From spokesperson at redwatch.org.au Thu Jan 8 09:13:04 2026 From: spokesperson at redwatch.org.au (Geoff Turnbull (REDWatch Spokesperson)) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2026 22:13:04 +0000 Subject: [North Eveleigh] Feb REDWatch People and Place 10 Feb / Waterloo Metro OSD / Social Impact Assessment Issues / Design Excellence and other Planning Exhibitions and Changes Message-ID: Dear REDWatch members, supporters and agencies, (This email is being resent as it looks like people may not have received it yesterday - if you did receive it please disregard this resend and accept our apologies for doubling up) REDWatch Tuesday 10 February - Focus on People and Place Plan Waterloo Metro OSD Changes - Exhibition Until 14 January 2026 Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Concerns raised by Metro OSD Design Excellence Changes A New Approach to Strategic Planning with Draft Sydney Plan - Exhibition until 27 February 2026 Waterloo and Eveleigh referenced in Draft Sydney Plan Please note - this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue underlined word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a document or to get more information. REDWatch Tuesday 10 February - Focus on People and Place Plan The focus of the first REDWatch meeting will be on the Homes NSW Waterloo South People and Place Plan. This plan was made public just before Stockland did its consultation so there was no time to unpack and discuss this plan and its implications, hence we are looking at it first up in 2026. We have had to move this meeting back a few days to Tuesday 10th February to accommodate appropriate staff availability at Homes NSW and Stockland. This REDWatch meeting is at 6pm on Tuesday 10th February 2026 at Counterpoint's Factory Community Centre, 67 Raglan Street, Waterloo or join us on line by Zoom http://tinyurl.com/RedwatchMeetingZoom. Back in late October 2025 when the People and Place Plan was released REDWatch undertook some analysis of the final plan and what had changed. You can see this on the REDWatch website at REDWatch concerns on final Waterloo South People and Place Plan in case you missed it in the REDWatch Email Update. In that analysis we focused on the changes made to the individual items under each pillar of the plan, but we missed the wider issue that names of the pillars were changed from "People and place actions" in the consultation draft to "People and place recommendations" in the final version. This is an important document, in part because it was prepared by Homes NSW before Stockland and the CHPs were appointed and before recent Homes NSW changes in tenant management and support. It is a high-level plan that needs to be fleshed out and made concrete by Homes NSW, Stockland, the CHPs, Services and tenants. It deals with the future planning for human service delivery, place-making, site management and delivering the people outcomes for the redevelopment and not just the building phase. So come along or join the conversation online with Homes NSW and the Stockland consortium as we try to unpack Homes NSW's People and Place Plan and explore the who and how of delivering good people outcomes from the Waterloo South redevelopment. Waterloo Metro OSD Changes - Exhibition Until 14 January 2026 2026 kicks off with the Metro Over Station Development (OSD) proposed changes exhibition closing on 14 January 2026. Given the holidays we are repeating some background we provided in an email just before Christmas. As most of the controls have already been set for this precinct when it was going to be a primarily residential development, the scale of the development being requested in this change is likely to be approved. That is not to say REDWatch does not have concerns about the proposal. We are especially concerned about the projects Social Impact Assessment and how the project will mitigate impacts on the vulnerable community adjoining the development (see next section). For the Metro OSD there are four separate exhibitions. This includes a Second Amending Concept DA, which changes the planning controls, as well as three separate State Significant Development Applications (SSDAs) for the North and Central precincts of the site and the basement. There are hence four sets of documents with a lot of common content but each require their own submission. REDWatch suggests that you are best way to get an overview of the changes is from the Amending Concept Plan document and then look at the SSDAs for the building details. The links to the Waterloo Metro Quarter Concept Plan and State Significant Development modification exhibition documents are below: * Waterloo Metro Quarter - Second Amending Concept * Waterloo Metro Quarter - Northern Precinct * Waterloo Metro Quarter - Central Precinct * Waterloo Basement - Modification 3 for internal layout changes The amendment makes no change to the maximum permitted Gross Floor Area, as the floorspace will be redistributed within the revised envelopes. Further, the amended proposal will not exceed the permissible building height for the site under the Sydney LEP 2012. The main changes are: * Northern Precinct: