Published 1 Jan 2021, Sydney Morning Herald
Glebe is only two kilometres from the Sydney Town Hall and is Australia’s most intact inner-city 19th century suburb. Ownership by the Anglican Church preserved it, purchase by the federal government in 1974 restored it and transfer to the NSW government in the 1980s nurtured it through the design of sensitive infill which respected Glebe’s heritage and increased the supply of social housing. Now the NSW Land and Housing Corporation plans to trash this 50-year legacy of good public policy and town planning. Its scheme to demolish 108 low-rise units set in gardens in Franklyn Street and replace them with 14-storey towers, and their application to rezone a heritage conservation area in Cowper Street for eight-storey buildings, is disgraceful. It shows no respect for the amenity of social housing tenants, their community or our city’s heritage. LAHC’s justification (‘‘Tenants in limbo over plan to bulldoze Glebe public housing’’, December 28) that the scheme is ‘‘better matched to the needs of residents’’ because the new buildings will have lifts, is simplistic and absurd.
Janet Wahlquist, President, The Glebe Society
For more details of the plan and the Society’s concerns, see here.
5 comments. Please add yours.
Outraged and saddened! The bullying and scapegoating of the Inner West continues. These horrific monoliths will upset the scale of our architecture and ruin the heritage character, which has already been compromised in previous eras of trashing. How can we fight this??
Exactly.
How can they “rezone” a heritage conservation area? Isn’t the whole purpose of a designated conservation area to ensure it is conserved? It’s a perverse conservative government that doesn’t give a damn about conservation!
14 story towers ?
Dicks
Gladys endeavours to trash heritage yet again. No sense of history or respect for local cultural heritage.
Where will she stop!!????
Fight the good fight I say!!