Ajax said:
Hi Ajax, Care to reveal where the source for the 10 year demolishing prediction comes from?
ps I'm a Wh2O man (www.skiwhitewater.com)
Redfern update
- Thread starter Ajax
- Start date
Hi Ajax, Care to reveal where the source for the 10 year demolishing prediction comes from?
ps I'm a Wh2O man (www.skiwhitewater.com)
G'day Knightm,
maybe I'm reading too much into the Redfern-Waterloo authority's plans-I think they include demolishing (and rebuilding) on the housing commission site in Young Street (though i can't tell for sure).
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...-will-be-reborn/2004/11/28/1101577357198.html
Ajax
PS Some great powder shots in the Wh20 intro.
maybe I'm reading too much into the Redfern-Waterloo authority's plans-I think they include demolishing (and rebuilding) on the housing commission site in Young Street (though i can't tell for sure).
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...-will-be-reborn/2004/11/28/1101577357198.html
Ajax
PS Some great powder shots in the Wh20 intro.
dyu mean the 3 big (8 or so storeys) brown towers known as "poets corner" on young st or some of the 3 storey walk up buildings? I really thing frank is going to be pushing some heavy animals up stairs to get all the tenants out of the big towers(know a few of them) - maybe he will pull it off though!?
re wh2o - yep its a special little place, way underdeveloped - 2 old double chairs, little day lodge, lots of hike to terrain, not much groomed, no accom yet, lots of the white stuff. Very cool.
re wh2o - yep its a special little place, way underdeveloped - 2 old double chairs, little day lodge, lots of hike to terrain, not much groomed, no accom yet, lots of the white stuff. Very cool.
yes Knightm. I mean Poet's Corner which is an eyesore. I think when Sartor finally moves we may see some big changes...including plans to demolish the Block (which are denied at the moment).
If Sartor tries to demolish the block expect some fireworks...shades of the Greenban protests in 1973 in The Rocks. I can still recall the images on TV with student protestors on terrace house rooves and police below.
"With the success of the Opera House, councils were consumed with a missionary zeal to continue pulling down old buildings to further the cultural enrichment of Australia.
But to informed eyes, the old Australian architecture carried the spiritual and material aspirations of bygone generations. To the open minded, such expressions had value.
The conflict between the old and the new came to a head in 1973 over planned redevelopment of the Rocks, an ex-convict settlement overlooking the Opera house. In September 1973, Jack Mundy, then secretary of the Builders' Labourers Federation, raised the Eureka Stockade Flag and led unionists in Australia's first green ban. Although many were arrested, the battle was won and the Rocks were saved.
Subsequently BLF greenbans forced a sea change in philosophy and instead of destroying heritage, Sydney architects began working with it. Factories and terrace houses were renovated into high-class accommodation, art studios and theatres.
Aside from preserving history, such renovations also proved to be lucrative as high-income earners came to appreciate the sense of belonging that living in a historic house inspires. They also came to appreciate the creativity of an architect who was shackled by need to work with history, yet still found ways to express modern sentiments and lifestyle needs."
Ajax
If Sartor tries to demolish the block expect some fireworks...shades of the Greenban protests in 1973 in The Rocks. I can still recall the images on TV with student protestors on terrace house rooves and police below.
"With the success of the Opera House, councils were consumed with a missionary zeal to continue pulling down old buildings to further the cultural enrichment of Australia.
But to informed eyes, the old Australian architecture carried the spiritual and material aspirations of bygone generations. To the open minded, such expressions had value.
The conflict between the old and the new came to a head in 1973 over planned redevelopment of the Rocks, an ex-convict settlement overlooking the Opera house. In September 1973, Jack Mundy, then secretary of the Builders' Labourers Federation, raised the Eureka Stockade Flag and led unionists in Australia's first green ban. Although many were arrested, the battle was won and the Rocks were saved.
Subsequently BLF greenbans forced a sea change in philosophy and instead of destroying heritage, Sydney architects began working with it. Factories and terrace houses were renovated into high-class accommodation, art studios and theatres.
Aside from preserving history, such renovations also proved to be lucrative as high-income earners came to appreciate the sense of belonging that living in a historic house inspires. They also came to appreciate the creativity of an architect who was shackled by need to work with history, yet still found ways to express modern sentiments and lifestyle needs."
Ajax
thanks ajax, agree the rocks was a good outcome, and some blend of old and new can be historically valuable + trendy. Agree the poets corner towers are an eyesore, but there will be fireworks there as well as the block of course - interesting to see how he goes. Unfortunately many tenants there are very suspicious of change, and will need to be managed very well not to revolt.
Source: http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=408
"No Black Faces on the Block?
BY MARNI CORDELL
The Carr Government’s plans for the rundown suburb of Redfern are yet to be realised, but anyone taking a white brush to the black heart of Sydney is surely in for a fight. MARNI CORDELL reports on the battle for Redfern-Waterloo.
‘The Block’, a hectare of land opposite Redfern train station, was first bought for Aboriginal housing in 1973 with a grant from the Whitlam Government. The area was a nucleus for Indigenous activism, and gave life to some of Aboriginal Australia’s greatest social legacies, including the first medical and legal services.
According to Shane Phillips, whose family has lived in the area for three generations, it was a dynamic place to grow up. “We saw a lot of strong Koori people, who all worked hard and fought for what they believed in,” he says, “and just wanted to raise their kids and get what everyone else was getting.”
But in the mid-1990s, says Phillips, “the gear hit”. The area became known for its heroin trade, attracting users from across Sydney to score and shoot up in the dark alleys of the area’s 19th century housing. “That infection just grew, and destroyed what was a great, strong place,” Phillips says.
To the local Aboriginal community, the Block is a significant and symbolic place, with the potential to house a vibrant community. To developers, it’s a near-empty piece of land in an overcrowded city.
Prime real estate just five minutes from the CBD, Redfern has been an obvious ‘black spot’ on developers’ maps for some time. However, last year’s riots following the tragic death of 17-year-old TJ Hickey, and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry in to the area, have given the NSW Government the impetus to push ahead with major redevelopment plans.
In November last year the Carr Government’s agenda was revealed in documents leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Soon after, the Redfern-Waterloo Act went through parliament with full support from the Liberal opposition. “I said the day after the riot at Redfern that the real solution to this was to bulldoze the Block. I can hardly argue when the Government comes forward to do that and so much more,” said opposition leader John Brogden.
In its mandate to improve the socio-economic standing of the area, the newly formed Redfern-Waterloo Authority has the power to acquire private land, bypass heritage and planning laws, and delegate its powers to private subsidiary corporations. According to property lawyer Damien Barnes, while these powers are not unprecedented, they are extraordinary considering the area is highly residential.
The Block has a problematic history, and its owners, the Aboriginal Housing Company, have not always had the support of the community at large. In 1997, the company demolished a number of houses and relocated residents in an attempt to get rid of the drug trade. Ann Weldon, Chairperson of the Aboriginal Housing Office, says there was a lot of division over this decision, and the AHC has still not delivered on a promise it made at that time: to build one house for every two that it knocked down.