Change the approved building envelope, building height and concept land use for the northern precinct by replacing the 17-storey commercial office building envelope with a revised envelope for a retail ground floor and three levels of commercial office space within a 4-storey podium with two tower forms above, totalling 29-storeys (Building 1A) and 26-storeys (Building 1B) in height (including plant level). The residential towers will include market housing, communal facilities and the provision of 5% affordable housing. * Central Precinct: Change the approved building envelope and conceptual land use for the central precinct by replacing the residential apartment tower with a co-living housing tower, still above a non-residential podium, comprising retail and a community facility including childcare. The proposed built form will allow for a 26-storey (including plant level) building. * Basement: Redistribute basement space between Northern and Central precincts pursuant to Section 4.55(2) of the EP&A Act to modify the detailed Basement SSDA (SSD 10438) relating to the basement levels to buildings within the northern and central precinct. These changes primarily reflect a commercial downturn in commercial office space in the area, which was planned with large floor plates and its replacement with residential buildings, which require good solar access to meet apartment design requirements, including an additional co-living tower. Those with an interest in how shadowing may impact the new Waterloo Park to be delivered by the Waterloo South redevelopment will be interested in the Point of Time Shadow Diagrams for the future Waterloo Estate park p42-46 of the Concept Plan Appendix J - Overshadowing which shows some marginal improvements from the earlier scheme over the proposed Waterloo Park. The shadowing over the new park is in excess of what it would have been if the park existed prior to the original approval, but given the earlier approval, the developer only has to ensure changes do not make overshadowing worse. REDWatch is aware of concerns about the proposed second co-living building potentially becoming a second student housing building on the site. Currently the developer is saying that it will fill a different housing need but if this model does not work, the building could easily be turned over to a student housing provider. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Concerns raised by Metro OSD REDWatch is concerned that the Over Station Development (OSD) Social Impact Assessment for the proposed changes does not accurately assess the area and its needs. In particular it does not deal adequately with the impact of the development on the most disadvantaged in the area and their interaction with the project. The SIA defines the immediate area for its assessment by taking 22 small statistical areas around the site and then compares Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures for this combined area with the Sydney LGA and Greater Sydney. The problem with this approach is that the area defined includes some of the most well-off parts of the area and some of the least well off. This is clearly seen if you look at the ABS Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) that ranks each of these small statistical areas according to relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. Statistical areas towards Mitchell Road and Fountain Street Alexandria rank in the most advantaged areas and those exclusively public housing areas on the Waterloo Estate in the most highly disadvantaged. Combine the areas and they look average, but this hides important impacts on those most likely to be impacted and with least capacity to deal with any impact. As a result, conclusions drawn from the SIA's approach do not explore potential impacts on surrounding public housing tenants nor how these impacts might be mitigated. Where there are significant differences within an area, as there is in Waterloo and surrounding Alexandria and Redfern, it is not adequate to look at a statistical average. Different communities will possibly be impacted differently by a development. The SIA does not look at the potential impact on the most marginalised, who also will live closest to the re-development. As a consequence, the SIA ignores even acknowledging the adverse interactions in the earlier stage of this development between the developer and its local neighbours and local public drinkers. REDWatch has strongly suggested in its SIA interview that rather than pay to have off duty police at the site so that the workers will work, the developer needs to train its contractors how to deal with people who have suffered trauma and have complex issues as well as having mechanisms for de-escalating situations that arise. The SIA does not even mention this historical social impact nor how it might be better handled in the future. The community facilities section of the report is also not up to the standard the community should expect of an SIA. For example, three Aboriginal Organisations (AMS, AHC and Mudgin-Gal) are mis-located on the facilities map in the report. Other key community facilities