Sydney’s Concrete Poetry

Friday, December 5, 2014

Today's guest appearance is from Mary Sutton, a resident of Millers' Point. We are very pleased to be able to share her presentation made to the Getting Serious about Sirius event at NSW Parliament House in November. It is a long read, but well worth it- so settle in and enjoy!

Sirius is prominently located right in the middle of The Rocks, a Sydney conservation precinct. I'm pleased to speak today about the historical importance of the Sirius apartment complex and its site. I'm Mary Sutton and I've always loved the Sirius building for its;-impressive sandstone hill site,
-bold architecture,
-innovative adaptation of art, and
-collaborative design

All elements that have seamlessly combined to provide treasured homes for the residents since Sirius was constructed in 1979. 

Sirius was built following a lengthy period of discussions and negotiations. Sirius arose out of The Rocks 1970’s Green bans, a movement prominently associated with Jack Mundey, a later patron of the Friends of the Historic Houses Trust. 

Richard Roddewig, in his book ‘Green Bans: The Birth of Australian Environmental Politics - A Study in Public Opinion and Participation’, writes
‘In 1975, a major compromise was reached. Green Bans were lifted on three specific sites. The Sydney Cove Redevelopment Cove Authority, in conjunction with The Housing Commission of New South Wales, proposed to develop on one of the sites as eighty housing units, in a medium-rise, nine-story building, for affordable income persons’.

A welcoming brochure was produced in 1979 for the newly housed residents by The Housing Commission of New South Wales. The brochure proudly noted that:
‘The stepped roofline and face of the building were planned to blend and harmonise in good neighbourly fashion with the general roofscape of The Rocks. Shading precast concrete sills surround bronze anti-sun glass resiliently mounted to reduced noise and glare.
The new building has been named “Sirius” in honour of the First Fleet, HMS “Sirius” and her commander, Captain Arthur Phillip. Off the main entrance foyer is a large community room,the “Phillip Room” with generous outdoor plaza, tasteful furnishings, kitchen facilities & toilets.
The Housing Commission’s apartment building makes a spectacular addition to the transformation and restoration of The Rocks, Sydney’s most historic neighbourhood, near where in the early days the Tank Stream, flowing into the bay, provided drinking water for the tiny new colony. Cave shelters, humpies, stone cottages~all were stuff of the Colony’s history.’

As my fellow speaker Charles Pickett, a curator and noted architecture author has just commented
‘A small number of public housing towers were ground-breaking architecturally and widely influential. Some public housing complexes were so successful architecturally that they eventually became sought-after and expensive addresses. Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation at Marseille, Lafayette Park, Detroit by Mies van der Rohe and London’s Barbican Estate are perhaps the best known. For much of the twentieth century the Australian housing authorities also worked at the cutting edge of housing theory and practice. Sirius is a success story of public housing design.
Sirius is a special building – not generic in format like much public housing, Sirius shows the potential of architecture geared to its site and its residents. It deserves to continue to be a part of The Rocks. ’

Most mornings I stroll along Gloucester Walk in The Rocks with Sirius sitting high on the prominent land of Bunkers Hill. The Sirius building always looks imposing. I think of the Sirius building as ‘concrete poetry’. 

Photographs taken from the 1979 residents ‘welcoming brochure’ (above and below) depict the simple, but innovative, off-form concrete walls, combined with acid-etched picture windows, to produce Sirius’ distinct stabled building block appearance, reminiscent ‘of a Native American pueblo’.

Sirius shares ‘the magnificent panorama of the harbour in all its moods, the exciting city skyline, and nestling against the Harbour Bridge approaches…..just across the water from the famed Opera House.’

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to showcase what some may call an ‘unpolished diamond’ to the seven members of the NSW Government's Legislative Council Housing Select Committee.
Thank you to The Hon Paul Green [Chair] and the members of the Upper House Committee for taking the time to see first hand why the Sirius building is an architectural, heritage and mixed tenure, social housing success - a cost effective asset for Sydney - the best example I know of 'Concrete Poetry'. 

The Sirius apartment building is named after Governor Phillip's First Fleet vessel, HMS Sirius - a vessel scarcely larger than a Manly ferry - an adventurous little vessel that traversed the world's seas with its unwilling passengers to arrive in Sydney in January 1788. 

Sadly, this crucial supply vessel was sunk at Norfolk Island whilst landing vital food supplies and lost forever to the fledging Sydney Cove community on 19 March, 1790. George Raper, a naval officer and illustrator, recorded this melancholy event in his wonderful drawing held by the National Library of Australia and depicted in the drawing (below courtesy of National Library of Australia) you have today. 

We are now gathered because of a second equally significant 19 March Sirius event – an announcement by the NSW Government earlier this year on that date that is writing another chapter in the history of the Sirius building. 

What I'd like you to consider today is what makes Sirius and its site so notable. I must start by noting that the Sirius building sits prominently on land owned by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA) and part of the answer to the question, I think, lies with the vision of SHFA "to make unique places in Sydney that the world talks about". 

