Houses of horror were razed in Minto

Article: The Daily Telegraph

By Kikki Campion

March 03, 2008 12:00 am

A western Sydney public housing disaster is being razed and rebuilt.

More than 3000 people stand to be evacuated from Minto's failed Radburn design, which planted dense public housing in the suburbs of Sydney.

Minto, created as a welfare dependent succession in the years 1970, is being bulldozed for the purpose of cleaning crimes motivated by poverty and transform the dilapidated ghetto in 1150 new, modern homes.

This is the first time a major housing development has been completely rebuilt and social leaders in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States are attentive to its success. The first of Minto new homes have wooden frames built last week.

NSW Housing, City Council and Campbelltown Landcom will start selling them in July.

Resident Bert Kring, 80, who threw the upper ground for the first development in the 1970's, lives in one of the last sections wasteland to kill. "I helped build the bloody place to start, and then I lived here, and now I do not look over the demolition," he says.

"These places must go, they are so close together that if the guy next door is a headache, you should take a pill."

But no matter the crime, vandalism and economic problems were in Minto, many residents will miss their homes.



Campbelltown City Councillor Mollie Thomas, a former resident, said Minto houses were there for the people who need it most.

"During the 30 years since I left New Zealand, it was the only place that I could call home," she said.

This is the first series of this size to be redeveloped with such content human being uprooted, "she said.