“I would like to see that promise obligated, irrespective of what the company are negotiating with other people, because there was major rivalry and discontent within the Aboriginal community over relocation, and the implications of that,” says Weldon.
Peter Valilis, AHC Project Director, concedes that the AHC has not been an effective community representative. “The Company didn’t do two things in the past: it didn’t get the support of the majority of the stakeholders, and it didn’t start off with a social agenda.”
“We now recognise that there are a lot of direct and indirect stakeholders of this area. Even though the Housing Company owns the land, and no one, legally, has a say beyond that; you have government stakeholders, tenants, local people who live near the Block, the business community, academics. There’s a long list of people who have an interest in this area.”
For the last five years, the AHC has been developing plans to revitalise the area. The Company’s ‘Pemulwuy Plan’ would see 62 new houses built on the Block, along with an open-plan retail district, offices, a gymnasium and an Aboriginal business college. The plan has received two social planning awards, but is reliant on Government funding to proceed.
Valilis explains that the Pemulwuy Plan came about following lengthy community consultation: “Everyone had a say, and eventually, not everyone was happy, but we found some common ground.”
That is, until the Redfern-Waterloo Authority weighed into the debate.
In February, Frank Sartor, the NSW Minister responsible for Redfern-Waterloo, visited the AHC to discuss the future of the Block. According to Peter Valilis, the Minister told the Company’s board members that he wanted “no black faces on the Block”.
Sartor’s spokeswoman denies the claim.
However, the Minister has made his opposition to the Pemulwuy Plan clear, dubbing it an experiment in high-dependency housing.
Valilis is adamant that the plan will go ahead, with or without State Government support. He describes the Minister’s approach as “it’s my way or the highway”. “Well, we got in the car and drove off down the highway,” he says.
However, if negotiations between the two parties sour, Sartor could, in line with the Land Acquisition Act, compulsorily acquire the Block and develop it as he pleases. Valilis’s response to this suggestion is a defiant “let him try.”
Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway takes the threat more seriously. He believes the local community does not have the political clout to take on a powerful Minister, backed by wealthy developers.
“There’s good argument to say that any decision to compulsorily acquire what is private land could amount to a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act, on the grounds that it is treating one group differently to the rest of the community,” he says.
“I think Australia’s become so immune to looking at these things in certain ways. If [the ‘no black faces’ comment] were said in the United States or the United Kingdom you’d have race riots on the streets. Aboriginal people locally have somehow been conditioned into accepting that this is normal, and the government and the rest of the community is saying that it’s okay. Well I’m saying it’s not. The standards of the law should apply equally, irrespective of the colour of a person’s skin,” says Ridgeway
If the Redfern-Waterloo Authority acquired the Block, it would be the first time in Australian history that land won by Aboriginal people as a result of the 1970s land rights struggle was taken back from them.
Shane Phillips believes that much of the local Aboriginal community is behind the AHC’s Pemulwuy Plan, and is prepared to fight for it. “There are so many people who want to come back to Redfern. They don’t want to come back while it’s all drugs, and drug dealers are still living here. That’s the intention of the housing company: bring back some working families and give the kids an opportunity to help rebuild the place, but also to see positive role models in their community.”
“A few weeks ago there was a fundraiser for a bloke, a great family man from the area, who’s ill at the moment. Everyone came together and it was great to see all those faces, who you know have had words or had disputes, all come together and sit at the same tables.”
“People come together for a cause,” says Phillips.
The Redfern-Waterloo Authority might be just the cause to bring community back to the Block."
"No Black Faces on the Block?
BY MARNI CORDELL
The Carr Government’s plans for the rundown suburb of Redfern are yet to be realised, but anyone taking a white brush to the black heart of Sydney is surely in for a fight. MARNI CORDELL reports on the battle for Redfern-Waterloo.
‘The Block’, a hectare of land opposite Redfern train station, was first bought for Aboriginal housing in 1973 with a grant from the Whitlam Government. The area was a nucleus for Indigenous activism, and gave life to some of Aboriginal Australia’s greatest social legacies, including the first medical and legal services.
According to Shane Phillips, whose family has lived in the area for three generations, it was a dynamic place to grow up. “We saw a lot of strong Koori people, who all worked hard and fought for what they believed in,” he says, “and just wanted to raise their kids and get what everyone else was getting.”
But in the mid-1990s, says Phillips, “the gear hit”. The area became known for its heroin trade, attracting users from across Sydney to score and shoot up in the dark alleys of the area’s 19th century housing. “That infection just grew, and destroyed what was a great, strong place,” Phillips says.
To the local Aboriginal community, the Block is a significant and symbolic place, with the potential to house a vibrant community. To developers, it’s a near-empty piece of land in an overcrowded city.
Prime real estate just five minutes from the CBD, Redfern has been an obvious ‘black spot’ on developers’ maps for some time. However, last year’s riots following the tragic death of 17-year-old TJ Hickey, and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry in to the area, have given the NSW Government the impetus to push ahead with major redevelopment plans.
In November last year the Carr Government’s agenda was revealed in documents leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Soon after, the Redfern-Waterloo Act went through parliament with full support from the Liberal opposition. “I said the day after the riot at Redfern that the real solution to this was to bulldoze the Block. I can hardly argue when the Government comes forward to do that and so much more,” said opposition leader John Brogden.
In its mandate to improve the socio-economic standing of the area, the newly formed Redfern-Waterloo Authority has the power to acquire private land, bypass heritage and planning laws, and delegate its powers to private subsidiary corporations. According to property lawyer Damien Barnes, while these powers are not unprecedented, they are extraordinary considering the area is highly residential.
The Block has a problematic history, and its owners, the Aboriginal Housing Company, have not always had the support of the community at large. In 1997, the company demolished a number of houses and relocated residents in an attempt to get rid of the drug trade. Ann Weldon, Chairperson of the Aboriginal Housing Office, says there was a lot of division over this decision, and the AHC has still not delivered on a promise it made at that time: to build one house for every two that it knocked down.
“I would like to see that promise obligated, irrespective of what the company are negotiating with other people, because there was major rivalry and discontent within the Aboriginal community over relocation, and the implications of that,” says Weldon.
Peter Valilis, AHC Project Director, concedes that the AHC has not been an effective community representative. “The Company didn’t do two things in the past: it didn’t get the support of the majority of the stakeholders, and it didn’t start off with a social agenda.”
“We now recognise that there are a lot of direct and indirect stakeholders of this area. Even though the Housing Company owns the land, and no one, legally, has a say beyond that; you have government stakeholders, tenants, local people who live near the Block, the business community, academics. There’s a long list of people who have an interest in this area.”
For the last five years, the AHC has been developing plans to revitalise the area. The Company’s ‘Pemulwuy Plan’ would see 62 new houses built on the Block, along with an open-plan retail district, offices, a gymnasium and an Aboriginal business college. The plan has received two social planning awards, but is reliant on Government funding to proceed.
Valilis explains that the Pemulwuy Plan came about following lengthy community consultation: “Everyone had a say, and eventually, not everyone was happy, but we found some common ground.”
That is, until the Redfern-Waterloo Authority weighed into the debate.