‘Does the Sirius building and its location satisfy this SHFA vision?’ you might ask. ‘Is the Sirius building and its location a ‘unique place in Sydney that the world talks about’? It seems ‘yes’.
We have heard much today of the uniqueness of the Sirius building, particularly its architecture and concrete construction and its international recognition as such.

 There is also much historical evidence of the uniqueness of Sirius’ Bunkers Hill location, as depicted in:
* the earliest colonial drawings of
-John Eyre,
-Jacob Janssen,
-Thomas Watling,
-Richard Read,
-Joseph Lycett,
-Conrad Martens, and
-Frederick Garling,
* Governors' Phillip, Hunter and King's official Colony papers, and
* all the way through to the sights and sounds as you stroll along Gloucester Walk today, as many Sydney and international visitors do. 

Richard Read ‘View from Bunkers Hill Including Dawes Battery, Fort Lachlan & South Head Lighthouse’ c.1820 Mitchell Library (above)

Conrad Martens ‘View Sydney Cove from Bunkers Hill July 2, 1836’ Mitchell Library of NSW (above)

From what we've just heard from some of the other speakers, there is no doubt in my mind that the Sirius building and its location are unique places in Sydney that the world talks about – something that SHFA and the residents of Sydney and Australia can quite rightly be proud of.
The Sirius building and its location are social, tourism, educational, cultural, commercial and conservation assets for NSW.

The world has talked of Sirius' and it location in many ways, including:
1. The opportunistic sailor who foundered the colonial whaling industry and sometime Liverpool, Hawkesbury River and Hunter Valley farmer, Ebenezer (Eber) Bunker, is said by Governor Hunter to have ‘cultivated in a style one would expect from a sailor’, (SMH 2/3/29). Captain Bunker was granted the site on which the majority of the Sirius complex now stands, for some services to Governor King, a site that was known until at least the 1830's as Bunkers Hill. 

Eber Bunker was a master mariner and landholder credited with being the "father of Australian whaling".  The Sydney Morning Herald of 2 March 1929 records, ‘On his vessel being moored in Port Jackson in 1791 he had an interview with Governor Phillip and astounded that gentleman by his calculations of the possible great profits for a whaling industry for the new settlement…..Within six months he had secured 600 barrels of oil to enhance the interests of the Colony ( and no doubt himself).’ 

Bunker’s arrival in New South Wales in 1791 was as master of the ship “William and Ann" (with 185 involuntary passengers aboard), one of the whalers chartered to bring early prisoners to ‘Botany Bay’. He then went whaling in the South Seas and he later accompanied the "Lady Nelson" in the vessel "Albion" to establish the Derwent settlement in Tasmania in 1803. 

Bunker brought his family to the Colony in the "Elizabeth" in August 1806. He became a landholder at Bunkers Hill, Liverpool, Bankstown on the Hawkesbury and the Hunter Valley. Bunker had built a stone house and stores atop Bunkers Hill (replacing his earlier wattle and daub c. early 1800’s structure) and from this high ground in The Rocks with views to the Heads, Kirribilli and the Parramatta River, Eber ran his global whaling empire.

Watercolour Eber Bunker, c.1810. Courtesy State Library of New South Wales

Eber Bunker’s achievements in having the world talk about him also included presenting the first West Australian black swan to the King of England and some cumbersome limited use weaponry to Hawaii's king to support a request ‘to be kind to the missionaries’, (SMH 2/3/29), together with naming Bunkers Islands in Queensland and various New Zealand islands. 

Eber Bunker’s house stood on Gloucester Street at Bunkers Hill from 1806, later hemmed in by taller, more elegant terraces, with his house being demolished around 1912 as part of the Rocks reconstruction works (Sirius was built on the central part of this land in 1977-1979).

2. The HMS “Sirius” association represents a tangible link to the most significant vessel associated with early migration of European people to Australia and to the “Sirius” midshipman, Captain Henry Waterhouse, a godson of Prince Henry, the younger brother of King George lll. Some short time after his arrival in the Colony, Captain Waterhouse was granted land on which the northern apartments of the present Sirius complex now sit. HMS “Sirius” was guardian of the first fleet during its epic voyage to Australia between 1787 and 1788, which brought the convicts, soldiers and sailors who became Australia’s first permanent European settlers.

HMS “Sirius” was also the mainstay of early colonial defence in New South Wales and the primary supply and communication link with Great Britain during the first two years of the settlement (Source: Heritage Council of Australia).

The careers of the first three governors’ of the colony of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip (1788-1792), John Hunter (1795-1800) and Philip Gidley King (1800-1806) are closely associated with the history of HMS “Sirius” as all three sailed as senior officers on board HMS Sirius during the voyage of the first fleet to New South Wales. Hunter was also Captain of HMS “Sirius” during its last ill-fated voyage in 1790, when it was totally wrecked at Norfolk Island. The loss of HMS “Sirius” at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790 was a disaster for the fledgling colony during a period of crisis, when the settlement at Port Jackson was in danger of collapse and abandonment.

It has been argued by some that the adaptability, ingenuity and grim determination to survive, demonstrated by the colonists at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island following this disaster, became an enduring trait of the Australian people.

