REDWatch Meeting Thursday 1 July
6pm to discuss Waterloo South
Waterloo South Gateway
Determination released
Some brief comments on the
determination
Please note
– this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue underlined
word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a document or to get
more information.
REDWatch Meeting Thursday
1 July 6pm to discuss Waterloo South
Given the release of the Gateway Determination REDWatch has decided to
go ahead with its July 1 meeting at 6pm on line for those who are able to join
us. Please contact mail@redwatch.org.au for Zoom details.
The REDWatch meeting will be open to anyone in the community. While we
have asked for DPIE to present, we do not know if this will be possible. So
REDWatch may be presenting as well as leading the discussion. REDWatch and some
other groups were briefed yesterday afternoon about the proposal.
We are also asking Council and LAHC to attend, but understand that they
too have only just seen the determination, so may not have had enough time to
digest it. We will share what we can at tomorrow’s meeting.
A meeting is also being arranged for the members of the Waterloo
Redevelopment Group on July 1 at 3.30 pm for information contact Adam Antonelli
a.antonelli@counterpointcs.org.au
Waterloo South Gateway
Determination released
The Department
of Planning Infrastructure and Environment (DPIE) has released its Gateway
assessment and determination on the Waterloo South planning proposal. The
documents can be accessed through DPIE
– Waterloo Estate website , which
includes information about the planning and development process and Q&As.
As the Council
proposal was the one submitted for the determination, it is the modified
Council proposal that will go to public exhibition before the end of the 2021.
The determination requires specific changes and study updates be made by DPIE
prior to exhibition. It is not clear when this work will be finalised or when
exhibition will take place.
The
determination sets out changes that have to be made to the proposal and checked
by the Gateway team before exhibition. This means we have a reasonable idea of
what the amended proposal might look like even though it will be sometime
before we see the amended maps and housing makeup.
The Gateway
documents are in the Under
Assessment part of the website for Waterloo South. Below are links to
download the relevant documents. I have grouped the documents together so you
can work out what you want to look at. As I send this out, we have identified
that not all the documents below are currently on the DPIE site and DPIE are
trying to rectify this.
The two
assessment reports below are likely to be of most interest to those already familiar
with Council’s proposal. The Minister’s Determination sets out what needs to be
changed, but as it is a summary document, the reasons are found in the two
reports.
The
Documents submitted for the determination:
- 0 Letter requesting Gateway determination – signed by
Marcus Ray (This is the request for the Gateway by Marcus Ray as the
Planning Proposal Authority – the Council provided documents below were
submitted)
·
1 Planning Proposal Report – Waterloo South
·
2 Waterloo Urban Design Report 2021
·
3 Environmental Wind Assessment – Waterloo Estate (South)
·
4 Retail Review – Waterloo Estate (South)
·
5 Community Facilities Peer Review – Waterloo Estate (South)
·
6 Draft Waterloo Estate (South) Design Guide 2021
·
7 Draft Sydney Development Control Plan 2012 – Waterloo Estate
(South)
·
8 Waterloo South Letter of Offer
The
assessment reports
·
Independent Advisory Group Report – Att F – Waterloo South
IAG Final Report May 2021
·
Gateway determination Report – REPORT – Waterloo South
Gateway Determination Report
The
Minister’s determination and letter to the Planning Proposal Authority
·
Minister’s The Gateway Determination – Gateway Determination Waterloo South Gateway Determination
·
Minister’s Letter to Marcus
Ray as the Planning Proposal Authority – Letter to Planning Proposal Authority Waterloo South Gateway
Determination
The Minister
did a media drop to the Sydney Morning Herald and if you have online access you
will see the article under ‘A
step in the right direction’: Stokes reveals plans for 3000 homes and three
towers at Waterloo estate or on page 2&3 of today’s (Wednesday 30 June
2021) print copy.
The Minister also
issued a media release which you can see on the REDWatch website under Waterloo Estate
set to proceed to Exhibition.
REDWatch and agencies are encouraging DCJ Housing, LAHC, Council and
DPIE to jointly arrange a newsletter or other communications to go out to all
tenants.
Some brief comments on the
determination
Given the
comment in the SMH article it is important to state that the three towers along
McEvoy Street proposed by Council remain there and have not been moved to
around the large public park.
The Gateway
proposes to take some of the height proposed around George Street and
redistributes that floor space into the proposed cut-out areas in Council’s
planned high rises. They were designed to mitigate wind caused by these
high-rises, so a different way of handling wind will need to be determined.
The proposal
was called in by the Minister because of differences between LAHC and Council
over the economic viability of the Council proposal. The reports compare the
original LAHC proposal with Council’s and looks at what is viable within LAHC’s
mandate to self-fund the redevelopment.
On this basis
the Council proposal for 20% Affordable Housing has been assessed as not being
viable under the self-funded model. The Independent Advisory Group has modelled
an option that might deliver up to 10% Affordable Housing which it thinks is
viable, but further testing on this, and the affordable housing contribution
from privately owned land, is needed before a proposal is finalised to go on
exhibition.
The Gateway
determination proposes a 30 /70 split of the combined social (847 units) and
market housing (1976 units) with 237 units of Affordable Housing constructed
and owned by a Community Housing Provider. If this happened the residential mix
would be 27.7% Social Housing, 7.7% Community Housing owned Affordable Housing
and 64.6% market housing. The Independent Advisory Group has suggested that a
further 2-2.5% affordable housing could be obtained from the developer at LAHC
contract stage. As these figures are dependent on further testing they are not
guaranteed.
The
Determination Report also looks at the different apartment size makeup between
the LAHC and the Council proposals. LAHC advised
that the Social Housing Units would not be the same size as market houses.
Hence 30% of the units would not be the same as 30% of the gross floor area.
The size of apartments also impacts financial viability.
One revelation
from the Independent Assessment Group is that LAHC had included affordable
housing within its 30% social housing allocation, not as an addition to the
30%, and that both social and affordable housing ownership would stay with
LAHC. This is in contrast to what the community had been lead to believe that
Affordable Housing would come out of the market housing 70%.
The IAG
identified four useful principles to guide the redevelopment of Waterloo South:
·
Principle 1 “This redevelopment must provide
the full range of housing tenures to ensure a diverse community into the
future.”
·
Principle 2 “To accommodate the proposed
density of development, the precinct must be developed with the highest urban
amenity and design quality.”
·
Principle 3 “Every effort must be made to
ensure that the existing communities on site are supported through the
redevelopment process and, should they wish, be enabled to remain in the suburb
after the development has taken place.”
·
Principle 4 “Public benefits and
infrastructure are to be provided by the successful tenderer to ensure that a
high quality urban neighbourhood is achieved for this development.”
While the
principles are referenced in the Gateway Determination report, not all the
items under each principle have been referred to in that report. It is hence
unclear if the IAG recommendation (under Principle 3) that that a Tenant
Transition Plan must be prepared has been accepted or not – one suspects not as
it is not mentioned in the Minister’s determination.
While aspects
of the Independent Advisory Group may not be picked up they do provide some
ideas that the community might want to pick up in submissions and its
discussions with LAHC.
There is much
interesting information in the Independent Advisory Committee and the Gateway
Determination Reports even if they do not tell us exactly what will be
exhibited until more work is done.
Please join us
at 6pm on Thursday 1 July at 6pm on Zoom if you have questions or are looking
for more information.
This post is the content of a REDWatch Email Update on this subject.
email: mail@redwatch.org.au
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