In February, Frank Sartor, the NSW Minister responsible for Redfern-Waterloo, visited the AHC to discuss the future of the Block. According to Peter Valilis, the Minister told the Company’s board members that he wanted “no black faces on the Block”.
Sartor’s spokeswoman denies the claim.
However, the Minister has made his opposition to the Pemulwuy Plan clear, dubbing it an experiment in high-dependency housing.
Valilis is adamant that the plan will go ahead, with or without State Government support. He describes the Minister’s approach as “it’s my way or the highway”. “Well, we got in the car and drove off down the highway,” he says.
However, if negotiations between the two parties sour, Sartor could, in line with the Land Acquisition Act, compulsorily acquire the Block and develop it as he pleases. Valilis’s response to this suggestion is a defiant “let him try.”
Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway takes the threat more seriously. He believes the local community does not have the political clout to take on a powerful Minister, backed by wealthy developers.
“There’s good argument to say that any decision to compulsorily acquire what is private land could amount to a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act, on the grounds that it is treating one group differently to the rest of the community,” he says.
“I think Australia’s become so immune to looking at these things in certain ways. If [the ‘no black faces’ comment] were said in the United States or the United Kingdom you’d have race riots on the streets. Aboriginal people locally have somehow been conditioned into accepting that this is normal, and the government and the rest of the community is saying that it’s okay. Well I’m saying it’s not. The standards of the law should apply equally, irrespective of the colour of a person’s skin,” says Ridgeway
If the Redfern-Waterloo Authority acquired the Block, it would be the first time in Australian history that land won by Aboriginal people as a result of the 1970s land rights struggle was taken back from them.
Shane Phillips believes that much of the local Aboriginal community is behind the AHC’s Pemulwuy Plan, and is prepared to fight for it. “There are so many people who want to come back to Redfern. They don’t want to come back while it’s all drugs, and drug dealers are still living here. That’s the intention of the housing company: bring back some working families and give the kids an opportunity to help rebuild the place, but also to see positive role models in their community.”
“A few weeks ago there was a fundraiser for a bloke, a great family man from the area, who’s ill at the moment. Everyone came together and it was great to see all those faces, who you know have had words or had disputes, all come together and sit at the same tables.”
“People come together for a cause,” says Phillips.
The Redfern-Waterloo Authority might be just the cause to bring community back to the Block."
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Source of article:Active Sydney web-site (stuff for social change)
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?
article_id=3641&group=webcast
"
The Redfern/Waterloo Project - What 'Other Eden'?
by Talk given by Elizabeth Farrelly 9:26pm Sun Apr 17 '05 (Modified on 2:31pm Fri Apr 29 '05) article#3641
[email protected]
I'm shocked. Usually when people draw comparisons between Australia and apartheid (as visiting South African activist-musician Vusi Mahlasela did this week (1)) I think, perhaps a little defensively, "it's not really like that here. Not anymore. Not now."
And so I am shocked, shocked and ashamed, to hear a 21st century NSW government, and a labour government at that, arguing once again to move Australia's oldest kernel of indigenous urban culture out. Out of the way. Out of the centre. Out of sight.
We should all be ashamed.
We're not, though. Far from it.
On the anniversary of T.J. Hickey's death, the Sydney Central Courier (a new Redfern rag distributed in honour of the neighbourhood's achieved status as a serious property market) ran a story on the Block.
Like a lamb in spring, the piece gamboled happily through Redfern's recent history - drugs, riots, domestic violence - before ending with a quote from Frank Sartor, the new Minister for pretty-well-everything-including-Redfern.
"We've seen [the government's Big Commitment]" he said, '…in extra policing, extra health services and on top of that, we've set up the [Redfern-Waterloo] Authority and we're putting structures in place to move forward.' [Alexandra Walker, Redfern reborn, Sydney Central Courier Feb (??) 2005]
Extra police. Structures in place. Move forward. Yup. That'll do it. Problem solved.
Now sure, the story was probably written by a cub reporter straight out of school. She was probably up against a deadline. But, excuses or no, it replicated exactly the kind of apathetic she'll-be-right non-think that got us into this mess in the first sorry place.
In the same week, by contrast, a snippet appeared in the Herald, noting a little known public-space experiment in London. Dubbed The Naked Street (after an obscure1950s film), the idea was being trialed in London's Exhibition Street but comes from the Netherlands. There, it seems, it has had considerable success. The problem was reducing traffic accidents. The novel solution - was removing (yes, removing) all road markings, barriers, lights and even curbs.
"If you treat people like idiots," said the urban designer working on the London plan, "they'll behave like idiots." [Ben Hamilton-Baillie, SMH 10 02 05; Denver Post 14 02 05; Arizona Star 15 02 05]
If you treat people like the criminally insane, the Redfern version might read, they'll behave that way.
Of course I'm not suggesting that the Redfern Problem, for want of a better phrase, is the police or the government's fault. Not in any immediate or demonstrable way.
It's just that - and this should be tattooed on every politician and bureaucrat's forehead -you don't solve social problems with bulldozers.
It's always tempting to think otherwise. Social problems are hard and messy: bulldozers are easy, clean, bold. Cathartic even.
But demolition will only send the problem somewhere else (be it Macquarie Fields, La Perouse, Mt Druitt - or just round the corner in Waterloo).
Even rebuilding will only give the same old problem a new home. Clean wallpaper.
People don't stop beating up their families because the kitchen is new. They don't stop doing drugs because police are on the street. And they don't stop feeling dispossessed because you send them somewhere else - again.
The only real difference is in the visuals. In what you see, and what you don't see. We so-sophisticated humans are so easily persuaded by what we can, or cannot, see.
And of course the government knows all this.
Why, then, does it engage in this redevelopment-as-social-panacea charade?
That's easy. The answer is a simple three-worder: growth, money, survival. The one word answer is simpler still: politics.
The thinking - if that's not too strong a word - is this. The Botany-to-CBD airport corridor is home to half the jobs in metropolitan Sydney. This makes it the economic engine of Australia, and the country's best hope for a globalopolis.
To do this, the city must expand. But it is a peninsula city, with water on three sides and North Sydney anyway a basket case.
So south is it.
Already the government has invested hugely in yuppifying the south-of-Redfern rustbelt (Green Square, the airport corridor, the world's newest ghost-railway, the rather sick-looking Cooks Cove tech-park scheme and now the M6).
But global Sydney is going nowhere unless it can connect all these on a string between the CBD and the airport.
What's taking them so long? The Block, Redfern.
The Block has become the blockage.
Everything else - industrial fabric, heritage, public park, wetlands - can be and has been swept aside. Leaving the Block as the last impediment in Sydney's race to full-on globalopolis status.
So however you cut it, from the government's point of view, the Block has to go.
This was not the rhetoric. Not at first. I was saying "the Block will go, it's only a matter of time, mark my words." And everyone else was saying "you're so cynical, give them a break, they could be genuine, let's see what comes."
Well, we've given them a break, and what has come is the "no black faces" policy.
The Minister does not believe aboriginal housing is "sustainable" on the Block. He refuses to say why. He proposes to move these people a few blocks down the road to Waterloo. But won't say why this is better.
So what is the reason, here, that the government is so reluctant to articulate? The reason is both simple, and shocking.
