The former Redfern
Primary School (proposed
National Indigenous Development Centre) with the two public housing blocks
destined to be demolished behind.
Only a stone’s throw from Sydney’s CBD, Redfern’s rundown reputation
has long stood in stark contrast to its coveted central locale. While other
inner-city suburbs like Surry Hills and Pyrmont have been gentrified,
Redfern-Waterloo is now getting its own makeover.
Since 2004 things have been set on a course of change for
the suburb with the formulation of the Redfern-Waterloo Authority. The RWA is
responsible for implementing the Redfern-Waterloo Plan which aims revitalise
the area and address issues like infrastructure, delivery of human services and
employment generation. But many are questioning the RWA and whether their plan
is really in the best interests of the community.
Spokesperson for the community-based activist group Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development,
Faye Williams, says “There are serious problems in the area of crime, safety,
mental health but the plan is just tinkering at the edges.”
“There is very little happening and the biggest problem is
that they are putting no money in to it. We are still here struggling along,
under-resourced,” she says.
Similarly Redfern Legal Centre Executive Officer, Helen Campbell, who is also on the RWA’s Human
Services Advisory Committee, says “They are really good at having meetings and
producing documents and nothing gets done in terms of human services.”
With a major part of the Redfern-Waterloo Plan being to
bring more private residents in to the area, there are concerns that the
precinct lacks the infrastructure to cope with the inevitable population
increase.
Already the redevelopment of a public housing block has
been announced by Housing Minister Matt Brown. The current 106 residences on
the Elizabeth St block will make way
for 264 apartments, with 158 of these to be sold off privately, increasing
demand for local education and health care facilities.
According to the RWA’s Built Environment Plan, the former Redfern Public school
is to be redeveloped as a community centre and recreational facility while the
former Rachel Forster Hospital
will become a residential area. This despite the fact that currently a Waterloo public housing
pensioner would have to catch a bus to Camperdown to receive hospital
treatment.
Geoff Turnbull of REDWatch, a community advocacy group
started to monitor Government involvement in the Redfern-Waterloo area, says
“The government is going through the motions but it is not interested really in
what the local community thinks about anything. I mean on the human services
side of stuff, human services providers have absolutely given up.”
“There is a battle of spin going on here,” he says.
On 28 April, The Sydney Morning Herald published a story
on the possible demolition of the State Government’s tallest public housing
towers in Waterloo
in a bid to encourage more private residents to the area. However Yolanda Gil,
RWA Planning Manager, says this is not an imminent redevelopment.
“We don’t have authorisation on the public housing areas
as yet,” Gil says.
But what is imminent are the needs of the thousands of
public housing tenants already in the adjoining suburbs. Faye Williams says
that although the RWA may claim the area has sufficient infrastructure to
service to the community, this is simply not true.
“They [the RWA] said not to give more resources and the
excuses are that there is a list of all these services [already]. Well the list
is misleading,” she says.
Organizations such as the Inner
Sydney Regional Council for Social Development service the
entire inner and eastern Sydney
region, but the concentration of problems in Redfern-Waterloo drains much of
their resources. Williams says she is concerned about government decisions
surrounding an area that houses such a high percentage of vulnerable people
when the real estate they live on is worth billions.
Whether the balance is struck in the gentrification of
Redfern-Waterloo remains to be seen however one service provider, Kate
Cavanagh, Director of Services for Mercy Arms Community Care,
says “We have no problem with the building changes as long as the facilities
are adequate and a sense of community is maintained.”
Image
care of Redfern Waterloo Authority – The former Redfern Primary School
(proposed National Indigenous Development Centre) with the two public housing
blocks destined to be demolished behind.
http://www.reportage.uts.edu.au/stories/2007/society/redfern.html