Bellambi redevelopment plan glossing over the lives of residents
The Bellambi People and Place Plan put in place by the NSW government is looking to displace public housing residents from their homes to make way for social housing and private developers.
A key distinction between the two is that public housing is owned and subsidised by the state government, in this case Homes NSW. On the other hand, social housing is an umbrella term for housing owned by private companies, most notably the Community Housing Industry Association of NSW (CHIA NSW), a not-for-profit organisation that is not held to the same standard as Homes NSW and the state government.
Public housing residents are also not being promised a like-for-like replacement of their homes, which would have guaranteed the same number of rooms, amenities, and yard space. Residents don’t even know if they’ll be living in the same area or if they’d be moved from their prime locations next to the beach to make way for private developers and property investors.
On the 28th of March, a protest organised by the residents of Bellambi and the Illawarra branch of the NSW Socialists party took place, where residents and those in solidarity voiced their discontent with the redevelopment plan. This has been part of an ongoing campaign where residents and the party have been voicing their concerns and demanding more from the government across council meetings and community consultations.
NSW Socialists Illawarra member Luke Hocking has been at the forefront of the effort to protect Bellambi residents from this redevelopment plan. Having questioned the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully, Mr Hocking was told that residents won’t get a like-for-like replacement of their homes, and when informed of the campaign against the Bellambi redevelopment plan, Mr Scully said to Mr Hocking, “Alright mate, I think I’ll win.”
“The thing that I think that the government really forgets is that these are human beings whose lives they’re upending,” Mr Hocking told The Gala.
“There’s just been no attempt to go out and speak to these people and what they think about [the Bellambi redevelopment plan].”
In the Homes NSW redevelopment plan, public housing residents are nowhere to be seen in their list of key stakeholders, nor are they addressed in any key communications from the state government.
Neglect for public housing residents extends to the state of their homes, where residents report that requests for repairs are being delayed and even avoided by Homes NSW.
Annie Leeks, a public housing resident who has lived in Bellambi for 35 years, is fearful that she’ll lose the home she has lived in for most of her life, which she has invested time and money into renovating.
“[The government] lied to us, selling us off privately isn’t helping the ten to fifteen year waiting list for families to come and move into a home,” Ms Leeks told The Gala.
Homes NSW has a waiting list for families to move into public housing. 35 years ago, Ms Leeks had to wait five years for a home.
She recalls being told for years that the homes in Bellambi had no asbestos and that there was no need to demolish houses and remove it. At recent community meetings, the government has clarified to residents that asbestos is indeed an additional reason for the redevelopment.
“There’s the first lie, the second lie, telling us that [the government] is going to knock all the houses down and then you can come back to your home afterwards,” she said.
“Knocking my house down and then putting me in a unit, is that coming back to my home?
“No, it’s not.”
Council workers have supposedly been told to not carry out any requests by Bellambi residents such as repairs and landscaping, leading to a build-up of rubbish on the streets.
“[A council worker] knows me, I always say hi when he drives past and he goes ‘we’re not allowed to [landscape] anymore, you didn’t hear it from me,’ and I go, ‘what do you mean?’” Ms Leeks recalled.
NSW Socialists have demanded the state government to take responsibility and have all homes and units in the new Bellambi redevelopment plan be public housing instead of being privately sold off. Right now, the state government is only promising 30% of new homes built will be social housing, a promise that has not been incorporated into the actual Bellambi People and Place Plan.
“It’s a real disaster for the working class people who live down at Bellambi beach,” Mr Hocking said.
“It’s pretty clear that the rich, the tourism sector, and the Airbnb landlords, they’re looking out at Bellambi and wondering ‘why are we letting poor people live here? We could be making millions of dollars off of this."