It's this. Moving the blacks from the Block is necessary so that we can't see them. So that new blow-in executives and lifestyle-residents of Redfern-to-be do not have to witness the street drinking, the bonfires, the in your face behaviour of Redfern's traditional people.
Whether it's a move of 50kms, or of half a km makes no difference. It's the attitude that is shocking. And the fact that it hasn't changed. At all.
Same old stuff. It's why station owners put the blacks just over the hill, out of sight. And why country towns put the missions 5 kms out of town.
We don't want to see them. It's their country, and we do not want to be reminded of what our presence here has done to them.
There's a lovely show on at the moment in Waterloo's Utopia gallery. It's called Big Shots, and it's an exhibition of portraits of some of the top indigenous artists. At the opening in the weekend everyone was saying 'what beautiful faces.' But I couldn't help thinking: sit them on a milk crate on Redfern or Eveleigh street, and we'd be getting the Minister's new police force to move them along.
No black faces.
That's the talk, and that's scary enough. But the reality of the government's intention lives in their deeds. Their structures. Their legislation. And that's scarier still.
The Redfern-Waterloo Act, hustled rapid-fire through both houses at the end of last year, gave the precinct its very own, Thatcher-invented Development Corporation.
The development corporation is based on the 1981 prototype the LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation). As a model, it is conflict-of-interest made manifest.
Dreamed up by Mrs Thatcher to 'sweep away inertia and red tape,' the idea was that, in deprived and degraded areas, funding for social services could be extracted from private corporations in return for huge development concessions. Ten or 20 storeys for a local kindergarten, say, or health centre.
But the reality was different.
The reality, according to UK writer David Widgery, was that the LDDC "proved to be a highly secretive engine of corruption, a government financed estate agent which has done to the Docklands what the Highland clearances did to the north of Scotland." [Widgery, David, Some Lives - A GP's East End (Simon & Schuster)]
The idea was simple enough. As sole planning authority and landowner, the LDDC could buy vast tracts of land at artificially low prices and, after some basic improvements, make huge windfall gains by selling-on to speculators at prices which were still attractive and use these to fund social benefits.
For London, the residue included such monstrosities such as the $4 billion Canary Wharf Tower, where low prices and generous tax breaks allowed the developer to offer plush office space at half the rate of the City of London.
Which might have been worth it, had the promised social services actually eventuated. In the London Docks, though, of the 14,000 houses built, most are now occupied by stockbrokers. While the east London Borough of Newham remains the poorest (and most tubercular) in the UK, with 79 TB cases per 1000.
It's a bit like the incentive zoning push that was so disastrous for Sydney through the 60s, 70s and 80s - giving ten, or 12, or 15 extra storeys in return for a 'significant public benefit' - a through-site link, say. Except that once the building is built, and the through site link is - good heavens! - not actually there - what's going to happen?
The same Development Corporation model has been applied here, with - surprise - pretty much the same results. In the Rocks, in Pyrmont Ultimo, the ATP in Redfern and Green Square - with its acres of unloveable units and unbuildable office space. All of them pretending exhaustive consultation, and practicing outright secrecy.
Most development corporations, though, are subject to some constraints. Boundaries. Heritage (eg Royal Docks). Scrutiny.
Not in Redfern.
The RWA Act 2004 specifically enables the authority - wearing its three-cornered hat as landowner, developer and consent authority - to exempt itself from such annoyances as development controls, heritage constraints, public debate and even boundaries.
It specifically allows the authority to expand at will - commandeering lucrative sites such as the CUB site on Broadway, or the Cooks Cove tech-park near the airport.
There are no requirements for decisions to be taken publicly, or even publicized once made.
Consultation has been promised (but is not required); and in expert hands is anyway seldom more than a placebo.
The new Authority can acquire, demolish and redevelop any property in (or indeed out of) its area, and will run a staff of 'authorised officers' whose only function is to serve penalty notices, either "personally or by post".
This, since the RWA has no independent income, gives it a direct incentive to maximize both development and penalties, simply in order to generate some cash. Public interest? What? Where?
Plus, in order to facilitate all this, the RWA legislation "disapplies" (their word) the Heritage Act, wherever and whenever the Minister sees fit.
Checks and balances? Sure. The Act requires the Minister to make the Redfern plan publicly available, but not before it is approved. Not even before it is built.
The Act requires the Minister to consult the Board in making said Plan. But they're all his appointees, and he can sack them if they don't like it. In a move as insulting, to all of us, as naming Bennelong Point after Bennelong died of rum in a gutter, the Bill requires one - one - indigenous board-member, but the actual person, too, is the Minister's choice.
The Act allows (but does not require) the Minister to take public issues into account, if he so chooses.
The Act requires the Minister-for-Everything not to engage in any boundary-stretching activity before consulting, well, himself. Um, help me here - is that a check, or a balance?
Then, in case that's all too constraining, the Bill entitles the Authority to "do all such supplemental, incidental or consequential acts as may be necessary or expedient for the exercise of its functions."
You don't often see the word expedient in the statutes, not even in NSW.
Of course in some ways all this just spells out Sydney's fair-weather friendship with democracy: lip-service when skies are blue, summary abandonment at the first wisp of trouble.
But the issues at stake are not so abstract.
Even were their intentions honourable, the pressure on the RWA - just like pressure on any landowner - would eventually prove irresistible. Already there are proposals to develop both Redfern Park and Prince Alfred Park, since they too are in the way. Sooner or later, as The Block becomes surrounded by smooth apartments and designer office-space, land values will inflate beyond reistability.
With government taking so blatant an anti-Block position, you can expect it sooner rather than later.
What will result?
The aboriginal community, a national hub of indigenous culture since the 1930s, will go. The social problems will persist but not here, not on our streets, not in our global corridor, thank you very much.
The government, and selected developers, will be much, much richer. But Sydney as a whole will be the poorer.
Everyone knows this.
But people who don't live there don't care. While the locals care, but know no-one is listening.
That's why they throw bombs.
I must say I feel a bit the same.
Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps, as a landowner in the area, I should just lie back, enjoy it, and wait for my property value to rise.
But for some reason it seems important - to me, to the City - that the Block, as not just a centre but our centre of urban aboriginal culture - is not whitewashed over.
The human urge to make things - including cities - neat and clean and smooth and homogenous and above-all non-threatening is an understandable one. It is one of our best defences against chaos.
Understandable but, I believe, a mistake. We enforce conformity and neatness in our cities at our peril.
And there's another thing.
Redfern is often described as a "running sore". (The Brogden description, bulldozer solution). To me it is less 'running sore' than open wound - a lesion symptomatic of a much more serious underlying disease.
And as long as the disease continues, we need the sore where we can see it - not in the far out-burbs but here, in our faces, if only to keep us mindful that the disease, not just the sore, needs treatment.
You don't cure the disease by treating the symptoms. You don't solve social problems with bulldozers.
So what is the answer?
I'm not even sure there is one. But there's one thing I am sure of. It's time to start treating people like grownups.
We know this, really. So why don't we do it? The reason, I think, is fear.
Just as we fear that if we legalise drugs catastrophe will ensue, we also fear that if we allow the people of The Block any real self-determination, all hell will break loose.
