The estates are in Brighton, Northcote, North Melbourne, Brunswick West, Flemington and West Heidelberg. Towers of between five and 20 storeys will built on the estates to replace dilapidated “walk-up” units. The public land sell-off in the estates is proceeding despite criticism from housing groups and academics. Three other estates the government had planned to redevelop - in Clifton Hill, Hawthorn and Ascot Vale - have been put on hold. Under the deal being negotiated with developers by the Department of Health and Human Services, public housing will be rebuilt with an additional 10 per cent extra apartments. The sale of the remaining public land on the sites to private owners will fund the public housing reconstruction.

Housing Minister Martin Foley has promised any tenant that wants to return to their estate once it is rebuilt will be given the right to do so, via tenancy agreements with the Director of Housing. “[These] are legally enforceable documents,” a spokesman for Mr Foley said. While the redevelopments could be a bonanza for developers - as it was in similar projects at the Kensington and Carlton estates - the gains for public housing are less clear. In West Heidelberg’s Bellbardia estate, 94 walk-up apartments will be demolished and rebuilt to create 104 social housing units. Simultaneously, the developer that rebuilds the public housing will create 500 new apartments for sale. In Flemington, 198 run-down low-rise apartments will go, to be replaced by 218 new units. At the same time, car parks and open space on the housing estate will be turned into 825 new private apartments. These private towers will rise up to 20 levels.

Dr Christos Pavlidis runs a medical centre in North Melbourne. Many of his patients are from the nearby public housing estate being redeveloped. He said many had been to see him needing documentation as part of their applications for new homes, after being told by housing officers that they would be moved. “They haven’t been told an exact time frame, and they also haven’t been told where they will be moved to - people not knowing where they are going to be living creates anxiety,” he said. Most who were being moved were accepting of what they had been told. “Moving is not the issue - people know these things happen. It’s the uncertainty of it is what unsettling people,” Dr Pavlidis said. An artist's impression of new apartment towers to be built in Brighton on the site of an existing public housing estate. The apartments will face onto the Elster Canal as it flows through Brighton. Credit:Victorian government

Mr Foley said last week’s gazettal of the public housing estates was an important milestone, and that the government’s Public Housing Renewal Program would replace old housing with new properties that were comfortable, modern and more secure. The new housing would also be accessible for people with disability and mobility issues, feature new green spaces, and meet the growing demand for one and two-bedroom dwellings, he said. Mr Foley said tenants had been “forced to live in appalling conditions” for too long. “We are changing the broken model of public housing,” he said. But urban geographer and housing expert Kate Shaw, from Melbourne University, said that sound alternatives existed to selling off public housing to fund its renewal. She said there were many, “from public housing tenants and residents’ associations legitimately concerned about local amenity, to researchers, affordable housing advocates", and housing and planning public servants who believed better approaches should be considered.

Key housing bodies had been absent from the debate around the public housing sell-off “largely due to their dependence on the state government for funding and survival”, she said. “They have been silenced by the argument that something, no matter how bereft, is better than nothing,” Dr Shaw said. “This is misguided.” Dr Shaw and three other housing experts late last year wrote to Mr Foley recommending alternatives to his plan be pursued. Their alternatives included simply increasing funding for public housing upgrades and new social housing construction in inner and middle Melbourne. As the government presses ahead with its plans, many tenants on the estates have been left uncertain of their future. Among them is Irene Taylor, 78, who moved to Brunswick West’s Gronn Place estate in 2001.

Irene Taylor, 79, has lived in West Brunswick's Gronn Place housing estate for 17 years. She is to be relocated - but doesn't know where to yet. Credit:Jason South In the 17 years she has lived on the estate, she has seen it slowly fall apart due to a lack of maintenance. “They’ve done nothing here. I’ve had my heater replaced three times, I’ve had my toilet actually blow up three times.” She has been told by housing officers she must move so new apartments can be built. She has been told she can return, but that it will take at least three years. “They’ve told me I can come back, but I can’t pack up and settle somewhere twice at my age,” she said. “When I got this place, I thought it’d be my home for all my life - I didn’t know they were going to pull [it] down.”

