Friends,
Our community has been working hard for our neighbours, and they convey their deep thanks for your great support.
Sue Williams from the Sydney Morning Herald published a great follow-up piece online and in print last week. Story is below:
We met with the Mayor and her team again last week to repeat our call for the City's direct intervention in the situation. The City has again declined the option to buy the developer out of the developer's problem. The City has referred us to the State Government. The State Government has not replied, so we have sent the letter below, hoping it will lead to urgent direct action by both levels of government.
Please pass our update on, and thank you all again.
Mike
Our letter to government
Thursday 22 August 2024
Rose Jackson, MP
Paul Scully, MP
Jihad Dib, MP
Clover Moore, Mayor, City of Sydney
Alex Greenwich, NSW State Member for Sydney
Dear Rose, Paul, Jihad, Clover and Alex,
Re: Selwyn Street, Paddington boarding house residents
Further to our recent meetings and communications, we are again writing to you to ask for your urgent intervention into this critical situation.
In summary, a developer (LFD Homes) bought 4 boarding houses that are home to 30 mostly vulnerable people. LFD Homes intends to convert them into 4 luxury apartments. The Council has rejected the DA and the developer has now taken Council to the Land and Environment Court to appeal the decision. We are strongly supporting the Council in defending the appeal. Our neighbours face the very real prospect of homelessness, and we have a large community campaign underway to keep our neighbours in their homes.
In the course of our engagement with the COS Council and the NSW State Government over the last weeks it has become evident that there is no appetite from any of you to take urgent, meaningful and direct action to protect our neighbours.
Council has directed our neighbours to the State Government for help. The State Government has not yet responded to our communications on their behalf. Alex’s office replied last week to our numerous calls over many months for his support, and we are pending a meeting date. While this happens, our neighbours face homelessness.
We understand the many competing priorities that you have. We also understand where the responsibilities lie with each level of government. Our neighbours and our community have been told by the City of Sydney:
1. It is not the current Council’s policy to buy residential real estate. The COS is unwilling to buy the developer out. The COS can change the policy, as was done for the carpark in Redfern just recently. The COS’s refusal to purchase the boarding houses is based on policy and not a binding statutory obligation. This option must remain open as a means to protect our neighbours.
2. It is the State Government’s responsibility to introduce an immediate (even temporary) moratorium on rent increases via the Housing SEPP. This change does not require an act of parliament, it can be done at the stroke of a pen.
3. It is the State Government’s responsibility to change the Housing SEPP to make the sale of boarding houses conditional on them remaining boarding houses, in perpetuity. This change does not require an act of parliament, it too can be done at the stroke of a pen.
4. If our neighbours are served with eviction notices, they should just stay. As it is written, the SEPP allows the landlord to use reasonable means, including force, to remove our neighbours when evicted.
Taking direct action is a choice of government. Your governments have chosen not to act directly. Instead of you working urgently together for our neighbours, your governments have instead passed our neighbours between yourselves.
We know that you all have great empathy for their situation.
Your empathy though is not going to prevent our neighbour, John from going back to rough sleeping as he was 20 years ago. John is now 70 years old. He has a chronic health condition. He does not want to leave the safety of his home for the streets. He is a good man. He cares for his mates. He deserves certainty. He deserves to be safe.
You need to come together and change the laws that you have the means to change. You need to do that now. You need to figure out a solution. You need to step in and protect our neighbours. Quickly.
If you do not:
· Sav, Manuel, Alfie, Barry, Clem, Gerson, Ray, Steve, Geraldo, Little Rod, Cel, Big Rod, Ed, Kiwi Pete, Christian, Graham, John, Gabriel, Guilherme, John, Imre, Ray, Jeff, Nick, Richard, Brian, Jesse, Warwick and Darren will be out on the street. With a recorded ~1% vacancy rate in the city, that is exactly where our friends will end up.
· At 80 years of age, a victim of multiple strokes and with severe mobility issues, Ray is going to have to find a new place to live. He has lived there for 45 years. Sav has lived there for 50 years, Little Rod for 20 years, Alfie for 35 years. They are all 70 years of age or more. Imagine being forced to find a new home at their ages. Imagine living with the stress of not finding a home, at any age.
· Many of our friends will have no choice but to join the long queue for social housing where they will be behind the many acute crisis cases for accommodation.
· Best case, some of the men will find somewhere to live. The problem is the aged pensioners there pay rent of between $150-$200 per week. Others pay up to $250 per week. If they can find somewhere in the inner city, that rent will jump to more than $350 per week. If they can find something in the outer suburbs that rent becomes $250-$300 per week. Most cannot afford the sparse levels of accommodation available; whereas a park bench is free.
· The developer can kick them out with less than 1 months’ notice in most cases.
What you do, or don’t do, matters. You are elected to protect all of your citizens. That responsibility is at its greatest when it comes to the most vulnerable in our society. Please do what you need to do.
Our community holds you responsible for what happens to our neighbours. We will continue to work publicly and actively with like-minded elected officials, groups and others over the coming weeks and months to do everything we can to save our neighbours.
We have their backs. You need to have their backs also.
On behalf of our neighbours, we await your direct action.
Yours sincerely,