This page of our website reports on the history of the research and development stages of the Pemulwuy Project.

 

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT PROJECT HISTORY

STAGE 1: Analysis: 2000-2001

Naming the Project.
Community Social Plan.
Design Implications of the Social Planning Principles.

Naming the Project:
The name of the project is the "Pemulwuy Project". The name was chosen because Pemulwuy in the Bidjigal (Sydney) language means Earth. Pemulwuy was also the name of the famous Bidjigal/Gadigal tribal warrior who fought for the survival of his people during Australia's invasion by the English settlers; similarities can be drawn to the struggle for survival of Aboriginal people that continues today on "the Block".

Community Social Plan:
The AHC's Community Social Plan is the main report produced during this first stage. Our Social Planner Angie Pitts with the assistance of our Project Director Peter Valilis and the community produced this plan in-house. Although a massive undertaking the AHC considered this report too important to the community to allow it to be researched and written by external consultants. In 2001 the Social Plan received a national award for excellence in community housing in the category of innovation. In 2004 the Social Plan received an international CPTED Innovation Award from the International Security Management and Crime Prevention Institute and the International CPTED Association. The 2nd edition of the Community Social Plan is now available for download in PDF form [click here].

Design Implications of the Social Planning Principles: The following design implications of the Social Plan Principles emerged from the community consultation process, the planning workshops, and as a response to the NSW Premier's 10 best urban design examples of 2001.

RECONCILIATION AND SOCIAL HARMONY. In a deliberate move to counter the 'no-go' reputation of the Block, the community advocated opening up the Block to scrutiny and extending a welcome to groups and individuals to mix and interact with the Aboriginal community. In response to community needs, the RED Square concept options are being developed in terms of creating a welcoming entrance to the Block.

APPROPRIATE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING. The City West Housing Company model of socioeconomic mix was investigated and found to be the most equitable rental model available. The City West Housing Company has been operating successfully in the Pyrmont/Ultimo area, providing affordable housing to families of middle to low-income for 10 years. However, after careful consideration the decision was made by the AHC to include homeownership as part of the proposed social mix for the Block. 2/3 of the new homes will be made available for homeownership and 1/3 for affordable rental. The AHC also explored the 2001 Premier's 10 best urban design examples, selecting Newington at Homebush Bay as the model most closely matching the community's ideal for the Pemulwuy Project. Stepped housing and garden terraces that enjoy a northern aspect and spectacular views of Sydney City are considered to satisfy the community's ideal of an equal capacity for outdoor and indoor living spaces. The new homes will have two, three and four bedrooms and an outdoor garden area equal to the floor area of the house, to accommodate the indoor/outdoor lifestyle preferred by Aboriginal families. Moreover, common access ways will promote grater social contact, encourage community building and minimise anonymous entrances.

CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICE AND FACILITY NEEDS. The Pemulwuy Project proposes supporting services including a hostel catering for country visitors and Aboriginal students, an Indigenous business college, facilities for artist markets, an art gallery and a new Elouera Gym Sporting Complex. There is an urgent need for greater coordination of local service providers and a focus on cultural appropriateness to increase their accessibility for Aboriginal people.

COMMUNITY SAFETY. Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a powerful planning instrument that can be used to remove crime opportunities and increase local surveillance with 'eyes on the street'. CPTED has extensively informed the design process for the Pemulwuy Project, with homes overlooking public places and streets; secure private domain; street addresses and good street presence; a landscaped billabong and spiritual place; live-in caretakers and community policing. The project follows the principle that strangers patrol the streets and the residents patrol the strangers. Discreet lighting at corners and entries together with sensors will also be utilised in the design and work in tandem with community monitored closed circuit television (CCTV). The master plan discourages lanes and alleyways (existing high crime locations), and encourages legitimate activity generators.

SUPPORTING FAMILIES, WOMEN AND CHILDREN. The AHC plans to make the Block a safe environment for children and mothers, meaning that the whole neighbourhood will naturally be attractive and safe for everyone. Redfern already has a high concentration of Aboriginal support services funded to provide human services to the community, however there is an urgent need for greater coordination and cooperation between the services.

