REDWatch community group spokesman Geoff Turnbull said:“It’s easy to think of[the station] as a Trojan horse that went in because it provided the basis for redeveloping the adjoining housing.”
“Will it change Waterloo? On one level,people will more easily be able to get into town,but it might not be places they really want to go.”
For some,the transformation triggered by the metro station can’t come soon enough. Hung Tat,63,has lived in the estate’s 30-storey Turanga building for 23 years and is disappointed any changes to the “terrible,horrible” building are possibly decades away.
The state government and the City of Sydney are still working on plans for the later stages of the redevelopment,Waterloo Central and Waterloo North,which comprise the larger housing blocks and two high-rise towers.
“The high-rise buildings have too many people. Alcohol,drugs,fighting,noise,every day. Every single day. But what can you do? I don’t want any trouble,” Tat says.
“We’ll have to wait a long time. It won’t be easy because we might have to move. I heard they’ll do the other buildings first,so it could be 10,15,20 years away. Who knows?”
Tat said the metro would “be a good thing” for the many elderly people who lived on the estate.
Waterloo Mixed Business owner Maher Al-Sheik has watched the construction of the station unfold over the last five years from his convenience store across the road.
“It’s been a big,big,big job,” he said on Monday. “It hasn’t really been busy yet,maybe because it’s the first day.
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“But five minutes away you’ve got the college,the university,Channel Seven;I think it will be good for the area,for the shops. There used to be so much rubbish on the road,and now it’s all clean.”
Ben Sittiporm,40,rents nearby and said the station would mean residents didn’t need to walk to Redfern,and the future mixed-use development around the station would attract more visitors.
“It’s going to help transport in the area,as well as the local people and businesses. I think it will be really helpful for the[public housing] community,I think this will benefit them as well.