Millers Point was delivered its Cowards Punch Wednesday 19th March 2014

I love this article.

Battle for Millers Point lost when Pru Goward took control

By Kirsty Needham

The battle for Millers Point's long-term public housing residents to stay was lost when disgraced former finance minister Greg Pearce was sacked, Fairfax Media can reveal.

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.

The advice to the Office of Environment and Heritage in mid-2013 was that a facility would be built within the Millers Point precinct to re-house selected tenants. The Heritage Council would vet its design. The housing department was preparing to lodge a subdivision application for the building.

But two days after Mr Pearce lost his ministry in August, the housing corporation was transferred from Finance into the control of Community Services Minister Pru Goward.

Ms Goward instead favoured removing all public housing from Millers Point, which is set to become one of Sydney's richest addresses.

Ms Goward announced last week that all buildings 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.

After details of the plan to allow 140 tenants to continue living in Millers Point were revealed to Fairfax Media, Ms Goward's office responded, saying the idea had been discarded.

The government has not provided details of where evicted tenants will be relocated, but Fairfax has learnt Treasurer Mike Baird will sign over the title to a large parcel of vacant public housing land in Glebe to community housing groups within weeks.

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 was left vacant for years as a development application was lodged and contested in court.

Non-profit community housing groups City West and Bridge Housing will construct and manage the new properties, which will be partly funded under the National Rental Affordability Scheme. The units will include lift access for elderly people living alone.

If construction starts this year, the project is expected to be completed in December 2016, which coincides with the timeline for moving elderly Millers Point tenants.

Although the Millers Point public housing, and its community, falls under the protection of the NSW Heritage Act, Ms Goward's office did not consult the heritage office before announcing plans for the sell-off last week.

Heritage guidelines warn that action to disperse the community should be avoided. A spokesman for the Office of Environment and Heritage said on Saturday that ''the listing includes significance associated with the resident public housing community''.

Heritage policies for Millers Point would need to be reviewed in light of the sell-off policy, he said.

Decision breaks a thread to the past

Former City of Sydney historian Shirley Fitzgerald says the decision to evict the historic maritime community from Millers Point is ''appalling''. Another to attack the O'Farrell government is prominent architect Philip Thalis. He described the abandonment of public housing at Millers Point as ''rapacious''.

Ms Fitzgerald, whose book on Millers Point was the basis of its state heritage listing in 1999, said the people were as important to its historical value as the buildings.

Millers Point was the first time a whole precinct - not just individual buildings - was protected under heritage law. The listing says its social significance includes the continuing presence of descendants of the original workers, and its unity and authenticity of community.

''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 Fitzgerald said.

Mr Thalis, the architect who won the original Barangaroo design project and conducts walking tours of the area, says Millers Point is protected under the Heritage Act precisely because it was ''the first real public housing in Australia'' and its value was ''unparalleled''.

The Office of Environment and Heritage on Saturday admitted that the heritage listing included the resident public housing community. A spokesman said the Heritage Council would be asked to review the listing because of the government's decision to remove these people. Conservation guidelines would also be reviewed to put in place a heritage strategy that would ''interpret the period of public housing''.

After the plague hit Millers Point in 1901, the land was resumed by the government, and the government architect built housing for waterside workers. Control of the houses was later taken over by the Maritime Services Board. Public housing tenants from the NSW waiting list only began to live in vacant houses from 1985, when the Housing Commission took over the buildings. But the maritime descendants continued to have the right to pass on tenancies through their families.

The decision to evict the entire community ''shows the gap between enlightened NSW governments and agencies over 100 years and the more rapacious attitude that prevails today'', Mr Thalis said.

Millers Point was a ''magical place'', Ms Fitzgerald said. ''These properties will be worth a motza. But my view is that a city that only responds to market imperatives is not a community,'' she said.

Historian Christopher Keating, who researched Millers Point's early colonial history, said: ''There's a long history of publicly funded housing for poor people in this place. It's a bit rich to say, 'How come they continue to get subsidised housing when someone in Barangaroo will be paying millions for an apartment?' Why can't poor people live in a nice place?''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/battle-for-millers-point-lost-when-pru-goward-took-control-20140322-35a6f.html#ixzz2wgwMLJgr