ABORIGINAL HEALTH. The National Indigenous Housing for Health Guidelines has heavily influenced the design process with respect to issues like the need for disability access. What's more, each home will have a specific room type to be known as a 'home clinic' that will combine a second bathroom (required by the social housing standards for three and four bedroom apartments) with habitable laundry provisions and a spare bed for family members who may be ill. This special room type should enjoy garden access to aid recuperation and easy accessibility to natural solar clothes drying.

ABORIGINAL IDENTITY, CULTURE AND SPIRITUALITY. The symbolism of the Block as a positive cultural meeting place, for Aboriginal people, has been maligned by years of alcohol and drug abuse. As a result, many Aboriginal people now view the Block as a poisoned waterhole. In response to these community concerns, cultural expressions focusing on water as a symbol for the cleansing of the community will feature prominently within the private space, public domain design and the public art. The decision to build 62 homes on the Block represents a commemoration to the 62 families of the Gadigal clan (the traditional owners of Redfern) that where wiped out by small pox, used as germ warfare when Australia was invaded. Ultimately, the final design will aim to inspire and restore a sense of respect and pride for the Gadigal history and classical tradition.

TRAINING, SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND EMPLOYMENT. Employment programs, for local Aboriginal youth in particular, will feature prominently throughout the construction period of the Project. Some of the long-term employment opportunities will include: gardening, care-taking, security work, and public arts and crafts. Many of the preliminary designs for RED Square have included market stalls and local retail areas that are ideal for community enterprise.

OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT. Similar to the City West Housing Company model, the Aboriginal Housing Company will pursue a planned social mix of middle, low-middle and low-income Aboriginal residents who have an existing relationship with Redfern through work or family. The issues around a sense of ownership in the community are currently being investigated. Improved management practices and the strengthening of the organisation's capacity will help to build social capital in the community.

ABORIGINAL ENTERPRISE. The redevelopment of the Block will significantly improve the area's attractiveness and act as a catalyst for further economic growth by boosting the viability of commercial development and making Redfern a major cultural enterprise destination. During discussions with government and private sector partners, the Aboriginal Housing Company has continued to emphasise the importance of Aboriginal enterprise in Redfern and has identified business initiatives to ensure commercial uses are developed with consideration for the needs of the local Aboriginal population.

ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY. In keeping with its commitment to positive triple bottom line outcomes the Aboriginal Housing Company is pursuing a comprehensive environmental sustainability program. Consequently, the housing design incorporates passive solar conditions with access to light and ventilation on three sides together with generous shade and sunny outdoor rooms. Rainwater will be collected for gardening at every level and sensible use of Indigenous plant species will be encouraged.

CONTACT WITH NATURE. The commitment to large gardens for every home, with bush plants to support bird life, will inspire outdoor living and gardening. Landscaping and the use of Indigenous flora will be informed by Aboriginal horticulturalist John Lennis from the Sydney Botanic Gardens.


STAGE 2: Conceptual Planning: 2001-2002

Planning Team 
Planning Workshops
Concept Models & Consultation 1

Planning Team:
Most people are in agreement that "the Block" must be redeveloped, however the greatest disagreement comes from the question of what should be built. To ensure that the best reconstruction outcomes are achieved for this community, the AHC formed a Planning Team to investigate various land use mixes and produce redevelopment concept models. The AHC's Community Social Plan and Master Plan Brief became the key guides for the Team's decision making processes, in so far as identifying strategies to address many of the difficulties and disadvantages faced by the Aboriginal community. These documents also provide a clear set of guidelines in relation to housing/health, livability, cultural appropriateness and crime prevention to planners and builders, who will contribute to the final redevelopment.

Planning Workshops:
In November 2001 a series of planning workshops were convened to investigated topics such as urban planning, health housing, community and public domain safety and environmental sustainability. These workshops where attended by community members and industry professionals like environmental experts, architects, builders, social planners and urban planners. In December 2001 the Planning Team collated the findings from the workshops and handed down a list of recommendations to the AHC Board of Directors. These recommendations were promptly accepted by the Board and subsequently formed the foundations for a series of audits, including Community and Public Domain Safety; Housing and Health; Planning Controls and Environmental Sustainability. These audits complement the Social Plan and are designed to focus on specific Master Planning issues that were otherwise only broadly considered.

