From: ox@squat.net
Date: 10/12/00
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:22:51 +0800 From: justsay ha! <shac@kittymail.com> Subject: sydney squats live on! After more than seven weeks of physical and legal attacks, the Broadway squats live on! Last night [11/10], South Sydney Council - which owns the buildings - voted to withdraw all eviction proceedings and legal actions against the squatters and to mediate to form a caretaker lease agreement. The squatters have endured just about everything the council could throw at them over the last seven weeks - including repeated attempts to evict them with police, having power and water turned off, continual harrassment by 24-hour security guards, occasional midnight police raids, threats of $1.1 million dollar fines, legal action in the Land and Environment Court, last minute withdrawls of support from a number of councillors, and continual abuse and attacks from the mayor john FOULer. In response to the Council bureacrats claims that the squats were life threatening fire hazards that required hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair, the squatters have consistently pointed out that the buildings are no more dangerous than any other terraces in the city and that they are capable of doing the required work at next to no cost. Now the Council have finally agreed and are set to negotiate to let the squatters stay until the buildings are to be demolished. The squatters - in conjunction with the Housing Research Centre at Sydney University- have formulated a policy concerning the use of empty buildings. Under this proposal, groups of people that needed housing would occupy empty council and privately owned properties and look after them as caretakers. The groups would be skilled in basic fire safety and repairs and would be able to live in the buildings for no rent until the buildings were set to be developed/demolished. Unions could work with the caretakers in ensuring that basic maintenance and safety repairs are taken care of. Squatters and others could share skills to make sure that the buildings are relatively safe. Under this proposal, squatters would no longer face court and the threat of criminal tresspass charges for seeking solutions to their own housing problems. The caretaker lease proposal for the Broadway squats will be heard in two weeks at the Council's new Homelessness/Affordable Housing Committee. SHAC will be fighting to make sure that the frightened and narrow minded coporate thinking of the mayor and his bureacratical cronies doesn't railroad the possibilities of this exciting proposal for housing in the gentrified sydney 2000. Meanwhile, the community-union picket remains in place on Broadway until the squatters are given a clear indication of what the council are set to do next. And the Re-Cuisine Machine dumpstarkaff continues to serve the finest in recycled trash food every night at eight o'clock. SHAC [SQUAT.NET/SHAC] ------------------------------------------------------ Afmelden: kraken-post-unsubscribe@dvxs.nl Aanmelden: kraken-post-subscribe@dvxs.nl
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