like Counterpoint Community Services' The Factory and its Multicultural Services are not included at all, along with a number of other local NGO services. The community facilities recognised include the LAHC owned James Cook Community Garden and LAHC owned Waterloo Green described in the report as "an open community park situated to the north east of the redevelopment" - land which after a new Waterloo Park is built is most likely destined for redevelopment rather than staying LAHC owed open space and gardens. Some local health facilities have been included while others ignored. All of this supposedly exists to identify what is already in the area and hence what needs to be provided as community facilities by this development. While the Waterloo Metro OSD only expects to generate a need for 17 children aged 0-4 the SIA argues that additional childcare facilities will be needed to service the population increase associated with ongoing development in Waterloo and the OSD is keen to provide those childcare places (which a provider will undoubtably pay for). It is instructive then to look at how the SIA looks at child care facilities in the immediate area. The SIA says "A desktop audit of childcare facilities found that there are no childcare facilities within 400m of the site, specifically none within the immediate social locality, as indicated by the Social Locality map in Chapter 5. The closest facilities are SDN Redfern, SDN Waterloo, and The Green Elephant Waterloo, each located approximately 1.5 km away. Refer to Appendix B." So those who know the area will know that SDN Waterloo (Louis Barker) is within 300m of Waterloo Metro. They would also know that SDN Redfern is about 450m away and Green Elephant Waterloo within 800m. A quick check of Google maps shows the following are also within an 800m radius - Eveleigh Early Leaning Preschool, KU Sunbeam Pre School, KU James Cahill, Honey Bird Childcare and Wunanbiri Preschool. It is particularly worrying that an incorrect SIA can be used to advance a developer's preference for the provision of facilities over other possible community facilities uses. One of the flaws in the earlier community facilities studies was to not assess the suitability of the buildings used by existing community facilities and to assume that they could continue to provide services from those locations into the future, when many organisations are not in premises that are fit for purpose or for which they are paying rent not covered in their funding. The option of providing community facilities for a not-for-profit agency should have been considered if the community facilities review had adequately assessed facilities rather than the services they managed to provide. It is also worth mentioning that classic SIA approach for assessing the accessibility of local facilities by if they fall within certain radii of the development is flawed if there are major physical barriers, like the railway corridor, to access a facility. So, the SIA says Carriageworks is within 1 km of the site when by foot or car it is actually 1.3km away and will remain so until the community gets the NSW Government to deliver the 2004 promised bridge across the railway corridor at Carriageworks. There are variations of the Social Impact Assessment for each of the DAs, above we have drawn on those from the Second Amending Concept SIA. We encourage readers to have their own look at this report as we are sure that there will be other areas where people will have concerns. For example, we have not gone into the grading within the report where the assessing of increased housing supply in accessible locations? is assessed as a "high positive" when the oft referred to affordable housing only remains affordable for 10 years. At a basic level community members need to be able to recognise their community accurately described in such reports. There is a long history of inadequate desktop community facilities and social sustainability reports for Waterloo that have been roundly criticised by REDWatch and other agencies. In part this seems to come from developers expecting consultants to do cheap desktop studies requiring little understanding of what is on the ground. SIAs need to accurately assess impact, especially on those most impacted and seriously address how any impacts can be mitigated. This is especially so when dealing with vulnerable communities like those in public housing. Hopefully when Stockland presents its SIA for Waterloo South, the SIA will not contain such fundamental errors and Stockland will insist on a much more robust SIA that assesses the impact of the development on the public housing tenants directly impacted by the redevelopment and how those impacts can be mitigated. If you want to look further at the demographics of the area you can look at different statistical areas for your local area at https://atlas.id.com.au/sydney/ Design Excellence Changes The NSW government has introduced a new design excellence pathway for residential State Significant Development. The Design Excellence Competition Exemption Pathway provides an alternative way to demonstrate design excellence, without the