Concept Models & Consultations 1:
Early in 2002 the top 12 final year architect students at Sydney University were asked to test the Social Plan and Master Plan Brief by interpreting these documents into a built environment form and producing individual design schemes for comment during our public exhibit "Dreaming of the Block". The exhibit ran from June to October 2002 and over three hundred people attended during this four month consultation period. A variety of people visited the exhibit including many local community residents, Aboriginal Elders, professionals, academics, bureaucrats and politicians. All were asked to critique the models and their comments were documented by our Social Planner for inclusion in the upcoming concept modeling.

   

STAGE 3: Master Planning: 2003

Working Mode
Consultations 2
Partnering with Government

Working Model:
A working model was created to test the design assumptions, directions and feedback emerging from the Dreaming of the Block consultations and to further develop design concepts for the Project.

Consultations 2:
The working model was also used to further the consultation process, resulting in extensive discussions with the community, NGOs and the Government, over a period of 12 months. The working model traveled to various public venues and representatives of the Aboriginal Housing Company participated in Clover Moore's public meetings at Darlington Activity Centre and RED Strategy public meetings at the Redfern Town Hall, where over 500 locals attended.

Partnering with Government:
In late 2002 the NSW Government began to take an interest in the Pemulwuy Project and by July 2003 the Pemulwuy Project Team presented the working model to Col Gellatly, Director General of the Premiers Department and Chief Executives from a range of NSW Government Departments. The Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project was setup by the NSW Government around the same time to act as liaison between the community and government.

The NSW State government requested that the Macquarie Bank conduct an independent financial forecast of the Pemulwuy Project. The findings revealed that on completion of the Project the Aboriginal Housing Company would be self sufficient for at least the next twenty years. The Aboriginal Housing Company then signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the key stakeholders in Redfern's future including the NSW Government, South Sydney Council and Sydney University. For all intents and purposes at that point the NSW government took direction of the Pemulwuy Project and commissioned the Government Architect's Office to prepare new designs that included 62 homes for Aboriginal families. Although the planning had been taken out of the hands of the community the promises of financial support to deliver the housing project warranted a degree of compromise and cooperation on the part AHC.

Concurrent to the development of the new plans for Aboriginal housing on the Block the Partnership Project commissioned a built environment study for Redfern and Waterloo they called the RED strategy. The study revealed that 1/3 of land in Redfern and Waterloo is owned by the NSW government.

The Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project also assisted the AHC to successfully implement several of the Community Safety Plan's crime reduction strategies. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that these crime reduction strategies were so successful in interrupting the drug trade on the Block that the operations may have, in part, contributed to the rising tensions between transient drug criminals who visited the Block and local police, just prior to the Redfern riots in 2004.

 

STAGE 4: 2004
Merrima
Cultural Brief
Design Charettes

MERRIMA - Aboriginal Design Unit (NSW Government Architect’s Office):
The Aboriginal Housing Company in partnership with the Premier's Department Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project sought the advice of the Government Architect Chris Johnson on how to precede the Project to a final master plan. As a result of these discussions Merrima the Aboriginal Design Unit in the Government Architect Office was engaged to work with the Pemulwuy Project Team to develop a cultural brief; compare the financial modeling of at least three concept redevelopment schemes; assist with a final round of community consultations; and progress the preferred model to a point where the Aboriginal Housing Company could begin discussions with Local Government about development consent. The head of Merrima Dillon Kombumerri traveled to London and Amsterdam to investigated the best and worse international examples of medium density affordable housing by speaking with tenants and managers at these estates, and discussing the Pemulwuy Project with the internationally acclaimed Architectural Association in London. On Dillon's return the information he has gathered was assimilated into the final revision of the designs.

