From social housing to $1.5m for a studio: minister hits out at ‘dud deal’ sale of Sydney’s Sirius building

In an email sent to prospective buyers this week, an agent described the Sirius development as a ‘celebration of unique charm reimagined and reinvented as luxury homes’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

A decade ago the only way to secure a bed in Sydney’s brutalist icon, the Sirius building, was a proven need and time on the social housing waitlist. Now the price of admission starts at $1.55m – for a studio apartment.

The last of the 76 apartments in the redeveloped complex in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge are on the market after the building was sold to a developer by the former Coalition state government for $150m in 2019.

A two-bedroom in the soon-to-be-completed block starts at $3.2m and prospective owners would be asked for another $1.5m if they wanted a car park to accompany their Rocks abode.

Families interested in moving into the JDH Capital development can expect to pay at least $15m for a three-bedroom apartment with an “aspect to the Opera House”, according to a CBRE agent looking to move the final apartments.

The NSW housing minister, Rose Jackson, said the “eye-watering” figures reinforced “what a dud deal the whole thing was” for everyone other than the developers who were now “flogging off those apartments for millions and millions each”.

“There should be a place for diversity in all our suburbs and for public housing alongside every walk of life but, if [the government] was going to sell it, they obviously got a completely dud deal,” she said.

“This is a little piece of our diverse Sydney history that’s lost. I think it’s sad. I can’t get Sirius back but we cannot make that mistake again.”

Jackson said losing public housing in expensive central suburbs left society worse off, flagging measures to combat the issue to come in the Minns government’s second budget to be handed down on Tuesday.

Jackson – who has been the minister for a little over a year now – said the amount the government earned off the sales of Sirius and nearby homes in Millers Point had been exaggerated to about $900m when it was more like $770m.

The money has since been used for social housing in less expensive locations.

In an email sent to prospective buyers this week, an agent described the Sirius development as a “celebration of unique charm reimagined and reinvented as luxury homes”, which would be ready next month.

“The restoration of historic façades and fine detailing elevates the streetscape and ensures an iconic address from day one,” they said.

In January 2018, 93-year-old Myra Demetriou was the last resident forced out of her home to clear the way for the building’s sale.

In June 2021, the Australian reported more than $435m worth of apartments were sold in the building, including a penthouse that sold for $35m.

Advocates who fought to save the building from the wrecking balls and from being sold see it now as the pinnacle of privatisation that failed the state’s most vulnerable.

Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, said she couldn’t help but feel “sad and angry” looking at the building, with the city in a severe housing affordability crisis.

“Travelling over the bridge or wandering around the Rocks, the new development is a towering reminder of a tragic period, where the government evicted poor and vulnerable people from their long-term homes,” she said.

“I’m glad the historic building was saved and restored, but its maintenance should never have been a trade-off.”

The former city councillor and director at architecture firm Hill Thalis, Philip Thalis, said the architecture from BVN was “skilful” but that, in itself, was “not enough” to justify the project.

“Sirius is the pointy end of the privatisation of the city and entrenching ‘ghettoes for the rich’,” he said.

“It’s bad for society if the best parts of the city are exclusively for people with the most means, particularly when allied to decreasing densities in those areas.”

A spokesperson for CBRE would not comment on how many properties were still for sale or if any parts of the development would open to the public as a way to give back to the local area.

“The building is nearing completion and we are working through a number of initiatives,” they said.