need to run a design competition, and will be available for 2 years. This process is likely to be the one used for Waterloo South, instead of the earlier proposed design competitions. Applicants using this pathway must prepare an Alternative Design Excellence Strategy, which requires endorsement from the Government Architect NSW. The strategy should address the criteria, including how the proposal will achieve design excellence under relevant planning rules, demonstrate design diversity and specify the design review approach used, instead of a design competition. A New Approach to Strategic Planning with Draft Sydney Plan - Exhibition until 27 February 2026 Plans like the proposed Sydney Plan set the general direction that more local plans need to address. As a result, they set the framework for future development and are hence important to look at and comment upon. The Draft Sydney Plan is the first regional plan made in line with the government's A New Approach to Strategic Planning: Discussion Paper which is also on exhibition until 27 February 2026. The Sydney Plan is the NSW Government's 20-year strategic land use plan to direct future growth in the Sydney region. The plan guides: state and local strategic planning and assessments; infrastructure planning and prioritisation and; public and private investment decisions. Once finalised, the Sydney Plan will replace the Greater Sydney Region Plan - A Metropolis of Three Cities (2018) and associated district plans. The draft Sydney Plan is now on public exhibition on the Your Say NSW Planning Portal where you can read the Plan, watch the overview, watch a webinar, complete a survey and make a submission. A little wider context is provided on The Sydney Plan planning page. The Sydney Plan is open for feedback until 5 pm, 27 February 2026. After the exhibition period, all feedback will be reviewed before the final plan is released later in 2026. These changes are part of major changes in the planning system including those being rolled out after changes to the planning act last year. Some of the first changes implemented are around the establishment of the Development Coordination Authority (DCA) and the legislation of a Housing Delivery Authority (HDA). As mentioned in an earlier update the City of Sydney is concerned about these state processes over riding councils on delivery plans for housing and growth. You can see some of these concerns in Mayoral Minutes of 15 December 2025 on Housing For All Into The Future and 27 October 2025 NSW Government Planning Reforms Must Deliver Housing Quality and Affordability. You may want to consider Council's concerns if you make a submission. Waterloo and Eveleigh referenced in Draft Sydney Plan The only specific references to Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlington and Waterloo (REDW) are on page 49 of the Draft Sydney Plan and refer to the redevelopment of Explorer Street Eveleigh and Waterloo South public housing. On Explorer Street, Eveleigh the draft plan says: "Surplus Government-owned land can be leveraged to fast track affordable and social housing supply. This is already occurring at Explorer Street in Eveleigh and the WestConnex dive site in Annandale". Waterloo South is provided as a case study in the draft plan which says: "The rezoning of Waterloo South has increased social and affordable housing to 50% across the precinct, delivering more than 1,000 new social homes and over 600 affordable homes. The Waterloo South redevelopment aims to deliver more and better social, affordable and private housing, with community and green spaces, which prioritise the health and wellbeing of social housing tenants. The project capitalises on the new Waterloo Metro station meaning residents have easy access to services and amenities." "The NSW Government is working with the local Aboriginal community and partner community housing providers to identify opportunities to improve outcomes for Aboriginal people. This includes 20% of all new social homes and 15% of all new affordable homes to be dedicated to Aboriginal people." Affordable and social housing and housing affordability gets referenced throughout the document including "Response 3 Secure the supply of affordable housing", also on Page 49 of the Draft Plan, so this is an area where people might also want to make comments in their submission. The Department says this is your opportunity to shape how Sydney grows and evolves over the next 20 years and that feedback will help refine the final Sydney Plan and ensure it reflects the needs and aspirations of communities, councils, businesses and industry across the region. Many well organised industry lobby groups will be pushing their views on the future of Sydney in submissions, so it is also important for diverse community voices that reflect people's lived experience and aspirations for the future of the city, to also be raised. Regards, Geoff Geoffrey Turnbull REDWatch Spokesperson Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490 Mob: 0418 457 392 email: spokesperson at redwatch.org.au web: www.redwatch.org.au FB: www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: