Article Topic: public housing

The 54th Annual General Meeting of the Glebe Society elected a new president and three new members of the Management Committee. Guest speaker Kobi Shetty said that the Minns Government needs to take a more proactive role in the oversight and funding of public housing.

In his monthly report, Ian Stephenson, President of the Glebe Society, welcomes the new government’s decision to place a moratorium on the sale of historic housing in the St Phillips and Lyndhurst Estates. And he’s come up with a new name for the developments in Cowper St and Wentworth Park Rd.

On 17 September, Hands Off Glebe held a demonstration to protest against the demolition of 17 public housing units at 82 Wentworth Park Rd by the NSW Land and Housing Corporation. Speakers called for existing public housing estates to be upgraded and repaired and for the social and urban fabric of Glebe to be respected, and for the NSW Government to stop ‘cannibalising’ public housing.

Glebe is a special place. Its survival owes much to contingency. Social diversity created a remarkable architectural and cultural legacy. The year 2021 has reminded us that we cannot take the protection of Glebe’s social and urban character for granted. The City of Sydney’s well-considered Local Environment Plan and Development Control Plans are being undermined by State and Local governments.

Ian Stephenson and Brian Fuller, the Society’s Planning and Heritage convenors, recently joined Deputy Lord Mayor Linda Scott at a meeting with the Hon. Melinda Pavey MP, Minister for Water, Property and Housing, to discuss the State Government’s intentions in relation to the provision of affordable and social housing in Glebe.

Glebe Society met with Lord Mayor Clover Moore to discuss social housing. The Glebe Society is opposed to LAHC’s unprincipled vision to create a tale of two suburbs: one which is low-rise and historic and the other which is high-rise and heartless.

Nearly forty years of good planning designed to conserve the scale of the St Phillips Heritage Conservation Area through height controls was overturned on 29 March when Sydney City Council approved the NSW Land and Housing Corporation’s application for a spot rezoning of 17-31 Cowper St and 2A-D Wentworth Park Rd.

Report from the Glebe Society President, Janet Wahlquist on the Society’s recent activities.

On 30 January our compatriot organisation Hands Off Glebe held a demonstration opposing the redevelopment of the Cowper St and Franklyn St estates. The Glebe Society was there.