We're not stupid to fear it. It is potentially scary - most of all, perhaps, for the community itself.
Then again, most of us probably fear that removing traffic signals would turn every intersection into a bloodbath. Whereas in fact the evidence so far shows the opposite; a significant accident reduction.
So maybe, before we destroy Sydney's only tangible remnant of indigenous urban culture, we should consider an experiment.
Take the French's Forest model. Give the local community freehold title so that they, like grownups, acting together or separately, can agree or not to stay or develop, or possibly both. And reap the rewards themselves.
You never know. It could work.
--
(*) 7.30 Report interview with genivieve Hussey, 15 March 2005, ABC-TV
--
Talk given by Elizabeth Farrelly on Thursday 17 March to the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (NSW Chapter) and the State Library of NSW"
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?
article_id=3641&group=webcast
"
The Redfern/Waterloo Project - What 'Other Eden'?
by Talk given by Elizabeth Farrelly 9:26pm Sun Apr 17 '05 (Modified on 2:31pm Fri Apr 29 '05) article#3641
[email protected]
I'm shocked. Usually when people draw comparisons between Australia and apartheid (as visiting South African activist-musician Vusi Mahlasela did this week (1)) I think, perhaps a little defensively, "it's not really like that here. Not anymore. Not now."
And so I am shocked, shocked and ashamed, to hear a 21st century NSW government, and a labour government at that, arguing once again to move Australia's oldest kernel of indigenous urban culture out. Out of the way. Out of the centre. Out of sight.
We should all be ashamed.
We're not, though. Far from it.
On the anniversary of T.J. Hickey's death, the Sydney Central Courier (a new Redfern rag distributed in honour of the neighbourhood's achieved status as a serious property market) ran a story on the Block.
Like a lamb in spring, the piece gamboled happily through Redfern's recent history - drugs, riots, domestic violence - before ending with a quote from Frank Sartor, the new Minister for pretty-well-everything-including-Redfern.
"We've seen [the government's Big Commitment]" he said, '…in extra policing, extra health services and on top of that, we've set up the [Redfern-Waterloo] Authority and we're putting structures in place to move forward.' [Alexandra Walker, Redfern reborn, Sydney Central Courier Feb (??) 2005]
Extra police. Structures in place. Move forward. Yup. That'll do it. Problem solved.
Now sure, the story was probably written by a cub reporter straight out of school. She was probably up against a deadline. But, excuses or no, it replicated exactly the kind of apathetic she'll-be-right non-think that got us into this mess in the first sorry place.
In the same week, by contrast, a snippet appeared in the Herald, noting a little known public-space experiment in London. Dubbed The Naked Street (after an obscure1950s film), the idea was being trialed in London's Exhibition Street but comes from the Netherlands. There, it seems, it has had considerable success. The problem was reducing traffic accidents. The novel solution - was removing (yes, removing) all road markings, barriers, lights and even curbs.
"If you treat people like idiots," said the urban designer working on the London plan, "they'll behave like idiots." [Ben Hamilton-Baillie, SMH 10 02 05; Denver Post 14 02 05; Arizona Star 15 02 05]
If you treat people like the criminally insane, the Redfern version might read, they'll behave that way.
Of course I'm not suggesting that the Redfern Problem, for want of a better phrase, is the police or the government's fault. Not in any immediate or demonstrable way.
It's just that - and this should be tattooed on every politician and bureaucrat's forehead -you don't solve social problems with bulldozers.
It's always tempting to think otherwise. Social problems are hard and messy: bulldozers are easy, clean, bold. Cathartic even.
But demolition will only send the problem somewhere else (be it Macquarie Fields, La Perouse, Mt Druitt - or just round the corner in Waterloo).
Even rebuilding will only give the same old problem a new home. Clean wallpaper.
People don't stop beating up their families because the kitchen is new. They don't stop doing drugs because police are on the street. And they don't stop feeling dispossessed because you send them somewhere else - again.
The only real difference is in the visuals. In what you see, and what you don't see. We so-sophisticated humans are so easily persuaded by what we can, or cannot, see.
And of course the government knows all this.
Why, then, does it engage in this redevelopment-as-social-panacea charade?
That's easy. The answer is a simple three-worder: growth, money, survival. The one word answer is simpler still: politics.
The thinking - if that's not too strong a word - is this. The Botany-to-CBD airport corridor is home to half the jobs in metropolitan Sydney. This makes it the economic engine of Australia, and the country's best hope for a globalopolis.
To do this, the city must expand. But it is a peninsula city, with water on three sides and North Sydney anyway a basket case.
So south is it.
Already the government has invested hugely in yuppifying the south-of-Redfern rustbelt (Green Square, the airport corridor, the world's newest ghost-railway, the rather sick-looking Cooks Cove tech-park scheme and now the M6).
But global Sydney is going nowhere unless it can connect all these on a string between the CBD and the airport.
What's taking them so long? The Block, Redfern.
The Block has become the blockage.
Everything else - industrial fabric, heritage, public park, wetlands - can be and has been swept aside. Leaving the Block as the last impediment in Sydney's race to full-on globalopolis status.
So however you cut it, from the government's point of view, the Block has to go.
This was not the rhetoric. Not at first. I was saying "the Block will go, it's only a matter of time, mark my words." And everyone else was saying "you're so cynical, give them a break, they could be genuine, let's see what comes."
Well, we've given them a break, and what has come is the "no black faces" policy.
The Minister does not believe aboriginal housing is "sustainable" on the Block. He refuses to say why. He proposes to move these people a few blocks down the road to Waterloo. But won't say why this is better.
So what is the reason, here, that the government is so reluctant to articulate? The reason is both simple, and shocking.
It's this. Moving the blacks from the Block is necessary so that we can't see them. So that new blow-in executives and lifestyle-residents of Redfern-to-be do not have to witness the street drinking, the bonfires, the in your face behaviour of Redfern's traditional people.
Whether it's a move of 50kms, or of half a km makes no difference. It's the attitude that is shocking. And the fact that it hasn't changed. At all.
Same old stuff. It's why station owners put the blacks just over the hill, out of sight. And why country towns put the missions 5 kms out of town.
We don't want to see them. It's their country, and we do not want to be reminded of what our presence here has done to them.
There's a lovely show on at the moment in Waterloo's Utopia gallery. It's called Big Shots, and it's an exhibition of portraits of some of the top indigenous artists. At the opening in the weekend everyone was saying 'what beautiful faces.' But I couldn't help thinking: sit them on a milk crate on Redfern or Eveleigh street, and we'd be getting the Minister's new police force to move them along.
No black faces.
That's the talk, and that's scary enough. But the reality of the government's intention lives in their deeds. Their structures. Their legislation. And that's scarier still.
The Redfern-Waterloo Act, hustled rapid-fire through both houses at the end of last year, gave the precinct its very own, Thatcher-invented Development Corporation.
The development corporation is based on the 1981 prototype the LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation). As a model, it is conflict-of-interest made manifest.