3. Wharf Owner Robert Campbell, Cumberland Place, Bunkers Hill and Waterhouse Land.

F Garling’s c.1840 “Sydney Cove” a view towards Bunkers Hill (center), Lower Fort St and Dawes Battery Mitchell Library

Captain Waterhouse left Australia permanently in 1800 and leased his grant covering part of the Sirius site to Campbell Cove's famous wharf owner Robert Campbell. In the 1830’s the town leases, grants and permissive occupancies of the past were formalized and Robert Russell produced section plans showing the owners of the land (SHFA Heritage and Conservation Register). This part of the site remained unoccupied land until the 1840’s, as did much of Bunkers Hill land surrounding Bunker’s house in current Gloucester Walk. In the 1820's Robert Campbell developed the prestigious landholding of Cumberland Place, designed by Francis Greenway, on his Bunkers Hill land, adjacent to his Waterhouse grant and nearby wealthy Dawes Point wharf and landowners. Garling captures Bunker’s Hill c.1840 above.

4. The Mitchell Library's benefactor, David Mitchell, was born in 1836 in Campbell’s Bunkers Hill’s elegant ‘cottage ornee’ at Cumberland Place (since demolished) and Mitchell spent his childhood there before moving with his large library to modern digs in Darlinghurst. Mitchell famously collected colonial documents associated with Bunkers Hill, (Sirius' site) and all aspects of Colonial Sydney maps, art and memorabilia to found the Mitchell Library Collection.

5. Australia’s first Prime Minister Edward Barton lived as a child in the 1850’s in one of the Young’s townhouses. This four storied townhouse (three stories with a basement kitchen) was one of a terrace of three houses built by Adolphus Young on land developed adjacent to Bunker's land on Gloucester Walk in the early 1840’s and may have been designed by John Verge’s protégé, John Bibb, (who also built the nearby Mariners Church). The imposing terrace of three homes survived until the early 1900's Rocks reconstruction project. This land forms part of the Sirius site today.

6. Innovative concrete technology and an early example of Australian public town planning can still be readily viewed as the Federal Electrical Company (Ajax Building) on the corner of Gloucester Walk and George Street – also a part of the “Sirius” Captain Waterhouse's land grant. This concrete technology and the Arts and Craft movement design of the building, was developed by the recently formed New South Wales Housing Board’s architect, William Henry Foggitt, in association with the Public Works Department, for The Rocks reconstruction works during the period 1912-15. Occupiers included Young and Stewart cordial manufacturers.

In January 1915, the Sydney Morning Herald reported this was the first building in Sydney to be constructed entirely of reinforced concrete. The building was a warehouse, with an office building on the top of the southern end of the building. Several bays of the building’s southern end and the office building were demolished when the Sirius complex was built. This inspirational concrete technology was later used on Millers Point’s High Street flats. Concrete's innovating impact was a feature of the inspirational Sirius building constructed by Anderson & Lloyd, described as a ‘bold and exceptional experiment’ in ‘Concrete’s Rearview’.

7. Sirius now sits on the location of a major employer in the Rocks, Rowans Bond and The Federal Electrical Company, (Ajax Building) that utilised modern loading and storage technology. 

8. Sirius was the 1986 setting for the movie of Ruth Park's popular novel ‘Playing Beatie Bow’.

Sirius in 2014- the continuing conversation
The most recent example of the world talking of the Sirius building, and its rare and important position in Sydney, was in response to the NSW Government's 19 March 2014 announcement of the sale of the Sirius building, which was reported in local and international press. 

People have also commented recently about the Select Committee's hard won recommendation, I think directed at the Sirius building, that the NSW Government, when selling multi-unit properties in the Sydney area, include in the contract for sale, a requirement that at least 10 per cent of all dwellings on that site be allocated as social, public and affordable housing.

Each unique aspect I've cited has stamped its mark on the Sirius building and its location as a rare and important place talked about in the world's press and by visitors. For me, I'm attracted to the description of the Sirius building as simply "concrete poetry".

I imagine that SHFA and all of Sydney must regard the interest in the Sirius building and its site, and modern day Bunkers Hill including Gloucester Walk, as an inspired and visionary success.
In concluding, you have heard much today about the Sirius building and its location and I invite you to walk around the Rocks and take time to ponder all that's been said.

Consider the "concrete poetry" of the Sirius building, its location and its history. Its connection to Sydney's past and the value of its contribution to the present and what may be its future. 

If you would like to continue the conversation, the Minister for Heritage, the Hon. Rob Stokes address is 52 Martin Place, Sydney 2000 and I'm sure he'd be interested in hearing your view.
Thank you for your time.




Photograph of Sirius Level 8 Balcony by Mary Sutton ~ March 12 2014 Site Visit with the Legislative Council Housing Select Committee

RESOURCED : http://tunswblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/sydneys-concrete-poetry.html

Paul Keating wants Barangaroo harbour control tower demolished

 Sean Nicholls  November 28, 2014



Residual design issues": The maritime control tower. Photo: David Porter

 Former prime minister Paul Keating has waded into the debate over the future of the old harbour control tower at Barangaroo, saying it doesn't have  heritage value and slamming calls to keep it as "rancid reactionism".

