Hundreds of flats to convert empty block opposite Redfern Oval

Rebecca Pinkstone, chief executive of Bridge Housing, said the Elizabeth Street project is “a blueprint for how the community housing sector, in collaboration with government, institutional investors, commercial lenders and the private sector, can provide social and affordable housing at scale.”

Newtown Greens MP Jenny Leong and housing advocacy groups including Shelter NSW and Action for Public Housing have campaigned for the government to retain the Redfern block entirely for public housing.

Leong said: “In 2013, it was 100 percent public housing on this site. This is public land, downtown, in the middle of the housing shortage. This should remain 100 percent public land and 100 percent public housing.”

Leong said the plans for a so-called “diverse mix” of housing are “even murkier” than the housing type combinations included in previous proposals.

In 2017, the state government announced it would redevelop the site with a mix of private, social and affordable housing as part of its policy of building private housing on public land to fund new or upgraded public housing.

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The following year it announced that the development would instead include a mix of public housing and a pilot rental housing scheme to alleviate the rental shortage.

However, the government scrapped plans for a build-to-rent component in 2021, arguing that changes to planning controls for the site proposed by Sydney City Council meant fewer homes could be built and the project was not viable.

At the time, the planning department said that “the overhaul of the build-to-sell (BTS) delivery model meets the original goals of maximizing public housing on the site at no cost to the government.”

Social housing includes social and community housing run by non-governmental providers.

Construction on the Elizabeth Street site is expected to begin in 2025.

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