The Narrows Shiers St units demolished as public housing waitlist grows

The NT government is demolishing a 76-unit public housing complex it describes as a ‘bastion of poverty’, with no guarantee of how many people any new development will accommodate.

The Territory government is demolishing a large public housing complex it has described as “notorious” for crime and poverty, with no commitment to house the same number of residents in any new build.

A 76-unit complex on Shiers St in The Narrows is being knocked down at a cost of almost $12m to taxpayers after accommodating public housing tenants for the past five decades.

It comes as waitlists for one-bedroom public housing units in Darwin and Palmerston stretch up to 10 years.

On Monday an expression of interest period opened for proponents to put forth their ideas on transforming the site.

Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler would not be drawn on how many units the new complex might include or how it could be split between public, social and private housing.

“Developers will come back to government with suggestions around what will go here,” she said.

NTEX Project Manager David Evans, Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler and Fong Lim MLA Mark Monaghan at The Narrows housing demolition. Picture: Annabel Bowles

“Whether that is a mixture of private, it might be build-to-rent, it might be social housing, it might be affordable housing.

“So then you look at a mixture rather than just having complete public housing … we know that doesn’t work.”

Fong Lim MLA Mark Monaghan described the existing public housing complex as a “bastion of poverty”.

“It’s just not good enough, it’s not good enough for modern communities, it’s not good enough for the Northern Territory,” he said.

“I said I’d work towards recreating something here that was family (oriented), vibrant and a future that involves affordable housing.”

Ms Lawler agreed the redevelopment had “probably” put some stress on public housing waitlists but said it was something that needed to happen.

Demolishers NTEX are aiming to recycle 90 per cent of materials from the existing one-bed and two-bed units. Picture: Annabel Bowles

“Over the last few years … there’s been work to lower the numbers here, lower the concentration of people here because as I said, it wasn’t a nice environment,” she said.

“It had been an area of lots of crime, lots of poverty, lots of things that shouldn’t have been happening.”

“Over the last six to 12 months, housing have been decanting, making sure there’s no new people in, that people have been placed elsewhere in the greater Darwin area.”

She said a refurbishment of the existing units was “not viable” and that they were “past their use-by date”.

The demolition is expected to be complete by March next year while a timeline for and proposed cost of the new development is yet to be decided.

Expressions of interest close on November 10.