Mr Keating and Premier Mike Baird presided on Friday over the official naming of Barangaroo Point, the new headland park under construction at Barangaroo.

Mr Baird praised Mr Keating's vision for the park and his push for the headland to be returned to its original 1836 form, before it was cut away for wharves and stevedoring operations.



"Redundant": Artist Jane Bennett captures the scene in March. Photo: Steven Siewert

"Who knows what this point would look like if it wasn't for the leadership of the former prime minister," Mr Baird said.

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Mr Keating acknowledged the commitment to the park of Mr Baird and his predecessors as premier Barry O'Farrell, Kristina Keneally and Morris Iemma.

"The end result will be that the city gets a new nature park," he said. "We'll now have the Dawes Point peninsula with a botanic garden to the east and a developed garden to the west, bookended either side. This is wonderful for Sydney."

Mr Keating noted there were still residual design issues to be resolved, singling out the maritime control tower, which looms over the site. It was built in 1977 but has not been used since 2011, when stevedoring operations ceased.

The tower was redundant to maritime use and was at odds with the state government's decision to reconstruct the naturalistic headland, he said.

Mr Baird said Mr Keating's view made sense, "but we need to run through the usual processes to consider that".

The National Trust has rejected a proposal by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority to demolish the tower and mark its former presence, while   the City of Sydney council wants it retained as an artwork or public lookout.

When asked for his view of Mr Baird's proposed sale of 49 per cent of the electricity "poles and wires" if he wins next year's election, Mr Keating said: "I support the premier's views about this."

Asked what he thought about Labor leader John Robertson's opposition to the plan, Mr Keating said it showed there were still some obscurantists in the Labor Party.

As Unions NSW leader, Mr Robertson helped thwart former premier Morris Iemma's attempt to sell electricity assets.

When Mr Robertson entered Parliament Mr Keating famously wrote to him, saying: "Let me tell you, if the Labor Party's stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future."

On Friday Mr Keating said now Mr Robertson was leader he couldn't say things quite as frankly as that.

The 5.7-hectare Barangaroo Point is expected to be open to the public by the middle of next year.


 RESOURCED: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/paul-keating-wants-barangaroo-harbour-control-tower-demolished-20141128-11w0du.html

The man behind the most famous sign seen from Sydney's Harbour Bridge

The first thing Owen McAloon noticed when he walked into his new apartment was the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. “I felt like a fish in a goldfish bowl,” he says.

McAloon’s seventh-floor, one-bedroom home is parallel to the road deck of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Near the top of the Sirius apartment building in the Rocks, its west-facing aspect not only acts as a funnel for the setting summer sun, but invites everyone crossing the bridge to look in.

“The apartment is like an oven in summer,” McAloon says. “I’m not the type of person who is into window dressings or anything, so I decided to give the world something to look at, provide me with some privacy and also block out the sun.”

After a series of experimental failures, such as using aluminium foil to reflect the heat, McAloon eventually decided on a single white piece of fabric to display his now famous message. The addition of a newsagent’s lightbox means the hand-painted black lettering that says "One way! Jesus" is also visible at night.

“The sign is my way of saying thank you,” he says. “I believe that God put me here in this apartment. In return I wanted to pass on his message in some way.

"It was really designed to be just a talking point for anyone who sees it. To get them thinking: 'What does that mean?' ”

McAloon, 59, has certainly given people something to talk about. His sign has been puzzled over in blogs, photo-sharing websites and newspaper columns.

The mystery harks back to Sydney's "Mr Eternity" who for some 35 years wrote "Eternity" in chalk on the city's footpaths. It was decades before anyone knew his name – Arthur Stace –but Sydneysiders grew to love his one-word sermon, inscribed in a distinctive copperplate.

In 1999 it was replicated on the Harbour Bridge during the New Year's Eve fireworks; nine months later it appeared during the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.

A memorial to Arthur Stace in Sydney's Town Hall Square

McAloon is oblivious to the interest his sign has produced. He does not own a phone or a computer and has never logged on to the internet. The religious message is derived from the Bible’s book of John, chapter 14, verse six. “Jesus said to him: ‘I am the way, the truth, the life.’ ”

But there are some, especially in the Sirius building, who do not approve of the sign. One resident has said: “When I tell people where I live they say, ‘Oh, you live in that building with the Jesus sign.’ I don’t appreciate being linked with something like that … I know I’m not the only one who thinks that, there are plenty of others in this building who hate the thing.”

A self-confessed recluse, McAloon spends most of his time alone. Although raised in Sydney as a Catholic, he is now not part of an organised religion. He has not been in touch with his family for years and has no regular contact with friends.



 Owen McAloon in front of his home. Photograph: Anthony Brewster

 The only social interaction McAloon has is when he hands out religious literature on Sydney's streets. But these outings are sporadic, mainly because of the verbal abuse he sometimes receives.

“Being out on the street, handing out literature, sometimes it can be dangerous,” he says. “I, on occasion, have been abused for doing nothing more than asking people if they want to talk.

