Sydney should not simply be an enclave for the rich. And we need more affordable housing in the city, not less. That’s why stories like the redevelopment of a boarding house on Selwyn Street in Paddington are so confronting.
We rejected the property owner’s development application on the basis it did not retain existing affordable rental housing, but the owner appealed our decision in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
This week the Court rejected their appeal so the City’s decision to protect the boarding house stands. While we welcome that outcome, it has unfortunately come too late for the residents of Selwyn Street who have had to leave their homes.
We are reviewing the judgment in detail but are hopeful the decision will set a valuable precedent that stops the loss of affordable and diverse forms of accommodation to private residential development across the state.
The court decision was in our favour but ultimately Councils should not be the sole protectors of housing for our most vulnerable residents.
The NSW Government needs to urgently implement the recommendations from the statutory review of the Boarding Houses Act and consider significant loss of individual homes as grounds for rejecting development applications to avoid this devastation in the future.
We’re in a housing affordability crisis, and governments must preserve and deliver affordable and diverse housing – including boarding houses.
Boarding houses make up an important proportion of diverse housing in the city, providing much needed affordable dwellings for some of our most vulnerable residents.
There are around 4,000 rooms in boarding houses across the City of Sydney’s local area but that number is shrinking as there is greater profit in converting these buildings into a small number of luxury residences.
This case has been a stark reminder of how insecure housing is for some of our most vulnerable residents, and why the NSW Government needs to implement the recommendations made four years ago in the review of the Boarding Houses Act and urgently review planning legislation affecting boarding houses.
