Millers Point

Sunday, 13 July 2014

Resident refuses to move as government sells off Sydney public housing at Millers, Dawes Points

Just don't call Flo Seckold a "houso".

The 80-year-old resident of Argyle Place, Dawes Point, was born in one of 293 properties that the NSW government has started to sell – and that is within cooee of the first six to go on the market this week. If she gets her way, Mrs Seckold will die in one of the oldest houses in one of Sydney's oldest suburbs. Mrs Seckold, a widow and the daughter of maritime workers, is angry at how public housing tenants in the area have been depicted as multi-generation al welfare bludgers. Most moved to the area as tenants of Maritime NSW, which built the cottages to house workers on the docks and ships.

"I am not going," Mrs Seckold said, adding the history of the area was not being told. "We have paid our way, we are not housos. I find that very objectionable. If you are talking about us, refer to us as department of Housing tenants – not housos." Advertisement Some of the properties are expected to sell for more than $3 million.

On Saturday, an open house for a six-year-old property – a few doors down from the government-owned 86 Windmill Street that will go on the market in days – was doing a brisk business.

Agents from McGrath said they expected the four-bedroom terrace house wouldsell for more than $2 million.

Next door to 86, new tenants paying $1475 a week were moving in to a 2½ bedroom renovated terrace. "I Iove the area, I love the history, the pathways, the rocks, and the access to the city," said James Fitzpatrick who had fallen in love with the house and moved in within two days of seeing it.

Public housing tenants pay about 25 per cent of their incomes in rent. For example, somebody on a full aged pension, which many residents receive, will pay about $90 a week for an unrenovated version of Mr Fitzpatrick's home. Public housing residents complain that the homes have not been maintained, and repairs have been kept to a minimum.

The government claims it will cost as much as $100 million to restore and maintain the properties.

The average maintenance bill of each property at Millers and Dawes Point averages about $14,500 a year, compared with $3000 to $3500 across the rest of the state.

Announcing the sale of the first six properties, the Minister for Family and Community Services, Gabrielle Upton, and Minister for Finance and Services, Dominic Perrottet, said millions of dollars would be reinvested back into the state's social housing system.

Every house sold in Millers Point would "build three houses in many other suburbs of Sydney," the ministers said in a statement. Ms Upton said: "While we are very conscious that this involves relocating tenants who live in these properties, a tough decision had to be taken that will benefit far more people in need of housing assistance.

"It simply is not fair to the 58,000 applicants on the social housing waiting list for the government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars maintaining properties which are not suitable for public housing." The member for Sydney Alex Greenwich attacked the sale as being part of the government's social cleansing agenda, which "seeks to kick out low-income earners and vulnerable people from the city to make way for casinos". "

Cruelly this sales process has been announced the same week as the government has handed James Packer a gambling license for a private casino on public land next door to Millers Point," Mr Greenwich said.

He also said the government had yet to announce a strategy or plan on how it would invest the money from the sales into new public housing.

"The government is selling off a piece of Sydney's history, and prioritising casinos over communities," Mr Greenwich said. John Dunn, a publisher who moved to the area five years ago, said families such as Mrs Seckold's were not unusual.

 "Maritime was both employer and landlord for nearly everyone in this part of Sydney," he said. Mrs Seckold has met with the government's relocation consultants assigned to ease the transition for residents. She said the housing officer was kind, but still she has no plans to go.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/resident-refuses-to-move-as-government-sells-off-sydney-public-housing-at-millers-dawes-points-20140712-zt5f6.html#ixzz37FSkDQfm

Saturday, 12 July 2014

NSW government reveals first Millers Point public housing properties to be sold off

By: JULIE POWER 12 Jul, 2014                                         
                                           

Di Jones agent Andrew Stewart said. ''I don't know of an area in Sydney at all that would have the attributes of the housing of this area. You are right on the waterfront but also a short walk to the CBD, ferries just down the street. Maybe Kirribilli is similar, but most of Kirribilli is apartments.'' Mr Perrottet said the sales would test the market, but wouldn't be rushed.    "The properties in Millers Point are of important historical significance for the people of NSW and we don't want to rush the planning or the sales processes," he said.   He said the process of relocating tenants was being done with "sensitivity and compassion." A Tenant Relocation Team was "going to great lengths to satisfy their specific requests."   Three of the six properties are located in Dawes Point, and the rest are in Millers Point. Tennants of the six properties have already been relocated.

http://www.goodfruitandvegetables.com.au/news/metro/national/general/nsw-government-reveals-first-millers-point-public-housing-properties-to-be-sold-off/2705034.aspx 

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

CLEARING HOUSE: the Tenants' Union of NSW's social housing estate redevelopment blog

'Housing lotto': relocations from Millers Point and The Rocks.
Here's Ten News on the 'choice-based lettings' system – introduced to relocate tenants from Millers Point and The Rocks – in action.
 
