Public housing campaign group Hands Off Glebe released the statement below on June 29.
* * *
“New planning laws proposed by NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard mean more public tenants will be socially cleansed toSydney’s outskirts and developers will have a free go at turning our city into concrete canyons,” Denis Doherty said.
Spokesman for the Hands off Glebe public housing advocacy group and Sydney mayoral candidate for the Housing Action team running in the September local government election, Doherty condemned the Government’s plan “to end the rights of residents to object to new housing developments as a crude attack on democracy intended to ensure the rights of developers and their profits.
“The present planning rules already favour developers. Any new rules introduced by the NSW Government must shift the balance back towards local councils and residents.
“The new planning laws do not address the destruction of public housing or the sell off of public land but will actually facilitate their transfer as a gold mine for developers,” Doherty said.
“This has already happened in Cowper Street in Glebe. Hundreds of public housing tenants were forced out, their homes demolished, gardens and trees destroyed and a wasteland created.
“The planned redevelopment will be majority private dwellings with a few affordable units and some public tenants crammed into segregated tower blocks entirely out of character in Glebe.
“We can expect more of the same under Hazzard’s new regime where a decent affordable home will not be a human right but simply a source of profit,” Doherty said.
“Increasing the supply of public and affordable housing will bring down the cost of buying or renting a home and help reduce the housing stress being experienced by Sydney residents.
“It will contribute to meeting current desperate human housing needs and create and sustain diverse communities across our city.
“There is no democracy and no benefits for the people of Sydney in the neo liberal policies that advantage the rich which are evident in Hazzard’s new planning laws.”
