The New South Wales housing minister, Rose Jackson, is moving to reassure tenants in the Waterloo South public housing they will be rehoused within the suburb and offered spots back in the complex when the controversial development is completed.
The government has been fending off criticism for proceeding with the sale and is pushing forward with plans to sell more land to developers for housing, despite promising to end privatisation and freeze the sale of all social housing assets.
Jackson said the sale of public housing estates in Glebe and Eveleigh will be paused under that freeze.
Despite the promise to keep Waterloo residents close to their home, tenants living in the inner-city block say they remain in the dark and have been calling for more clarity from the government.
The premier, Chris Minns, last week confirmed the Waterloo sale would go ahead with “improvements” to the social and affordable housing mandates outlined by the previous government.
Jackson said the redevelopment of Waterloo was a “great opportunity to deliver a substantial uplift” for both social and general housing supply in the inner city, but only if the government improved on the “botched” Perrottet government plan.
She said residents would be moved to new dwellings in Waterloo.
“People will be given the opportunity to relocate in the local area and to return to that building if they want,” she said.
But residents said the new government has yet to inform them about their future and accused Labor of “doing exactly what the Liberals did”.
Ron Hoenig, the state MP for Heffron who is now the local government minister, had written to tenants prior to the election urging them to send a message – “Hands off Waterloo” – to the Liberal party by voting Labor.
“You have the opportunity to stop the sell-off of the Waterloo public housing estate and protect your home,” he wrote.
Karyn Brown, who has been a Waterloo resident for 21 years, said: “A lot of people thought it wouldn’t go ahead because that’s what they said.”
She said that given almost half of the tenants of the 749 social housing units on the site are over the age of 55 and the redevelopment could take 15-20 years, most tenants would be unlikely to return.
Brown said she felt let down.
“One of my neighbours on election night said to me ‘I can finally sleep tonight because we’re safe now’,” she said. “Now we know it’s not true.”
Theresa Haines, who grew up in Waterloo, said her mother – a resident in one of the buildings flagged for redevelopment – wasn’t aware that it was going ahead.
“It’s pretty sad, because this is our community, and we have people that have been living here for decades, and [for] most of their lives,” she said.
Faced with a statewide housing crisis, the Minns government has focused on increasing housing supply. The premier has also requested departments to find unused land to be sold for housing.
Minns on Tuesday repeatedly said such actions, including the sale of social housing, was not privatisation and was in line with policies taken to the election.
“I don’t think this meets even the loosest definition of privatisation,” he said.
The government has pledged to ensure 30% of homes built on government land will be social and affordable housing.
But the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, said such land sales were a form of privatisation.
“If you have a public asset that is sold to a private developer, that is privatisation,” he said.
Macquarie University housing expert Dr Alistair Sisson argued the Waterloo redevelopment would result in a reduction in the state’s overall public housing stock that could take up to a decade to replace.
“There are more than 50,000 households on the waiting list for public housing in NSW. There are more than 1,000 on the waiting list in the inner city,” he said.
“These households will now have to wait longer because tenants in Waterloo South will be forced to relocate.”
The Greens housing spokesperson, Jenny Leong, said the government should not be selling the estate but if they do push ahead, the public housing residents should be allowed to stay and have their homes refurbished.
“In the midst of a housing affordability crisis and massive public housing shortage, there is no excuse for evicting people from their public housing homes and into housing insecurity,” she said.
Any further development at the site should commit at least 45% of the new apartments as public housing, with the remainder for affordable homes, Leong said.