"It takes a lot out of me so, up until recently, I have decided to step back and take some time. Step back and reset a little, but I’m planning on getting back out there soon.”
While McAloon admits his life is not perfect, it is a marked improvement on where it was more than a decade ago when he first entered public housing. By the late 90s his physical and mental state was suffering from decades of substance abuse and a nomadic lifestyle.

He returned to Australia in 1993 after living in Japan. Realising his five-year marriage was ending, he came back for a “break” from what he describes as cultural differences. Within months of his return his mother suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died.
“She was my greatest friend … Her passing tore the guts out of me. And then having to leave Yuka [his former wife], that was another real traumatic experience,” he says.

“When I came back to Australia, I tried to find something new. Everything was gone, and then, suddenly, well, what are we going to do? I tried to find something new and nothing worked. In the end I fell to pieces, quite literally.”

He contracted hepatitis and just before 2000 was diagnosed with depression. He was living in derelict accommodation at the time, but a chance encounter with a social worker at a community centre in Darlinghurst got him on to a priority list for public housing.

He is one of the lucky few to have been caught by the state’s social safety net. He was one short step from homelessness, he says, and if it wasn’t for that placement he might not be alive today.

In March the New South Wales government said it would sell the Sirius apartment building and many other public housing assets in Millers Point. The reaction of residents has been mostly shock and dismay.

The sign – and a new one in McAloon's bedroom window. Photograph: Anthony Brewster

The building has been controversial since it was built in 1980. Designed to house residents displaced by tourist development in the Rocks historical area, the building is now home to an eclectic mix of public housing tenants.

Critics of the complex suggest this type of harbourside accommodation is not an appropriate use of taxpayers’ funds. The NSW government cites the rising cost of maintenance as one of the reasons why the housing should be sold and redeveloped.
McAloon says his apartment has given him more stability than at any other time in the past 30 years. He will have to leave as part of the government’s plans to relocate all residents within two years.

He has not decided whether he will take his sign with him. He may leave it in place and see how long it takes “the authorities” to remove it.


RESOURCED: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/the-man-behind-the-most-famous-sign-seen-from-sydney-harbour-bridge

Farewell Owen

For more than a decade, Owen’s three-word ministry has intrigued the people in the one million vehicles that cross the Harbour Bridge each week, but tonight his ONE WAY JESUS sign will shine for the last time. Housing NSW is “relocating” Owen away from The Rocks. He did not want to go but felt he could no longer resist their pressure on him to leave. Owen’s flat in the Sirius apartments has been one of the few still occupied in the central tower on the western side. Over the past few days, neighbours have been farewelling him, and like others who have left, he will retain ties with the area.

Here is a link to the Guardian article on Owen and his sign
…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/the-man-behind-the-most-famous-sign-seen-from-sydney-harbour-bridge

There will be more to this story soon…

RESOURCED: http://millerspointcommunity.com.au/farewell-owen/
 

Can Millers Point Fight Gentrification

Buildings are an asset but people are a cost. That's how the O'Farrell Government sees social housing - especially in valuable parts of Sydney, like Millers Point, writes Evan Jones
 

In October 2012 the O’Farrell Government announced that it intended to sell off the entire public housing stock at Millers Point in inner Sydney.

Millers Point is of enormous historical significance. It was the hub from which Sydney Cove traded with the Old World and housed the coastal shipping link to other colonial settlements. It was the early home to merchant princes and the long term home to the labour that moved the goods.

Millers Point is bordered on its east by the commercialised touristy neighbour, The Rocks, under which latter name it is regularly subsumed.

Carved out from historic Millers Point on its west is Barangaroo. Formerly East Darling Harbour, or "the Hungry Mile" to its wharfies, it was destined for redevelopment with the decision to move all commercial shipping to Botany Bay. Contrary to public and expert opinion, the O’Farrell Government is planning a white collar enclave (plus high roller casino) for Barangaroo.

The NSW Finance Minister, Greg Pearce, claimed:

"Inevitably, when considering the future of Millers Point, the government needs to consider it in the context of all of the surrounding areas, including the Barangaroo redevelopment area." 

It appears that public housing tenants give off a bad odour. The poor are always with us, but preferably far removed.

The humble residents of Millers Point have perennially been playthings in the hands of a succession of authorities. In 1900 the State Government resumed the area, ostensibly because of the outbreak of plague. But historians Shirley Fitzgerald and Christopher Keating highlight that the reasons lay elsewhere.

The first reason was to nationalise the wharves and modernise them, and the Sydney Harbour Trust (SHT) was created towards this end. The second was to facilitate reclamation for the ultimate construction of a harbour bridge (with significant dislocation in the 1920s).

Much housing was demolished as the Point was reshaped, centred on the present-day Hickson Road. But the wharves needed labour, and readily available. Thus the SHT came to build more residences after 1908, and shops and even hotels to service the residents. The SHT (after 1936, the Maritime Services Board) became the landlord, if reluctant, to local residents.

