Work to demolish hundreds of public housing units in Sydney’s inner south to make way for 3300 new homes is due to begin within months, as the NSW government forges ahead with a $4 billion overhaul of the Waterloo estate.
But residents face a lengthy wait to move into the redeveloped precinct, which will include a mix of social and private housing in buildings up to 33 storeys, as the earliest homes are not expected to be completed until 2035.
Vulnerable Waterloo residents have battled the government’s plans to bulldoze 750 public housing properties to make way for 3300 homes in the first stage of the redevelopment, Waterloo South. About half of the homes will be private apartments, and about 30 per cent would be social housing, including public housing managed by government and community housing run by not-for-profits. The remaining 20 per cent would be affordable rental housing for low-income earners.
Housing Minister Rose Jackson said the $4 billion project was the largest social housing renewal in Australia, adding there was “no time to waste in a housing crisis”.
“I feel that urgency every day, and I’m looking forward to moving to the next stage of this renewal project that will deliver more than four times the number of homes currently on this site,” she said.
New development plans, which went on public exhibition on Wednesday, have provided a first glimpse of the revamped Waterloo South site, which is adjacent to the metro rail station.
The government promised displaced tenants would be given six months’ notice before moving and could return once the buildings are complete. The first phase of relocations began in February 2025, and some tenants have already moved into 140 new social housing homes in the Waterloo Metro Quarter and nearby in Redfern.
Critics are concerned that once these apartments are filled, remaining residents will add pressure to the public housing waitlist, which has 65,000 people statewide in need of a home.
REDWatch community group spokesman Geoff Turnbull said relocated residents were being moved when vacancies appeared, and this was doing nothing to reduce the waiting list.
“It creates this sort of constipation in the system,” he said. “In the absence of new units, relocations are going to take quite a lot longer – there’s this mismatch.”
Plans to revamp the entire 19-hectare estate, built in the 1970s, have long been the subject of dispute between the state government, residents and the City of Sydney council. The proportion of social and affordable housing proposed for the redeveloped estate, and the displacement of tenants, have been major sticking points.
Greens MP Jenny Leong said if no new homes were built for years, the government had “no justification” to “demolish habitable homes in the middle of a housing crisis”.
“They have access to public housing right now, and they are choosing to evict [residents] and demolish it,” she said.
Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday defended private apartments making up half of the homes, and said mixed developments were the “best-practice model” around the world and a “far superior model than what is there currently, and what was proposed by the previous government”.
Waterloo South represents 65 per cent of the estate. The redevelopment plans include a public park next to the metro rail station.
The 30-storey Matavai and Turanga towers, as well as four 18-storey blocks, form later stages of the project.
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