Inner West Council is forcing unprecedented housing targets on its community and appears to many to have aligned itself with developers.
The Better Futures Coalition, an alliance of groups from across the Inner West, said that Council is not listening to its community and is ignoring their concerns.
At the August Council meeting, speakers against Fairer Future outnumbered supporters by 4 to 1!
Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne has not yet fronted his community to allow debate or feedback directly with him and he has provided no answers to many key questions and concerns with his plan.
Whenever the community challenges Council, Byrne races to mainstream and social media to berate them as self-interested NIMBYs. These comments from the Mayor are disgraceful.
Byrne’s Labor dominated Council is not standing up for our community and is not fighting for us like other Councils are doing for their communities.
The massive housing numbers, 31,000 dwellings, proposed by Council are almost twice what State Government asked for – and this is only Phase 1.
How did Council come up with these numbers and why won’t it explain where they come from?
Byrne tells the national media that he wants to stop the exodus of young people from the Inner West. There is no exodus of young people, as shown in the most recent ABS data. He is using incorrect information to justify massive development.
Byrne spruiks that Fairer Future will deliver significant increases in property values for those who wish to sell to developers. The Inner West has 42% renters. Renters won’t be getting any financial gain. They will be getting an eviction notice!
Byrne suggests that key housing groups support the 2% to 5% affordable housing targets in Fairer Future. That’s not the case. The affordable housing targets in Fairer Future are miniscule and have been widely ridiculed.
The Inner West Labor Council is doing what State Labor tells it to and it is not looking at what our community needs. With several Labor Councillors in the Inner West working in offices of State and Federal MPs, we wonder whose interests are being served.
Inner West Council is in chronic deficit and it sees the huge development proposed in Fairer Future as an opportunity for big revenue. Of course, private developers are also happy to profit from Fairer Future.
Fairer Future proposes a massive population increase in our already very high-density community. We have a shortfall of open space and amenity right now, yet Fairer Future will see almost no additional open space or amenity. That’s not a Fairer Future for our community or the people moving to it. You can’t add over 70,000 people to the Inner West and provide nothing for them. This will reduce everyone’s quality of life.