by Neil Macindoe, from Bulletin 7/2019 September

In 1969 the fledgling Glebe Society faced enormous problems. Glebe was about to be shredded by major expressways. A corrupt Council was determined to knock down heritage buildings and replace them with cheap three (or more) storey blocks of units or similar dwellings. The waterfront was lined with derelict buildings, mostly ex-industrial but some ex-residential, all zoned for industrial use. Although Glebe was a waterfront suburb, you could barely see the water, except from a small reserve at the end of Glebe Point Rd. The bays were often choked with logs. The White Bay Power Station belched out noxious and dirty fumes. The bays and watercourses were contaminated with poisonous heavy metals. The whole suburb had unusually high levels of lead in the soil from many years of paint manufacture and the operation of foundries in residential areas. The areas available for recreation were either tiny or alienated for various kinds of racing.

The housing was often in a state of disrepair. Many had seen no maintenance for decades. Plumbing was primitive, and electricity do-it-yourself and hazardous. Dwellings had few bathrooms, or one to be shared by many residents, and toilets outside were common. A kitchen was often a gas ring in the corner. Termites had been untreated, so there were houses, especially older ones, whose floors had rotted away, so the unfortunate inhabitants trod on the bare earth. Others just had holes to fall through. There was overcrowding and a lack of fire safety on one hand, and uninhabitable houses on the other.

With great courage and no resources except themselves, the Society drew up very practical strategies to tackle most of these problems. To the casual bystander it must have seemed wildly optimistic, and daunting even to the most sanguine. But the Society faced them with intelligence, careful planning and great energy, and within a few years many were overcome. After a couple of decades most goals were achieved and the suburb transformed. You can discover the story of these campaigns (more or less) in the 50th Anniversary booklet, Fifty Years of the Glebe Society: Celebrating Conservation and Change in Glebe and Forest Lodge.

The City’s 2050 Strategic Plan

By contrast, on 15 August I attended a function to tell community stakeholders about the City’s new plan proposed for 2050, 30 years hence. Apparently the existing Plan, due to run until 2030, will need replacing. How many people at the function will be there in 30 years?

Sydney is the best resourced Council in NSW. The staff drew on these formidable resources to seek the views of 5,000 people, not just residents but workers, students, business owners and visitors as well. It should not surprise you to learn they discovered most people were anxious about the same things, such as public and affordable housing and climate change. This is a very political outcome to a very political strategy.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a high opinion of the City, and strongly supported the takeover of Glebe in 2003 and the City’s performance since. And, of course, the support and advocacy of local government is always worth having. However, the main issues identified by the survey are primarily matters for the State and Federal Governments, and the City’s role is minor. NSW is one State that needs to consult its voters and carry out their wishes, as does the Federal Government.

The Glebe Society’s achievements would have been much more limited without the occasional and timely support of reforming governments at Federal and State level, which helps to explain why they were so unexpected. We may believe the City reflects our values, but our job is to convince the levels of government that have the power to make changes to share them as well.

There is a similar problem with New Democracy’s Citizen Jury, selected at random to choose 15 issues from 500 proposed. Would you give your decision about the future to someone randomly selected from the street? Would anyone? The Glebe Society certainly didn’t.

Planning Today

It would be clear to anyone watching or reading the news (ABC2 Four Corners 19 August) that the planning system in NSW has serious problems. In the past, we have looked patronisingly at developing countries and said, as their buildings collapsed, that we have rules that prevent such disasters. Since the evacuation of Opal Tower at Olympic Park and the Mascot Tower we have had to revise our attitude, as more examples come to light.

The root of the problem lies more than 20 years ago when the State Government decided the building industry would not be able to keep up with the demand for new housing without special incentives. One of these incentives was to introduce a system of private certification, whereby a developer was able to choose whoever it liked to decide whether standards were being met. This was not the only measure taken on behalf of developers, but it was the most serious.

The Society objected from the beginning to this measure, and so has the Better Planning Network, the Statewide organisation to which we belong. Finally, an Upper House enquiry into this issue began on 12 August this year. One other problem among many is that flammable cladding has been used on several hundred high-rise buildings.

Fortunately, Glebe has not had many such problems, but the deregulation of the industry means that they can arise at any time, wherever Local Government is excluded from oversight.

Also problematic is that provision for affordable housing is limited, so despite the amount of building taking place, inadequate housing and homelessness are increasing. Public or social housing is also insufficient. The Society supports moves to remedy this situation, especially in the Bays Precinct.