NEED HOUSING LOTTO
 
If you're a social housing tenant at Millers Point and The Rocks and you've any questions or concerns about your housing, please speak with a tenants advocate from Redfern Legal Centre.

Sunday, 6 July 2014

Millers Point lament

· Saturday, July 5, 2014

Millers Point is in the news lately for a lot of wrong reasons. But back in the day, Barney Gardner recalls, cab drivers would start across the bridge to Milsons Point before he’d call “Whoah!” and throw the driver a few bob, jump out and cut across Observatory Hill to his High Street home.

A Millers Point residence expresses pride and defiance (Photo: Geoff Turnbull)
Regular readers will remember Barney as a leader of the rearguard action against the state government’s relocation of 400 residents from the area abutting Barangaroo. “Relocation is a nice way of saying forced eviction,” he reckons.

The terraces of High Street were built to house wharfies. Today the memory of the wharves is being buried by earth-moving machinery making mounds and stacking sandstone to approximate a pre-invasion foreshore. The future promises sunsets over eucalypt-packed parkland.

But Barney and his friends and neighbours will be somewhere else by then, unless the government is thwarted. According to NSW Finance Minister, Greg Pearce: “The Land and Housing Corporation’s portfolio at Millers Point is poorly suited for social housing, being heritage-listed older houses, which cannot be modified to meet modern requirements.”

National Trust Advocacy Director, Graham Quint, says the area’s heritage value and its people have been ignored. “The area’s twice been listed. Now the second State Heritage listing specifically spoke about the social history and these people who are about to be evicted.”

Before World War I, this knob of land north of the city was a blighted place, a plaguey dockside slum. Between the wars it was the centre of an industrial harbour, bustling beneath the Bridge that opened in 1932. Public housing predominated. There was a stigma.

Barney remembers his daughter being snubbed by a Dover Heights school friend. Now her shameful suburb is a pot of gold. According to Pru Goward, Minister for Family and Community Services: “For the price of every terrace house sold under the previous government, we could build about four new suitable public housing dwellings.”

Professor Peter Phibbs, University of Sydney, declares Goward “seems to be the Minister for real estate, and not actually thinking about the needs of the tenants down there”.

The Minister cites the 57,000 people on public housing waiting lists and asserts these assets must be sold “despite the short-term anguish it may cause”.

“This sell-off amounts to the destruction of a community. It will cause hardship and grief to the people of Millers Point”, counters Dr Chris Martin, Senior Policy Officer for the Tenants’ Union of NSW.

In mid June, the privately owned Munn Street offices adjoining North Barangaroo went up for sale. A price around $40 million is expected. “Inner-city properties like these are now being seen in a new light,” said James Parry of Knight Frank. “They can be converted into a hotel to cater for the overflow from Crown and also the new huge number of office workers that will be in the area.”
In 1999, Millers Point was declared a Conservation Area. In 2003 Millers Point and Dawes Point were placed on the State Heritage Register. It is a yuppy dream that private buyers revive these glorious dwellings appropriately. But many of the 200 historic terraces may be sold in blocks to building companies and the sorry story is that heritage is routinely trumped when the minister deems a development to be a State Significant Site.

Before too long, treat yourself to a sunny afternoon, strolling the time-capsule streets the other side of the Argyle Cut. Chance into any one of the sandstone pubs claiming to be Australia’s first hotel. Yarn with the locals. But do it soon, before it’s gone.

Reference from: http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/millers-point-lament/#.U7ksx8-KDIU

Saturday, 5 July 2014

Public Housing Residents of Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks

http://portfolio.nicporter.com/millers-point

Public housing residents of Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks have been living under the shadow of eviction and a public housing sell-off for many years.

On the morning of March 19th 2014, approximately 400 residents received a notice of eviction, advising they had two years to vacate their premises and relocate. The NSW State Government claim that the cost of rent subsidies and maintenance of properties, had become too high. They vow that every dollar that is raised from the sale of the properties will be reinvested in social housing support.