The SHT/MSB’s partial neglect had mixed implications. Internal repairs and alterations were done by tenants at their discretion, and many tenancies became hereditary – contributing to a local sense of "ownership" and social cohesion.

More housing disappeared (and the point itself of Millers Point) during the 1960s as the MSB accommodated container shipping, and the Harbour Control Tower was built in 1974.

The 1960s also saw developers sniffing out virgin territory for high rise. Such development was already creeping up from the southern end. The Askin government created the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority in 1968 but developer optimism ran into the unexpected brick wall that was the Green Bans movement. The hostile invasion was repelled.

A Public Service Board audit in the early 1980s forced the MSB to divest non-port related land. Residents became Housing Commission (now Housing NSW) tenants by default. There is a change of status, subtle but important, from state-owned housing to public housing.

Housing NSW never adjusted to its peculiar inheritance of Millers Point with its historic and irregular real estate and the historic and non-subservient community that resided therein. It proceeded to systematically neglect required maintenance, often strategically so. It closed shops and closed the post office to disadvantage tenants.

As Finance Minister Pearce claimed in October:

"Much of 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, particularly access requirements, and are expensive to maintain."

If Housing NSW had committed itself to responsible maintenance from the beginning of its tenure as landlord, costs might have been better under control.

Interviews conducted by Penelope Bowyer-Pont in 2011 for a Macquarie University thesis disclose that maintenance is not the landlord’s only foible. Residents highlight that officers have been consistently inaccessible. This in spite of the Mission Statement, "We are committed to transparency in all of our business endeavours".

The Green Bans and Wran Labor’s 1977 Heritage Act saved most of the buildings, but not the people, who remained fair game. Ditto for the Heritage listing of all properties in 2007.
In 1985 Unsworth Labor handed over the Walsh Bay precinct to private developers. In 1988-89 the Greiner Coalition Government attempted to sell off some housing plus a couple of hotels, including the iconic Hero of Waterloo. That attempt, symptomatic of the Greiner era, was then too brazen to succeed.

In 2006, Iemma Labor proposed the 99-year lease of 16 properties, the revenue purportedly to contribute to the public housing budget. The properties went in 2008, with the then Housing Minister noting that the government needed "the most bang for our buck". This was supposed to be a one-off. But another 20 properties were added in 2010-11. And now the lot.

Housing NSW’s PR screed for the de facto sell-off in 2007 claimed "prestigious, heritage-listed properties … located in a stunning part of the city". Robert McCuaig, of Colliers International, consultant to the Government, claimed that the housing involved “lazy assets”, an “extremely inefficient waste of capital and resources”.

Lazy assets indeed. As Bowyer-Pont reported from a new resident of Millers Point opining to an old, the former having sunk their hard-earned into an expensive renovation: “Why do you think you have the right to stay here?”

For the authorities, and particularly the predatory real estate agents, the tenants exist at best; they don’t inhabit. Here is a latter day terra nullius. As for the idea of community, that intangible glue that gives a landscape vibrancy, humanity – inconceivable for public housing. Lacking acculturation, public housing tenants thus can live anywhere, and they will live anywhere because it is at our discretion.

Housing NSW is now a division within the Department of Family and Community Services, and the Land and Housing Corporation (created in 2001) was moved into the Department of Finance and Services when the O’Farrell Government took office in April 2011. The people (a cost) and the real estate (a valuable asset) have been administered separately, and without a Minister for Housing.
Here is the bureaucratic cultural divide: Family & Community Services, a bottomless pit of human casualties and unsolvable problems, is an endless drain on the Treasury. The Government wants to shift public housing in its entirety (and child care) onto the federal budget.

The City Council, under Mayor Clover Moore, has long been involved with the residents and has supported retention of the area for social housing. But the State Government, disdainful of Moore’s Council, refuses cooperation even on a simple integrated cycleway, let alone on Millers Point.

Early in 2013, the O’Farrell Government engaged a consultancy to do a Social Impact Assessment Survey of the impact of the planned sell-off and dispersal of the residents. Rather than being passive bystanders, a group representative of residents, CoRE, was established to provide input – people with experience, involvement, memory, a legacy, and (inextricably!) a collective consciousness.

Options that CoRE has offered to the LHC include conversion to a Cooperative structure or restructured under a Community Tenancy Association. Currently vacant houses would be sold to finance renovations and development of the alternative structure. The consultation process continues.
Two unexpected developments occurred in early August. An Auditor-General’s report, Making the Best Use of Public Housing, exposes the budgetary crisis. Nevertheless, the report claims that LHC’s de facto response of selling off properties (budgeted at $165 million for 2012-13) and rationing capital/maintenance expenditure "is not financially sustainable long-term".

More, following the sacking of the troubled Greg Pearce from the Finance Ministry, LHC has been (desirably) relocated to FACS. The FACS website plays a straight bat:

“This change will allow for better coordination of policy settings across tenant and asset management to improve services and lives for vulnerable people in NSW.”

Millers Point embodies both the general financing dilemma of social housing and a legend in state/social housing provision. Can wholesale gentrification of Millers Point be resisted?