The mother of seven said she had been offered places in regional Victoria or Sunbury, but neither was suitable. An artist's impression of the Brunswick West housing estate after the redevelopment. Credit:Victorian government Ms Taylor said she would rather her existing apartment was renovated than it be totally demolished. Instead, she now frets constantly about where she will live. “I’m panicking here and making my daughter sick,” she said. The housing office had repeatedly offered her places she did not want to go. “They give you one that’s not right and then they just leave you here - so I don’t think i’m going to get a place.” Fiona Ross, from lobby group Friends of Public Housing, said many public housing tenants were being assured they could return to their rebuilt estates.

“Whole estates are leaving on the basis of that guarantee," she said. "It's very unlikely that they will ever be able to return." “Other similar privatisations of public housing, the majority did want to come back but there were either not enough three bedroom apartments or there just weren't any places,” she said. Ms Ross said many community housing associations, which would run housing on the estates when they were rebuilt, were staying quiet because they stood to gain. But the redevelopments with their tiny increase in apartment numbers would do almost nothing to help tens of thousands on public housing waiting lists, she said. “Many state-government funded organisations are not talking about the terrible desperation that they know needs addressing that this isn’t going to come anywhere near helping.” Another resident, in the North Melbourne estate, has already been moved, after being presented with several different empty flats.

Les, who asked that his last name not be used, has been in North Melbourne resident all his life, and spent the last three decades in the Abbotsford Street public housing estate. Les in front of his former North Melbourne home, with Inner Melbourne Community Legal lawyer Molly Williams, from Inner Melbourne Community Legal. Credit:Joe Armao Last August he was told his two-bedroom home would be knocked down, to be replaced by an expected 207 new private apartments to be built on the site. The existing public housing will be rebuilt, with 11 extra apartments added. After months of uncertainty about where he could go, Les has accepted a smaller one-bedroom cottage in Kensington offered to him by the Office of Housing. It is close to shops and services, and has both air conditioning and space for his own washing machine, so he is happy with what he has been given.

The apartment he moved into had been empty for 10 months, despite thousands on the waiting list for housing. Another in North Melbourne he was shown also appeared to have been empty for several months. It is understood hundreds of apartments like it sit empty around Melbourne, “stockpiled” by the department to accommodate tenants moved on for the private sector redevelopments. Les was philosophical about his move, saying he was “reasonably pleased” about his new digs. But he said the uncertainty had been hard, and for many of his fellow tenants, the promise of the option of returning to North Melbourne when the block was rebuilt within four years was meaningless as most would be too old or their children would have started in different schools. The North Melbourne estate with 112 public housing units will be replaced with 123 public and 207 private apartments. Credit:Joe Armao

Molly Williams is a lawyer with Inner Melbourne Community Legal. It has been helping a number of public housing tenants affected by the North Melbourne redevelopment. “Most people I have met say they definitely want to stay. “Our big concern is that the human side of what is occurring for the return, it just doesn’t pass the common sense test.” She said the existing 112 public housing apartments in North Melbourne would be knocked down, rebuilt, and only 11 more units added. “We are looking at a whole lot of heartache and stress to put on people for 11 additional public housing units. Especially when we know what the waiting lists are in Victoria.” She said security was key for residents in public housing. “They might have come from family violence, or they are newly arrived refugees or migrants. They were told this is your place to stay forever - so to discover … they can be made to relocate has really given these people a lot of stress and anxiety.” Clifton Hill housing estate tenant Yusuf Mohamed said one of the big issues for those in other estates who had been told they would be moved was the lack of larger apartments.

“With the Horn of Africa community, they live in three bedrooms and it’s not enough - they often need four or five bedrooms [because of their large families], but in the renewals they are building one and two bedroom,” he said. “If these projects are meant to be for our benefit, why are they downsizing?” He pointed to the redevelopment with the private sector of the Carlton estate as evidence that the sell-off of public land resulted in private homes winning out over social housing. “They talk about renewal, but this is Crown land - they shouldn’t be selling it in the first place.” Mr Mohamed said the government was “relying on people in public housing making no noise. They think we are just poor and illiterate".