$2 billion housing deal ripped up at abandoned Sydney towers

The site at Telopea will instead be refurbished and reopened for public housing, after Housing Minister Rose Jackson ran out of patience with a proposal she said was a “dud deal”.

Dennis van Someren, an advocate for the homeless, and co-chair of the Hills Transitional Community Housing Project on Sturt Street, Telopea. Photo: Tom Parrish

A $2 billion agreement to build almost 5000 new homes in Sydney’s west has been torn up, with the State Government describing it as a “dud deal.”

The 13-hectare site in Telopea, known by locals as the “Three Sisters”, will instead be refurbished and reopened as public housing, as a search begins for a new developer.

An agreement to transform the three towers on Sturt Street was announced by the Coalition with Frasers Property Australia in 2019.

The “Telopea Urban Renewal Project” promised to provide 4700 new homes, including 22 per cent for social housing, plus a new library and community centre.

Public housing residents were told to leave the units two years ago, and the empty towers have since then been boarded up and locked behind chains.

Hundreds of empty apartments remain gated off on Sturt St, Telopea. Photo: Tom Parrish

It’s understood Frasers recently attempted to renegotiate the agreement due to dramatically altered market conditions.

But with construction yet to begin, Housing Minister Rose Jackson has run out of patience.

“The contract the previous government signed was a dud deal. We were going nowhere fast with this project. It wasn’t working for the local community and it wasn’t working for Frasers. We have parted ways on good terms” Ms Jackson told The Daily Telegraph.

The government will now pay for the existing towers to be refurbished over the next 12 months and become available for public housing.

The Minister said it remained her goal to find a new developer for the Telopea precinct.

The move has been widely welcomed by homelessness and domestic violence advocates who have been begging the NSW government for more emergency accommodation.

Minister for Housing Rose Jackson says the 2019 contract for 5000 homes is a “dud deal”. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

Women’s Community Shelters chief executive Annabelle Daniel said the shortage lay in finding transitional housing for women and children leaving abusive relationships. Transitional housing is needed after a person leaves government-funded emergency housing but still has not been able to secure a long-term lease.

“There simply isn’t enough of it,” she said.

“We need the government to do a stocktake of properties that are unused and can be used for temporary housing.”

Ms Daniel said even if a building was scheduled to be redeveloped in years, as is the case with the Telopea development, it could still provide much needed housing, with women’s shelters being forced to turn people away every week from lack of space.

“You’ve got thousands of nights of a property standing empty that could be used to stem the housing crisis that exists right now,” she said.

“The number of people we couldn’t house in our shelters grew to 92 per cent this year even though we increased the number of beds by 30 per cent.”

Telopea resident Steve Doyle was evicted from his apartment accommodation. Photographed in front of his old apartment on Sturt Street, Telopea. Photo: Tom Parrish

Former resident of the vacant Telopea towers Steve Doyle was evicted from the building along with 150 other residents two years ago.

Mr Doyle had lived in the building, which was previously used as public housing for more than 14 years. After being told to leave the previous government then needed to find all the tenants new accommodation.

“Since they’ve kicked us all out all they’ve done is put a fence up and some boards up,” he said.

“I’d understand if they would have knocked them down but two years later they were still standing there – there was nothing wrong with the units, they didn’t even need to be updated.”

Dennis van Someren, who runs the Transitional Community Housing project in the Hills, said the area around Telopea and the Hills district had no available transitional or social housing. He has called on the government to go further and incentivise private property owners with vacant properties to rent out their homes to not for profits providing social housing.

Co-chairs of the Hills Transitional Community Housing Project Ian Thomson and Dennis van Someren,, with evicted Telopea resident Steve Doyle in front of empty housing buildings on Sturt St, Telopea. Photo: Tom Parrish

“It’s hard to find landlords who will rent because there is no incentive – they’re afraid their home will get trashed,” he said

“What they don’t realise is that not-for-profits like Wesley Mission actually guarantee they will pay for any damage and they guarantee the rent.”

“The whole area is struggling, the homeless will be dancing in the streets if she (Ms Jackson) opens up the Telopea towers.”

The Daily Telegraph recently revealed NSW taxpayers were spending $160 million a year on hotels and motels for people who would otherwise be homeless.

Originally published as $2 billion housing deal ripped up at abandoned Sydney towers