RESOURCED: https://newmatilda.com/2013/08/19/can-millers-point-fight-gentrification 

 

Getting Serious about Sirius

A guest appearance today from our Executive Officer, Julie Foreman on the importance of the Sirius apartments in Sydney's heritage.

“A landmark building”

“Housing is more than real estate”

“Cities should not be enclaves of the rich”

These are just a few comments from the speakers of a forum I attended last week. Held at the NSW Parliament, the forum shone a light on the social and historical importance of the Sirius building. Speakers reflected on important themes – many of which have been left out of the Government’s analysis and policy development regarding the Millers Point sell off.

Sirius apartments, watercolour and ink on board. Powerhouse Museum collection 2013/36/1

Panel members at the forum were the architect of the Sirius building, Tao Gofers, the Chair of Urban Planning and Policy at University of Sydney Professor Peter Phibbs, the Director of City Futures at University of NSW Professor Bill Randolph, curator and architecture writer Charlie Pickett, and Millers Point resident Mary Sutton.

They led an insightful discussion about the importance, and the history of social and affordable housing in NSW. I learnt much, including the fact that the compact kitchen we enjoy in apartments today was the result of the design and development of public housing in Holland in the 1920’s!

We heard about the iconic importance of Sirius - purpose built by the then Housing Commission. Tao Gofers, the architect talked with enthusiasm of breaking new ground with the design, which had input from the Resident Action Group and the Government.

The design is practical and beautiful; with murals in the entrance inspired by Spanish cave paintings, a photographic mural of the city skyline captured in 1978 hangs in the community room and pictures of the Harbour Bridge in various stages of completion adorn the walls of each of the floors. The roof visible to many via the Harbour Bridge became an important part of the design with roof top gardens.

Professor Peter Phibbs was the peer reviewer for the social impact assessment for the Millers Point sales. He expressed his astonishment that the Sirius building which was not included in the social impact study was then included in the sale proposal! No subsequent social impact of the sale of Sirius has been undertaken.

Peter noted that Sirius did not raise the same repair and maintenance issues as other homes in Millers Point. In fact it was a shining example of a number of Government policy directions – aging in place, need for smaller social housing stock and social mix.

He described the sales as a ‘clumsy and cruel’ policy particularly because of its impact on elderly tenants and because there are other financially viable alternatives. Options such as:
· building new purpose built homes for Millers Point residents or
· relocating residents from Millers Point to Sirius to maintain their social connections or
· slowing the sale process to allow residents to age in place or conducting a partial sale and using the funds to facilitate the sustainable upkeep of the remaining dwellings. [At least two independent, expert reports have identified financial viable alternatives]

Professor Bill Randolph broadened the debate to discuss the impact of the sale on all of Sydney and put it in an international context. His research demonstrates that Sydney is polarising, both socially and economically. Moving away from the more egalitarian city that existed 30 years ago, inner Sydney is set to become an enclave for the rich. Bill acknowledged that the real estate boom has only assisted a few and that Treasury today views public housing as a financial asset to be exploited rather than a social asset. You would have to agree with him that that seeing a city as “purely as real estate shows no imagination or maturity”. Sirius is a social asset paid for by all of us and belonging to all of us.

This is certainly how my father thought. As a child he would bring the family in by train from Wiley Park to enjoy the Rocks and Millers Point and proudly say to his children that this belonged to all of us. He didn’t feel jealous and he didn’t mind contributing taxes from his meagre wages to create a better city for all.

Bill also highlighted how the Treasury approach contrasted with trends in European and American cities. New York has inclusionary zoning, for example. European countries are expanding access to affordable housing in their cities.

Bill stated that the Millers Point and Sirius policy was another brick in the wall of social divide, noting that a disparate group - President Obama, Pope Frances and the head of the IMF cautioned against such policies, that encouraged social exclusion and led to further social and economic costs.

Charles Pickett confirmed the importance of Sirius in Australian architecture history and hailed its success as a public housing building. In the early 1900s the government built model workers public housing in the area - low rise and terraces. Critics at the time said it would become slums! Charles concluded that Sirius is the last major piece of architecture built in this tradition and must be retained.

Mary Sutton gave a detailed history of the building which we hope to soon bring to you on the blog.

If like me you value our social history and want to live in a socially inclusive city let the Minister for Heritage know and ask him to save our sirius.

The Hon. Rob Stokes, MP
Minister for Heritage
52 Martin Place
SYDNEY 2000
office@stokes.minister.nsw.gov.au

 

RESOURCED: http://tunswblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/gerring-serious-about-sirius.html 

Renovations restricted for Millers Point heritage sites

 

Sydney’s historic inner suburb, Millers Point, will receive greater protection after proposed amendments to the City of Sydney’s planning controls.
The new Local Environment Plan (LEP) restricts changes to the existing height and floor spaces for Millers Point Heritage Conservation Area properties.
Minor increases to these dimensions will be allowed if the changes are consistent with heritage recommendations.
These changes to the LEP mean historic buildings will be protected as new owners move into the area.
With 293 total potential sales of government-owned and heritage-listed properties in Millers Point, the NSW Heritage Council called for a review of the area’s planning controls.
Lord Mayor Clive Moore says, “We are trying to provide consistency and certainty for future home owners in Millers Point, while protecting the area’s irreplaceable history”.
“This proposal helps protect these buildings as they move into private ownership, and has the strong support of the Central Sydney Planning Committee,” Moore says.
The City will be holding a 28 day public exhibition period if public exhibition is approved by the NSW Minister for Planning, Pru Goward. This will give a chance to the community to voice their opinions on the proposal.
Millers Point was Australia’s first public housing site, developed between 1810 and 1930 for the maritime industry workers, better known as wharfies. Since the 1980’s, the NSW Government has used Millers Point for social housing, and the iconic suburb has been able to keep its character intact throughout the years.