Many residents and supporters of the Millers Point community see it as outright social cleansing and a State Government cash grab. Those in favour of the evictions see it as removing undeserving and low income people from their "waterfront" properties.

People on both sides point to the development of nearby Barangaroo as a primary reason for the evictions.

It is a complicated issue, surrounded by political agenda, property development, social welfare, harbour views, and a long working-class history of the area.

This ongoing photo essay, documents the people

Pru Goward announced

Pru Goward announced on the 19th of March that all public housing in Millers Point, Dawes Point & Gloucester Street in the Rocks would be sold off and 400 tenants would be evicted over the next two years, including the descendants of the original Millers Point maritime workers. The Social Impact Assessment was also released the same day that the Millers Point residents were notified. The Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) promised that the Social Impact Assessment would be shown to tenants before any decisions were made.

The Land and Housing Corporation had received heritage office approval last year to construct a building at Millers Point to accommodate up to 140 long-term residents - avoiding the need to evict elderly residents from the suburb when their terraces were sold. Ms Goward instead favoured removing all public housing from Millers Point, which is set to become one of Sydney's richest addresses.

The O'Farrell cabinet approved construction plans for 153 public housing units, 95 affordable housing units and 247 private apartments on the site last December.

Fifteen public housing apartments in Cowper Street, Glebe, were demolished by the state Labor government in 2011. Labor evicted 130 tenants but promised to build housing on the site with the proceeds of money raised by the sale of 99-year leases to Millers Point terraces, but the land is still vacant and a development application was lodged and contested in court.

The State Heritage listing is for the whole of Millers Point as a totality and that listing includes its social meaning (the people) as well as its buildings. Millers Point & Dawes Point Village Precinct is of state significance as a rare, if not the only, example of a maritime harbour side precinct that contains evidence of over 200 years of human settlement and activity that spans all historical phases in Australia since 1788. While there are other historical maritime precincts in Australia that might show a comparable mix of historical and contemporary values, none are as old or so intimately associated with the spectrum of historical, social, aesthetic, technological and research values that have shaped Australian society since 1788.
 
Millers Point & Dawes Point Village Precinct is significant through associations with a community in NSW for social, cultural and spiritual reasons. A proportion of the existing population is descended from previous generations of Millers Point locals, and has fostered a strong and loyal sense of community and solidarity.

This physical evidence of the area's history is complemented by the wealth of oral history contained within the existing resident population, which is a rare resource that allows a greater opportunity to understand the historic role of Millers Point and its social frameworks.

Sydney's waterfront should not simply be for those who can afford multi-million dollar apartments. Low income workers, the disabled and pensioners are as entitled to inner city housing as any other citizen. The gentrification of an area comes at the cost of removing families from homes and individuals from areas which they were born into. Forced removal will destroy this community, the heritage and cause distress to the current residents.

''It's not just that they are descendants of the maritime workers, but that governments in the early 20th century seemed to understand that you had to have a place for workers to live in the city, not just the rich,'' Ms Shirley Fitzgerald said.

Our communities are invaluable no matter where they are located. We should fight to preserve them.


Not destroy them for yet another soulless, generic development. Millers Point & it’s history is irreplaceable.



Friday, 4 July 2014

Barangaroo Tower Should Stay: experts

Going down: the harbour control tower at Barangaroo is slated for demolition.
Going down: the harbour control tower at Barangaroo is slated for demolition. Photo: David Porter
It is hardly a classic beauty, it occupies prime real estate and does not serve much purpose. But that is no reason the harbour control tower at Barangaroo should be obliterated from the skyline, heritage boffins say.


The state government's own heritage experts have panned a proposal by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority to demolish the 87-metre-tall structure, saying the plan is ''inadequate'' and failed to properly measure the tower's heritage importance.


The National Trust derided the proposal as ''seriously deficient'' and the City of Sydney wants the tower kept as an artwork or public lookout.


View of history: artist Jane Bennett paints the scene in March.
View of history: artist Jane Bennett paints the scene in March. Photo: Steven Siewert
A similar shipping tower at Melbourne's Docklands precinct is set to be restored and may be opened for public use.
The 40-year-old tower is the most striking reminder of Sydney Harbour's commercial shipping past, and gave maritime controllers sweeping views of the coastline. It has not been used since 2011 when operations moved to Port Botany.


Authorities say the tower is not in keeping with the vision of a ''naturalistic'' headland park being built at Barangaroo and want it knocked down. Its absence would be marked by a circular roof opening in a new underground cultural space, creating a shaft of light to represent the tower's column.


