WATERLOO GOING SOUTH It was December 2015 when the NSW government announced that the largest inner-city public housing estate in Australia would undergo a major redevelopment. It took until mid2017 — when the master planning process began — for community to begin to grasp the details of the scale of the redevelopment, which would also include a new Metro station. Fast-forward to March 2022, and plans for Waterloo South have finally been put on exhibition for all to see. It’s been a long road. Geoff Turnbull explains how we got here. he winter 2017 issue of Inner Sydney Voice magazine focused on the Land and Housing Corporation’s visioning consultation for the Waterloo redevelopment. That visioning included both the Waterloo estate and the Metro station. But in May 2018, Transport for NSW decided to split the Metro consultation from the estate, breaking undertakings given to the community that the sites would be progressed together. In August 2018, LAHC took three options for the Waterloo estate masterplan to community consultation based on the visioning input. Only one option retained any of the existing high-rise. In January 2019, LAHC produced its preferred masterplan with none of the existing high-rises retained. While LAHC was carrying out its consultations, the City was busy with a campaign to wrestle back planning control of Waterloo and a number of other districts in the LGA. Just after LAHC produced its preferred masterplan, Council released an
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alternative masterplan retaining and refurbishing the existing towers, with a low-to-mid-rise development for the rest of the estate rather than LAHC’s high-rise tower concept. The Council campaign was successful, and in November 2019, it became the planning authority for the Waterloo estate rather than NSW’s planning department. Knowing Council had a very different view about the existing high-rise, LAHC decided to remove that section of the estate from its proposal and only submitted its request for Waterloo South, with rezoning for the rest of the estate to follow. Rather than proceed with LAHC’s proposal, in February 2021, Council produced an alternative mid-rise proposal. Council was keen to get affordable housing delivered as part of the project and it increased the density on its earlier proposal to match LAHC’s high-rise proposition. LAHC and Council remained in disagreement with two competing visions for the site. Council needed LAHC agreement on community infrastructure to lodge their plan, and LAHC declined. The planning minister set a deadline
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for the issue to be resolved and when that timeframe was not met he removed the planning proposal authority (PPA) power from Council and gave it to NSW’s planning department. The minister also established a threeperson independent advisory group (IAG) to look at disagreements between Council and LAHC over economic viability and affordable housing. In April 2021, the new PPA then submitted the Council proposal to the “gateway” section of the NSW’s planning department responsible for checking such proposals before exhibition. With IAG advice, it requested the PPA to undertake further changes and studies in June 2021. This work was completed earlier this year and — after sign-off from the gateway — a revised proposal from the planning department is currently on exhibition until 29 April. THE CONSEQUENCE OF THIS HISTORY FOR THE EXHIBITION The documents for this exhibition are layered on top of each other, making it very difficult for tenants to know what is in the final planning proposal. All the