RESOURCED: http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/forward-planning/investment-strategy/property-news-and-insights/38119-renovations-restricted-for-millers-point-heritage-sites.html

Celebrating Jack Mundey and activism

By JohnD on 21 November 2014 in Uncategorized 

In an event hosted by Clover Moore and Lee Rhiannon today, the City of Sydney celebrated Jack Mundey’s election to the council thirty years ago, his contribution as an alderman and before that as BLF Secretary when Green Bans halted plans to demolish The Rocks, Victoria Street (Kings Cross), large parts of Woolloomooloo, and sections of Glebe. The city would have been a very different place without Jack Mundey and the BLF Green Bans, Nita McCrae and The Rocks Resident Action Group and the independent councillors of the City of Sydney. We thank them all for the city they have delivered to us, and for their continuing efforts to protect it and the residents of Millers Point and The Rocks.


Earlier this week, a coalition of inner-city groups, including the Friends of Millers Point, rallied outside the NSW Parliament in support of public housing. There was strong support from the Labor Party, the Greens and independents, and it was heartening to see many politicians from all levels of government standing up for public housing and the community of Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks.

Jack Mundey named as Patron First official patron of Friends of Millers Point

18.11.2014

Jack Mundey named as Patron First official patron of Friends of Millers Point  Legendary Green Bans Campaigner Jack Mundey has been named Patron of the Friends of Millers Point ahead of this week’s Save Public Housing Rally at NSW Parliament House.   “The community has again turned to Jack Mundey for support, and we are delighted to announce he has agreed to be the first Patron of the Friends of Millers Point,” said Convenor, Kelli Haynes.   “We certainly need people across the community to rally once again behind Jack and Friends of Millers Point to save the people and the heritage of The Rocks, Millers Point and Dawes Point."   “Not only are the residents at risk, but also so is the purpose-built worker and social housing constructed in this area throughout the 20th century,” Ms Haynes said. "The destruction of a well functioning community where private owners and public housing tenants live and support each other, is also a terrible waste of tax payer's money and a loss of public assets."   “We believe most of the workers’ accommodation will be lost, including the terraces of Windmill Street, the flats of High Street and most disturbingly, the Sirius Apartments which were built as a direct result of the Green Bans.   “The Rocks Green Ban was only lifted in order to allow the building of the Sirius Apartments, which now stand as a monument to the power of ordinary people - workers and residents to join together and shape the environment in which they live.'   “The State Government needs to come up with a better plan for public housing than turfing vulnerable people out of an area many have lived in throughout their lives.”   The Rally: With the rally to be held in Macquarie Street at noon this Wednesday (19 November), Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks Public Housing Tenants Groupspokesperson and long term resident Barney Gardner welcomed Mundey as Patron.   “I hope Wednesday’s rally draws the same inspiration from the power of collective community action that Jack helped make famous in the 1970s Green Bans movement.   Mr Gardner said this week’s rally is calling on the State Government for more money for more public housing rather than funding it through selling existing properties in affluent areas such as The Rocks.   Background: Forty years ago Jack Mundey and the BLF joined local communities in environmental activism. This was the birth of the Green Bans. One of the first and most hard-fought Green Bans was the struggle to save The Rocks.   In the early 1970s, money was pouring into commercial and speculative property development, and old buildings were in the way.   In The Rocks, Jack Mundey and the BLF fought alongside Nita McCrae and The Rocks Resident Action Group for the preservation of this community and the buildings which are now considered some of the most significant heritage buildings in our country.   Film afternoon Rocking the Foundations Pat Fiske’s Rocking the Foundations is being screened at the Abraham Mott Hall at 3:00pm on Saturday 6 December. John Hinde said it is “an exhilarating and complete account of the Green Bans – one of the most important developments in union history. An uplifting film for the sheer energy of the people involved.” Rocking the Foundations includes stories of the 1970s Green Bans, Jack Mundey and local identity Nita McCrae who together fought to save The Rocks from developers and from plans for high-rise office towers. Joining Pat Fiske in discussion after the film will be Jack Mundey, Sirius architect Theo Gofers, and filmmakers Helen Barrow and Blue Lucine who have each been filming in Millers Point for many months. Free entry (or by donation). Visit the Save Millers Point Facebook page to see who is coming and add your name to the list.  https://www.facebook.com/savemillerspoint We look forward to seeing you and other Friends on 6 December.