Published 1 Jan 2021, Sydney Morning Herald

Glebe is only two kilometres from the Sydney Town Hall and is Australia’s most intact inner-city 19th century suburb. Ownership by the Anglican Church preserved it, purchase by the federal government in 1974 restored it and transfer to the NSW government in the 1980s nurtured it through the design of sensitive infill which respected Glebe’s heritage and increased the supply of social housing. Now the NSW Land and Housing Corporation plans to trash this 50-year legacy of good public policy and town planning. Its scheme to demolish 108 low-rise units set in gardens in Franklyn Street and replace them with 14-storey towers, and their application to rezone a heritage conservation area in Cowper Street for eight-storey buildings, is disgraceful. It shows no respect for the amenity of social housing tenants, their community or our city’s heritage. LAHC’s justification (‘‘Tenants in limbo over plan to bulldoze Glebe public housing’’, December 28) that the scheme is ‘‘better matched to the needs of residents’’ because the new buildings will have lifts, is simplistic and absurd. 

Janet Wahlquist, President, The Glebe Society

For more details of the plan and the Society’s concerns, see here.