Dreamed up by Mrs Thatcher to 'sweep away inertia and red tape,' the idea was that, in deprived and degraded areas, funding for social services could be extracted from private corporations in return for huge development concessions. Ten or 20 storeys for a local kindergarten, say, or health centre.
But the reality was different.
The reality, according to UK writer David Widgery, was that the LDDC "proved to be a highly secretive engine of corruption, a government financed estate agent which has done to the Docklands what the Highland clearances did to the north of Scotland." [Widgery, David, Some Lives - A GP's East End (Simon & Schuster)]
The idea was simple enough. As sole planning authority and landowner, the LDDC could buy vast tracts of land at artificially low prices and, after some basic improvements, make huge windfall gains by selling-on to speculators at prices which were still attractive and use these to fund social benefits.
For London, the residue included such monstrosities such as the $4 billion Canary Wharf Tower, where low prices and generous tax breaks allowed the developer to offer plush office space at half the rate of the City of London.
Which might have been worth it, had the promised social services actually eventuated. In the London Docks, though, of the 14,000 houses built, most are now occupied by stockbrokers. While the east London Borough of Newham remains the poorest (and most tubercular) in the UK, with 79 TB cases per 1000.
It's a bit like the incentive zoning push that was so disastrous for Sydney through the 60s, 70s and 80s - giving ten, or 12, or 15 extra storeys in return for a 'significant public benefit' - a through-site link, say. Except that once the building is built, and the through site link is - good heavens! - not actually there - what's going to happen?
The same Development Corporation model has been applied here, with - surprise - pretty much the same results. In the Rocks, in Pyrmont Ultimo, the ATP in Redfern and Green Square - with its acres of unloveable units and unbuildable office space. All of them pretending exhaustive consultation, and practicing outright secrecy.
Most development corporations, though, are subject to some constraints. Boundaries. Heritage (eg Royal Docks). Scrutiny.
Not in Redfern.
The RWA Act 2004 specifically enables the authority - wearing its three-cornered hat as landowner, developer and consent authority - to exempt itself from such annoyances as development controls, heritage constraints, public debate and even boundaries.
It specifically allows the authority to expand at will - commandeering lucrative sites such as the CUB site on Broadway, or the Cooks Cove tech-park near the airport.
There are no requirements for decisions to be taken publicly, or even publicized once made.
Consultation has been promised (but is not required); and in expert hands is anyway seldom more than a placebo.
The new Authority can acquire, demolish and redevelop any property in (or indeed out of) its area, and will run a staff of 'authorised officers' whose only function is to serve penalty notices, either "personally or by post".
This, since the RWA has no independent income, gives it a direct incentive to maximize both development and penalties, simply in order to generate some cash. Public interest? What? Where?
Plus, in order to facilitate all this, the RWA legislation "disapplies" (their word) the Heritage Act, wherever and whenever the Minister sees fit.
Checks and balances? Sure. The Act requires the Minister to make the Redfern plan publicly available, but not before it is approved. Not even before it is built.
The Act requires the Minister to consult the Board in making said Plan. But they're all his appointees, and he can sack them if they don't like it. In a move as insulting, to all of us, as naming Bennelong Point after Bennelong died of rum in a gutter, the Bill requires one - one - indigenous board-member, but the actual person, too, is the Minister's choice.
The Act allows (but does not require) the Minister to take public issues into account, if he so chooses.
The Act requires the Minister-for-Everything not to engage in any boundary-stretching activity before consulting, well, himself. Um, help me here - is that a check, or a balance?
Then, in case that's all too constraining, the Bill entitles the Authority to "do all such supplemental, incidental or consequential acts as may be necessary or expedient for the exercise of its functions."
You don't often see the word expedient in the statutes, not even in NSW.
Of course in some ways all this just spells out Sydney's fair-weather friendship with democracy: lip-service when skies are blue, summary abandonment at the first wisp of trouble.
But the issues at stake are not so abstract.
Even were their intentions honourable, the pressure on the RWA - just like pressure on any landowner - would eventually prove irresistible. Already there are proposals to develop both Redfern Park and Prince Alfred Park, since they too are in the way. Sooner or later, as The Block becomes surrounded by smooth apartments and designer office-space, land values will inflate beyond reistability.
With government taking so blatant an anti-Block position, you can expect it sooner rather than later.
What will result?
The aboriginal community, a national hub of indigenous culture since the 1930s, will go. The social problems will persist but not here, not on our streets, not in our global corridor, thank you very much.
The government, and selected developers, will be much, much richer. But Sydney as a whole will be the poorer.
Everyone knows this.
But people who don't live there don't care. While the locals care, but know no-one is listening.
That's why they throw bombs.
I must say I feel a bit the same.
Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps, as a landowner in the area, I should just lie back, enjoy it, and wait for my property value to rise.
But for some reason it seems important - to me, to the City - that the Block, as not just a centre but our centre of urban aboriginal culture - is not whitewashed over.
The human urge to make things - including cities - neat and clean and smooth and homogenous and above-all non-threatening is an understandable one. It is one of our best defences against chaos.
Understandable but, I believe, a mistake. We enforce conformity and neatness in our cities at our peril.
And there's another thing.
Redfern is often described as a "running sore". (The Brogden description, bulldozer solution). To me it is less 'running sore' than open wound - a lesion symptomatic of a much more serious underlying disease.
And as long as the disease continues, we need the sore where we can see it - not in the far out-burbs but here, in our faces, if only to keep us mindful that the disease, not just the sore, needs treatment.
You don't cure the disease by treating the symptoms. You don't solve social problems with bulldozers.
So what is the answer?
I'm not even sure there is one. But there's one thing I am sure of. It's time to start treating people like grownups.
We know this, really. So why don't we do it? The reason, I think, is fear.
Just as we fear that if we legalise drugs catastrophe will ensue, we also fear that if we allow the people of The Block any real self-determination, all hell will break loose.
We're not stupid to fear it. It is potentially scary - most of all, perhaps, for the community itself.
Then again, most of us probably fear that removing traffic signals would turn every intersection into a bloodbath. Whereas in fact the evidence so far shows the opposite; a significant accident reduction.
So maybe, before we destroy Sydney's only tangible remnant of indigenous urban culture, we should consider an experiment.
Take the French's Forest model. Give the local community freehold title so that they, like grownups, acting together or separately, can agree or not to stay or develop, or possibly both. And reap the rewards themselves.
You never know. It could work.
--
(*) 7.30 Report interview with genivieve Hussey, 15 March 2005, ABC-TV
--
Talk given by Elizabeth Farrelly on Thursday 17 March to the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (NSW Chapter) and the State Library of NSW"
Last edited:
Hi Geoff,
apologies for that.
The first article "No Black faces on the Block?" seems to have initially come from this website
http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=408
and was featured in May 2005.
A similar type of headline to the :"No black faces on the Block" is that of a Sydney Morning Herald article dated 5 March 2005 copied below.
http://smh.com.au/news/National/Har...n/2005/03/04/1109700683211.html?oneclick=true
"Hardly a black face on the Block - Sartor's vision for Redfern
By Tim Dick, Urban Affairs Reporter
March 5, 2005
Page Tools
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On the hottest day last month, the minister responsible for Redfern, Frank Sartor, walked into the offices of the Aboriginal Housing Company and dropped a bombshell: he didn't want any Aboriginal housing on the Block.