The exhibit panels featuring the latest concept designs for the Block are available to view in PDF form using this menu

Cultural Brief:
In keeping with its commitment to seek advice about the Project from the best Aboriginal people in various fields, the Aboriginal Housing Company engaged Alison Page from Merrima to develop a cultural brief. Alison conducted several workshops and negotiated with a number of knowledgeable local Aboriginal people on the importance of culture to the Redfern community. The purpose of the workshops was to establish the cultural identity of the Project, to identify areas in the Project that can express cultural values, tradition and spirituality and to begin the process of developing cultural protocols for the Block. Alison's brief identified four areas with potential for cultural expression, namely landscaping, public art, engagement of community, and RED Square.

The Cultural Brief acknowledged several specific cultural concepts:

Design Charettes:
The Aboriginal Housing Company convened a series of housing design charettes attended by Dillon Kombumerri - Merrima, Keith Cottier - AJ&C, Rod Simpson - DIPNA, John Horiatopoulos - Architekeon, Col James - Sydney University, Denny Hall - Premier’s Dept, Shane Philips - Community Leader.

The following themes where were discussed:

 

STAGE 5: 2005
Crime Prevention Award
Redfern Waterloo Authority
Pemulwuy Vision Taskforce
Housing Management


Crime Prevention Award:
In 2004 the Community Safety Plan that emerged from the Social Plan, won the International CPTED Innovation Award from the International Security Management and Crime Prevention Institute and the International CPTED Association.

Redfern Waterloo Authority:
The NSW government withdrew its support for the Pemulwuy Project despite the recommendations to the contrary by the Social Issues Parliamentary Inquiry into the Redfern riots. In 2004 the NSW government put in place a statutory Authority that over-rides the City of Sydney as the planning authority, declared the AHC's land 'state significant', and is proposing to reduce the residential density on the Block to limit the number of Aboriginal families who could live there.

The Minister for Planning through the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) has expressed publicly his intention to reduce the number of Aboriginal houses proposed on the Block and disperse at least half the community. However this type of dispersal policy has had a devastating effect on Aboriginal communities, and that the RWA's policy toward Aboriginal housing on the Block would similarly isolate Aboriginal people from their community and family support networks and created cultural conflict in neighbourhoods that were previously peaceable. The forced assimilation of the Redfern Aboriginal community would be catastrophic and would create the need to provide additional social and human services to substitute for the natural cultural and social supports found in a community setting that would be lost. This is not to suggest that Aboriginal people can not integrate or interact with the rest of society, but that interaction should be natural and above all voluntary.

The consequences of reducing the number of Aboriginal houses on the Block will produce socially undesirable outcomes. Most importantly, it would shift the planned social mix from 2:1 in favour of homeowners [40 private homeowners to 20 renters] to 2:1 in favour of low income renters [20 renters to 10 homeowners]. Reducing the number of homes on the Block will also reduce the number of eyes on the streets, invariably resulting in the surrounding area becoming unsafe, especially at night. No community safety strategies have been proposed by NSW Government to counter balance the loss of natural surveillance.

Redfern is the birthplace of the civil rights movement and Aboriginal communities from around Australia will retaliate to any attempt to forcibly remove the Aboriginal community or undermine self-determination and autonomy over Aboriginal land.

Pemulwuy Vision Taskforce:
On Wednesday night the 16th March 2005 the Aboriginal Housing Company convened the inaugural meeting of the Pemulwuy Vision Taskforce. The taskforce is chaired by the Hon Tom Uren AO, former Housing, Urban and Regional Development Minister with the Whitlam government. Other members on the expert panel include:

The role of the taskforce is to provide an independent and professional assessment of the Pemulwuy Project's plan for 62 new affordable Aboriginal homes on the Block in Redfern, with specific consideration to the economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability of the proposal.

Housing Management:
The Aboriginal Housing Company has undergone a program of organisation-wide restructuring. Over a number of years the management staff have identified and adapted best practice procedures aimed at delivering the better possible housing services to Aboriginal families. The City West Housing model with a strong socioeconomic mix seems to be the most desirable and sustainable method of managing the Aboriginal Housing Company's housing assets. Consequently, the Pemulwuy Project proposes a new social mix for the Block which will include 42 households of mixed outright homeownership and transitional homeownership and 20 tenanted households.