A community gathering outside 50–52 Warren Road in Marrickville, on April 22, showed their concern to residents who are facing eviction from their homes so that an expensive, nine-storey apartment block can be built.
The action was organised by Action for Public Housing and supported by Better Future Coalition.
The proposed Warren Road development would reduce the number of affordable homes from 17 to eight and is said by developers to cost $22 million.
The gathering was held before a conciliation hearing between the developers and the Inner West Council, adjudicated by the Land and Environment Court.
Six speakers addressed the hearing. including Warren Road tenants Erina Delinicolas and Duncan Roden, Rod Aanensen from Marrickville Heritage Society, Elizabeth Farrelly, founder of the Better Cities Initiative, a neighbour and Adrienne Schilling, speaking on behalf of architect and local resident Eddie Ma.
Delinicolas said many of the tenants were “life-long renters” who fear what eviction will mean for them. She said tenants were “not consulted or supported” and are “fighting to stay”.
Roden said he had struggled to find a home before moving in to Warren Road because housing is so expensive. He said state and local governments should be looking to expand affordable housing, not reduce it. He said approving this development would set a bad precedent for all future proposals.
Roden said any development should be public housing, or at minimum guarantee an increase in affordable homes.
Aanensen detailed the history of the building, which was originally built in 1887, as two Victorian villas, and adapted into affordable apartments in the 1930s.
Farelly said the proposal “fails to protect the amenity and welfare of Sydney”. She said NSW Labor’s Low and Mid-Rise Housing Policy has “enormous destructive potential”. She said the Warren Road proposal should be rejected on its own merits and for the “dangerous precedent it sets”.