He spoke on the evening before the board of his new Redfern-Waterloo Authority met for the first time, just metres away from the site of last year's riots near Redfern railway station.
The reaction among the company's assembled Aboriginal directors was almost as hot as the 38-degree temperature outside. According to the directors, Mr Sartor said he wanted no Aboriginal housing on what has long been the focal point of urban Aboriginal life in Australia - a point his spokeswoman did not deny yesterday.
The company had planned to build 62 new homes on the Block, but Mr Sartor's rejection of this prompted one of its directors, Peter Walker, to say: "I believe ... the Government, for whom Mr Sartor represents, are wanting no, to be blunt, no black faces on the Block. That's the position pushed by some property developers. I, as a director, am totally against that." According to a confidential briefing paper prepared by the housing company, Mr Sartor said if he was forced to accept some Aboriginal housing, he would consider no more than 20 homes, as long as few of them were for affordable housing and the remaining land was used for other purposes.
The paper, obtained by the Herald, said either option would force the company "to abandon its charter" to provide affordable housing. "The AHC has promised to deliver 62 houses on the Block for five years with the State Government's blessing and assistance, there will have to be some serious consideration as to how the AHC can back down from this promise without looking like it is bowing to Government pressure ...
"By not providing an adequate amount of houses on the Block, or something other than houses, the AHC loses the opportunity to create a beacon of hope for the next generation ... Fewer people living on the Block didn't stop the riot from happening. Whereas our research shows that, if we had more good families on the Block, we could have eliminated the problems before they got out of hand ...
"There is a very real possibility that the minister's opinion is being influenced by developers who have publicly stated they would like to see no Aborigines living on the Block before they invest in Redfern ... The Minister strongly indicated that the pressure was on him to cut a deal well before the next election."
Mr Sartor's spokeswoman, Zoe Allebone, said he had made it clear he did not believe the 62-house plan was "a sustainable vision for the Block" but declined to say why.
"The minister also made it clear there's no intention to reduce the level of public housing or Aboriginal housing in Redfern or Waterloo," she said.
The Government's position is that any Aborigines moved out of the Block would be accommodated elsewhere in the two suburbs.
Mr Walker, recalling the meeting with Mr Sartor, said he "came across pretty strong," making it clear he wanted no Aboriginal accommodation on the Block. Another director, Bruce Gale, said: "I wasn't happy when Sartor took over. He's got an agenda. He doesn't want any Aborigines in Redfern. He wants the area developed totally commercial ... The Block is a significant area for Aboriginal people. They're not going to move out of it."
The community would be "livid" if Mr Sartor got his way and "I want Frank at the head of the queue when the riots start"."
The second article was copied and pasted on an Aboriginal Rights web-site. It appears to to have been copied from
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=3641&group=webcast
The original article (link above) also has a map of areas covered by the Redfern-Waterloo Authority. A link to this map appears below.
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/rwa-mapgn4ny4.jpg
Cheers Ajax
apologies for that.
The first article "No Black faces on the Block?" seems to have initially come from this website
http://s7digital.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=408
and was featured in May 2005.
A similar type of headline to the :"No black faces on the Block" is that of a Sydney Morning Herald article dated 5 March 2005 copied below.
http://smh.com.au/news/National/Har...n/2005/03/04/1109700683211.html?oneclick=true
"Hardly a black face on the Block - Sartor's vision for Redfern
By Tim Dick, Urban Affairs Reporter
March 5, 2005
Page Tools
Email to a friend Printer format
On the hottest day last month, the minister responsible for Redfern, Frank Sartor, walked into the offices of the Aboriginal Housing Company and dropped a bombshell: he didn't want any Aboriginal housing on the Block.
He spoke on the evening before the board of his new Redfern-Waterloo Authority met for the first time, just metres away from the site of last year's riots near Redfern railway station.
The reaction among the company's assembled Aboriginal directors was almost as hot as the 38-degree temperature outside. According to the directors, Mr Sartor said he wanted no Aboriginal housing on what has long been the focal point of urban Aboriginal life in Australia - a point his spokeswoman did not deny yesterday.
The company had planned to build 62 new homes on the Block, but Mr Sartor's rejection of this prompted one of its directors, Peter Walker, to say: "I believe ... the Government, for whom Mr Sartor represents, are wanting no, to be blunt, no black faces on the Block. That's the position pushed by some property developers. I, as a director, am totally against that." According to a confidential briefing paper prepared by the housing company, Mr Sartor said if he was forced to accept some Aboriginal housing, he would consider no more than 20 homes, as long as few of them were for affordable housing and the remaining land was used for other purposes.
The paper, obtained by the Herald, said either option would force the company "to abandon its charter" to provide affordable housing. "The AHC has promised to deliver 62 houses on the Block for five years with the State Government's blessing and assistance, there will have to be some serious consideration as to how the AHC can back down from this promise without looking like it is bowing to Government pressure ...
"By not providing an adequate amount of houses on the Block, or something other than houses, the AHC loses the opportunity to create a beacon of hope for the next generation ... Fewer people living on the Block didn't stop the riot from happening. Whereas our research shows that, if we had more good families on the Block, we could have eliminated the problems before they got out of hand ...
"There is a very real possibility that the minister's opinion is being influenced by developers who have publicly stated they would like to see no Aborigines living on the Block before they invest in Redfern ... The Minister strongly indicated that the pressure was on him to cut a deal well before the next election."
Mr Sartor's spokeswoman, Zoe Allebone, said he had made it clear he did not believe the 62-house plan was "a sustainable vision for the Block" but declined to say why.
"The minister also made it clear there's no intention to reduce the level of public housing or Aboriginal housing in Redfern or Waterloo," she said.
The Government's position is that any Aborigines moved out of the Block would be accommodated elsewhere in the two suburbs.
Mr Walker, recalling the meeting with Mr Sartor, said he "came across pretty strong," making it clear he wanted no Aboriginal accommodation on the Block. Another director, Bruce Gale, said: "I wasn't happy when Sartor took over. He's got an agenda. He doesn't want any Aborigines in Redfern. He wants the area developed totally commercial ... The Block is a significant area for Aboriginal people. They're not going to move out of it."
The community would be "livid" if Mr Sartor got his way and "I want Frank at the head of the queue when the riots start"."
The second article was copied and pasted on an Aboriginal Rights web-site. It appears to to have been copied from
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=3641&group=webcast
The original article (link above) also has a map of areas covered by the Redfern-Waterloo Authority. A link to this map appears below.
http://www.active.org.au/sydney/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/rwa-mapgn4ny4.jpg
Cheers Ajax
Last edited:
XBenX and knightm,
on the subject of snow check out http://www.skihimalaya.com/site/gulmarg/mountain/gondola.html
BTW I never expected to see snow and Redfern mentioned in the same post.
Ajax
on the subject of snow check out http://www.skihimalaya.com/site/gulmarg/mountain/gondola.html
BTW I never expected to see snow and Redfern mentioned in the same post.
Ajax
love the website! I first read about gulmarg in an aussie ski mage (think it was powderhound) in the mid 90's. I was in high school, getting my snow fix by camping at jindabyne and hitching up the hill. There was a great story of a guy who wnet there on a rumour, it was partially open (it suffered from several closures) and he got sick pow plus glop down low, lots of hiking, stories of guides who wouldn't ski "over that ridge" coz of kashmiry battles (read you could get shot!) Definitely adventure skiing heaven. Dunno if the missus will be keen though...Pushed my luck with skiing "almateo" in kazakstan 6 yrs ago. Thats most far out place i've been so far.
yes it is strange that skiing and redfern be mentioned in the same post - but not strange that two of the coolest activities are shared by some of us really intelligent peoples.
yes it is strange that skiing and redfern be mentioned in the same post - but not strange that two of the coolest activities are shared by some of us really intelligent peoples.
btw ajax coupla great articles there - I only had time to finish reading them now - Its pretty nervy waiting to see what frank does next. My job is split between the block and the old redfern primary school @ 180 george st so both my venues are potentially gunna go. The RWA just says "trust us" and "no plans" but they certainly wont give us anything in writing or lease docs etc.
Either way if you want lmedium term cg and can handle the cashflow then its one to watch.
Either way if you want lmedium term cg and can handle the cashflow then its one to watch.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...-for-inner-city/2005/09/17/1126750168486.html
"Chic new makeover plan for inner city
By Alex Mitchell, State Political Editor
September 18, 2005
The Sun-Herald
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Sydney's most run-down inner-city suburbs will undergo a $50 million facelift with the aim of turning them into districts like New York's Greenwich Village and London's Notting Hill.
The four-year make-over will help transform the current accommodation, eat-out attractions and lifestyle from pre- and post-war grunge to professional chic.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said yesterday the people living and working in Redfern, Waterloo, Darlington and Eveleigh, the heart of old industrial Sydney, would see their area "revitalised" by the ambitious capital works program.
It would include $20 million on upgrades of the shopping areas along Redfern and Regents streets, scheduled for completion by late 2007.
The council's revamp will be supported by projects worth hundreds of millions being planned by the Redfern Waterloo Authority, the statutory body headed by Planning Minister Frank Sartor.
The recreation component of Ms Moore's plan involves an $11 million revamp of Prince Alfred Park, including a 50-metre swimming pool, a $500,000 upgrade of the skate park in Waterloo Park as well as $1 million upgrading three parks in the Eveleigh area and three in East Redfern.
Advertisement
AdvertisementMs Moore said the $19 million restoration of Redfern Park, adjacent to the home of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, would provide a "jewel in the crown" for recreational and sporting uses.
"It is imperative that the final design and facilities for Redfern Park appeal to the broadest cross-section of the community and encourage widespread usage," she said.
"There have to be trees, grass and picnic areas, as well as plenty of open space for sport and recreation both youth and senior, both informal and organised.
"Our plans will provide the greatest good for the greatest number, including greater community access, space for athlete training and facilities for spectators." "
Ajax
"Chic new makeover plan for inner city
By Alex Mitchell, State Political Editor
September 18, 2005
The Sun-Herald
Page Tools
Email to a friend Printer format
Sydney's most run-down inner-city suburbs will undergo a $50 million facelift with the aim of turning them into districts like New York's Greenwich Village and London's Notting Hill.
The four-year make-over will help transform the current accommodation, eat-out attractions and lifestyle from pre- and post-war grunge to professional chic.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said yesterday the people living and working in Redfern, Waterloo, Darlington and Eveleigh, the heart of old industrial Sydney, would see their area "revitalised" by the ambitious capital works program.
It would include $20 million on upgrades of the shopping areas along Redfern and Regents streets, scheduled for completion by late 2007.
The council's revamp will be supported by projects worth hundreds of millions being planned by the Redfern Waterloo Authority, the statutory body headed by Planning Minister Frank Sartor.
The recreation component of Ms Moore's plan involves an $11 million revamp of Prince Alfred Park, including a 50-metre swimming pool, a $500,000 upgrade of the skate park in Waterloo Park as well as $1 million upgrading three parks in the Eveleigh area and three in East Redfern.
Advertisement
AdvertisementMs Moore said the $19 million restoration of Redfern Park, adjacent to the home of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, would provide a "jewel in the crown" for recreational and sporting uses.
"It is imperative that the final design and facilities for Redfern Park appeal to the broadest cross-section of the community and encourage widespread usage," she said.
"There have to be trees, grass and picnic areas, as well as plenty of open space for sport and recreation both youth and senior, both informal and organised.
"Our plans will provide the greatest good for the greatest number, including greater community access, space for athlete training and facilities for spectators." "
Ajax
Map of state significant areas within Redfern-Waterloo
i.e. local govt planning permission not required for development
http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/maps/050525 RWA State Significance.pdf
These are the areas initially earmarked for major redevelopment by the Redfern Waterloo authority.
Ajax
i.e. local govt planning permission not required for development
http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/maps/050525 RWA State Significance.pdf
These are the areas initially earmarked for major redevelopment by the Redfern Waterloo authority.
Ajax
This property in Phillip Street was listed at a low $405,000. It wasn't on the market for long.
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bi...0&p=30&t=res&ty=&snf=rbs&ag=&cu=&fmt=&header=
Some of the more basic houses in Redfern are being offered at lower prices...those that are very competitively priced seem to be snapped up very quickly.
Ajax
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bi...0&p=30&t=res&ty=&snf=rbs&ag=&cu=&fmt=&header=
Some of the more basic houses in Redfern are being offered at lower prices...those that are very competitively priced seem to be snapped up very quickly.
Ajax
Hi Alpina,
its not near the block. Its at the southern end of South Sydney oval. Not the most popular part of Redfern as it is close to housing commission-but is still ok given $ to be spent upgrading Redfern oval/Redfern Park by Sydney City Council and RWA redevelopment to area comprising Rachael Forster hospital.
http://www.realestate.com.au/objects/props/0417/102650417,20050906141727,p,6,[email protected]
http://pn3.whereis.com.au/gns/map0PCF0KWNTLOZMAEDF.gif
Ajax
its not near the block. Its at the southern end of South Sydney oval. Not the most popular part of Redfern as it is close to housing commission-but is still ok given $ to be spent upgrading Redfern oval/Redfern Park by Sydney City Council and RWA redevelopment to area comprising Rachael Forster hospital.
http://www.realestate.com.au/objects/props/0417/102650417,20050906141727,p,6,[email protected]
http://pn3.whereis.com.au/gns/map0PCF0KWNTLOZMAEDF.gif
Ajax
hi jamie,
kinda typical size in the area - 90sq, 120sq, 160sq mts are how they tpically range.
this is probably a 4mt wide number
will be interesting to find out how much it finally sold for.
also, for people that study the redfern/surry hills market, have you noticed the influx of commercial properties that have been coming on the market of late?
cheers,
julie
kinda typical size in the area - 90sq, 120sq, 160sq mts are how they tpically range.
this is probably a 4mt wide number
will be interesting to find out how much it finally sold for.
also, for people that study the redfern/surry hills market, have you noticed the influx of commercial properties that have been coming on the market of late?
cheers,
julie