Perhaps few will bemoan the tower's loss – over the years it has been dubbed the ''concrete mushroom'' and a ''hypodermic in God's bum''.


The Barangaroo Delivery Authority claimed the structure does not comply with present building codes, there was limited commercial interest in re-using it and night-time lighting may interrupt stargazers at the nearby Sydney Observatory.


But the director of the Office of Environment's Heritage Division, Tracey Avery, said in a submission the proposal was ''inadequate''. It failed to include detail on re-use options, structural assessment and public consultation, and a report on heritage impacts ''lacked rigour'' and did not address the potential state significance of the tower.


The City of Sydney said in a submission the tower was a ''monumental engineering structure''. It should be re-used as ''an artwork, landmark or observatory'' and would create ''a unique public viewing opportunity and attraction''.


The National Trust also slammed the heritage assessment and has sought an interim heritage order.
NSW Heritage Council chairman Lawrence Nield said a committee of the council has recommended the order be granted, and found the tower may have state heritage significance.


''I'm sure many people don't like it, but I'm sure many people do … heritage doesn't necessarily revolve around aesthetics,'' he said.


A Barangaroo Delivery Authority spokesman said it explored artistic, commercial and tourism uses for the tower but ''significant access, structural and liability issues'' dampened interest. He said the tower was not listed as a heritage item on the state register or in City of Sydney plans.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/barangaroo-tower-should-stay-experts-20140703-zsv45.html#ixzz36TS3huRP

Friday, 27 June 2014

Save Millers Point, Dawes Point & the Rocks

SAVE OUR COMMUNITY

As you may be aware the state government is trying to evict over 400 people from Millers Point to sell off the properties in what could be called an urban gentrification plan.

The Millers Point community is firmly committed to the preservation of the suburb’s unique character and upholding the heritage listing nomination to ensure the protection of Millers Point. The State Heritage listing is for the whole of Millers Point as a totality and that listing includes its social meaning (the people) as well as its buildings.

Millers Point, Dawes Point & the Rocks are the birthplace to Australian history & contain the rarest, oldest and most significant urban community in Australia. Generations have shaped, nurtured & protected these homes which were specifically built for maritime workers. The maritime industries have formed the village's core from the early part of the nineteenth century.
                                                            
Sydney's waterfront should not simply be for those who can afford multi-million dollar apartments. Low income workers, the disabled and pensioners are as entitled to inner city housing as any other citizen. The gentrification of an area comes at the cost of removing families from homes and individuals from areas which they were born into. Forced removal will destroy this community, the heritage and cause distress to the current residents.

Our communities are invaluable no matter where they are located.
We should fight to preserve them. Not destroy them for yet another
soulless, generic development. Millers Point is irreplaceable.


Like our FaceBook Page, for Regular Updates,
To Attend Meetings/Protests & to Sign the Petition .

NO SURRENDER!!!

MILLERS POINT IS NOT FOR SALE!!!

Millers Point, Dawes Point & the Rocks Public Housing Tenant's Group

 http://savemillerspoint.blogspot.com.au/ 



Wednesday, 25 June 2014

PETITION - Support the Retention of Public Housing in Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks.

We Need 10,000 Signatures to have this Issue Debated in NSW State Parliament.

If you would like to support us by gathering signatures.
 
1.  Send an email to savemillerspoint@gmail.com and we can forward you a copy of the petition to print out and sign off.
 
 2. Copy the contents below and paste content into a word document and print document.

 3.  Print out the image below.

Return Petitions to: Barry Gardner, 14 High Street, Millers Point NSW 2000 
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Download Petition:  Double click on the Petition, so it opens then, Right click on Petition, select Save Target As, then save to the destination folder. then Print off Document.



 
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PETITION


We the undersigned support the retention of Public Housing in Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks. The key points of The Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks Public Housing Tenants Group are important and should be fully implemented by; Housing NSW, City of Sydney, NSW Government and all relevant authorities and government bodies;


1.    Stop the sale of Public Housing in Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks


2.    To maintain the properties in good condition


3.    To make vacant properties in Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks available to those on the waiting list
4.    Maintain the history and culture of the oldest public housing neighborhood in Australia and its diverse community
 


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Authorised and printed by Barry Gardner, The Millers Point, Dawes Point & The Rocks Public Housing Tenants Group, 14 High Street, Millers Point NSW 2000.