the RWA Built Environment
Plan shows the “Large” as both as a heritage building and also as being zoned
for an up to 12 storey building. REDWatch, the National Trust, Friends of
Eveleigh and many others are of the view that a modest investment in the Large
could provide heritage training, tourism and an active link with the area’s
past. Such approaches have been successfully adopted in some other cities.
Similarly a proposal for a heritage walk linking all the heritage sites with
some exhibitions and interpretive signage seems to REDWatch to be worthy of
further exploration and support. The adaptive reuse of some railway buildings
in a re-developed Eveleigh is not the only option for recognising and
continuing our historical associations with the area.

Rushed Decisions leave Important Areas out of
Future RWA Plans

The Act
requires the Minister to formulate the Redfern Waterloo Plan and to keep it
under review. It is not clear currently how this will be implemented in the
case of the Built Environment Plan (BEP). What is clear is that the stand off
between the Minister and the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) over the
re-development of The Block has seen The Block go from an important public site
under the RED Strategy to almost irrelevant under the BEP. In recent months it
appears as if the relationship between the Minister and the AHC has improved
and that an accommodation about the re-development of The Block will be
reached. If this happens REDWatch would like to see the BEP revised to
recognise the important role of the Block to Redfern Waterloo. The current RWA
works allocation of $100,000 for lighting and seating on the Block is
inadequate and REDWatch would like to see the RWA support and encourage the
construction of RED Square
as a public space linking The Block to Redfern Railway station and the rest of
Redfern.

The Lesson from the RWA – AHC Battle

While there
is hope that the Minister will allow the AHC’s proposal for the Block to go
ahead and that the standoff is over, it should not be forgotten that the
Minister’s and the RWA’s adversarial approach to the AHC has created much
animosity towards the RWA and the Minister in the community and has lead to
repeated calls for the Minister’s resignation. The government and the RWA have
tried to bully an Aboriginal organisation, including by using of planning
controls, to get the Government’s plan for The Block in place against the
wishes of the AHC and local people. Ironically the AHC was one of the few
parties that had a formal Partnership Agreement with the Premier’s departments
RWPP prior to the RWA. The damage done by the RWA handling of the AHC alone
should be enough to encourage the Government and the RWA to find new ways of
working with the Redfern Waterloo community. If there is a lesson from the RWA
– AHC it has to be that the RWA and the Minister needs to listen to and work
with the community rather than try and ride rough shod over it in the name of
state significance?

The Content of the Plans

We have not
gone here into the specific content of the various Plans produced by the RWA.
REDWatch has previously made submissions on these plans and our concerns can be
found on the REDWatch website. Links to Major REDWatch documents can be found
below:

Submission on Preparation of Redfern Waterloo Plan

Submission on RWA Draft Human Services Plan(Phase
One)

Submission
on RWA Employment Enterprise Plan

Submission to the RWA Built Environment Plan

Submission on Draft Human Services Plan (Phase 2)

Submission
on RWA Draft Redfern-Waterloo Authority Contributions Plan 2006

Submission
on Draft RWA Affordable Housing Contributions Plan 2006

Obviously
there are many questions that can be asked of candidates and parties in the
lead up to the election based on the plans. These may include asking about the
candidates view about the three eighteen storey towers being planned for the
Redfern Central Core opposite Redfern Station, the doubling of Redfern
Waterloo’s population, affordable housing and the proposed redevelopment of
public housing proposed in Stage Two of the BEP.

It is not
possible for us to go in to all possible issues here. Instead we have tried to
sketch out some of the overarching issues which if properly addressed would see
a more inclusive planning process and the opportunity for those that currently
live and work in Redfern Waterloo to have the opportunity to raise their
concerns and have their suggestions properly considered.

The 2007 Election Provides an Opportunity for Change

With the
RWA Plans largely public it is an opportune time to reflect on what has and
what has not been achieved by the RWA and its Minister in its first two years.
Are there gaps in the plans and processes that need to be addressed? Are there
opportunities to create greater co-operation and dialogue between the
community, the Minister and the RWA to deliver a better outcome for the area?

The 2007
State Election provides an opportunity to question all political parties about
their past positions on Redfern Waterloo and on their policies for the future
of the area. The election also presents the possibility of a change in
Minister, irrespective of the election outcome.

If the
Minister does change we hope that the new minister will take a greater personal
interest in meeting with the community and listening to their concerns and that
some of the concerns raised in this paper will find a more receptive ear than has
been the case in the past. Hopefully this might result in a new partnership
between the Government, Opposition Parties and the Community to deliver real
and lasting outcomes for Redfern Eveleigh Darlington and Waterloo.

REDWatch has also prepared a series
of questions based on this document for distribution to candidates. Responses
will appear on the REDWatch website http://www.redwatch.org.au/redw/elections/state2007/

REDWatch is a residents and friends group covering Redfern
Eveleigh Darlington and Waterloo
(the same area covered by the Redfern Waterloo Authority). REDWatch monitors
the activities of government activities such as the RWA and RWPP and seek to
ensure community involvement in all decisions made about the area.

For further information on
the issues raised contact the REDWatch Spokesperson:

Geoffrey Turnbull
c/- PO Box 1567,
Strawberry Hills NSW
2012
Phone Work: (02) 9318
0824
Email: mail@redwatch.org.au
REDWatch 14 Feb 2007

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