Redevelopment logic !

The Sydney harbourside suburb of Millers Point has been the site of public housing for over a century.   Many of these homes are well past their prime and they contain 219 residents who pay just twenty-five percent of their welfare payments in rent - and they enjoy some of the best water views in Sydney.

Plans to redevelop this suburb are drawing flak and this opposition does not make commercial sense.   Home sites at Millers Point can be expected to sell for $ 2.5 million each and this would finance a ratio of four new public housing dwellings to each existing old home.   We have a waiting list for public housing that is 57,000 applications in length.

It makes good commercial sense to redevelop.   The old homes lack modern amenities and are a drag on maintenance costs.  It makes perfectly good sense to free up money and use it to expand the stock of public housing to accommodate more people who have unmet needs.    The sticking point seems to be that existing residents don't want to move - and don't want to lose their marvellous water views.

This argument is fast heading into " entitlement " thinking  !     Existing public housing tenants claim they have a " right " to those water views simply because they had the luck to be awarded housing there when their number came up on the waiting list.    This ignores the fact that they are tying up public money that could be used to house more people and alleviate distress.    Obviously, establishing new public housing will be far removed from the most sought after areas of Sydney because the housing authorities will need to make the most use of the funds released and establish new homes on cheaper land.

This  " entitlement "  claim seeks to elevate the status of public housing clients above those of ordinary people who pay rent.   A building owner has the right to refuse to renew rental agreements if a building needs to be demolished and replaced with a bigger, better source of apartments.  Private people in the rental market face this uncertainty and are well aware that they do not have " rights " to remain.   That only becomes pertinent if the building owners want to demolish while a tenancy agreement still has time to run.

There are many inequities in the running of public housing in this state.   The needs of the average person change several times over their lifetime.  It is expected that public housing tenants will need to move several times to suit these needs, but in many cases they refuse and this causes imbalances.    We often have a single person living in a multi-bedroom house - because the family have grown up and moved on.

Better managed public housing could accommodate more people and it needs to be made clear that the provision of homes is on a " needs " basis.   If a public housing tenant refuses to comply with periodic rehousing to accommodate their changed status, eviction will follow and their name will be removed from the public housing list.

" Mutual obligations " clearly apply in making public housing work !