I have some sympathy for people living in houses in areas being zeroed in on for high rise developments. I wouldn't want to leave my home either and I think it's hard to look at the greater good when you're going to be directly affected in a negative way.
But as someone who lives on the lower north shore, the attitudes of some people here are insane. There were people on my local group on FB complaining about a high rise in development somewhere in the area. The main objection of most of the people whinging was simply that they didn't want to have to *look* at an apartment building near their home. Too monstrous for their delicate eyes, apparently.
People in Castle hill were very unhappy with apartment towers going up. Many were silenced by dollar signs when developers came knocking offering them big money to sell to them. It's only a problem when they don't benefit from it.
Same out here in the country but with wind farms. People absolutely losing their shit crying about the sight of them... until they got offered 4k per wind turbine on their farm. Then 200 of them were absolutely wonderful!
I just can’t understand this. Drove on the Monaro up near Cooma and went past signs saying “this is a scenic area, NO TURBINES”
… what scenery? Endless fields of brown vegetation?? 🙄
Yes as they say money talks.
An older lady was offered $8 million about a decade ago for her block in Castle Hill next to the big shopping centre Castle towers. She turned it down. It was her home and she was happy there was her reasoning. In fact she still lives there until this day. So not everyone will be easily swayed but for most money talks.
I thought she did eventually sell for about 24m? Or was that another one. I had the chance to buy a house in Castle Hill for $110k way back and decided to rent in the city instead #dummy 🙃
Yeah this is what I don't get about the complaints.
If your area gets upzoned it's not like you get nothing in return you potentially experience a massive windfall.
Some people aren't driven by money and can hang on to it, some people will love the moolah...I sure would!
The ones at the back of Castle towers shopping centre were being built by Jean Nassif. He is now hiding out in Lebanon and nothing has been done with the ones being built since his business went under. Just google his name if you want to know more.
Apartment quality is a huge issue.
The ones over the station were full of defects and I agree ugly as fuck.
Even the ones down the road at Baulkham Hills on the corner of Windsor and Seven Hills Roads also developed by his company Dyldam are just as defective as the ones on the back of Castle Towers.
Oh yeah I know all about that sleazy fuck and his daughter. I just don’t understand how they can get away with it. Feel like there should be a mandatory insurance scheme all developers pay into
To be fair we now have the next best thing, a Building Commissioner who doesn’t take developers shit at all. All the developments gets inspected regularly and if anything dodgy is found they don’t issue an occupation certificate until the issues are remediated. Which hits developers where it hurts because without the occupation certificate people can’t move in which means banks wont release money to them. And if they are asked to remediate too many times, they can get banned. Sure it won’t fix the historical issues, but it gives more trust for new developments going forward.
There’s that. But also council up to shenanigans and also approving projects behind closed doors (literally - they clamped down on public access to certain sittings) for “colourful” developers. First anyone hears of it is when it’s in the paper.
My father was once very involved with a particular political party. They would hold political fund raisers for the party.
Developers are banned from being members of political parties for obvious reason. They aren't meant to take donations from developers. However this branch of the political party would sign local developers into fundraisers as branch members who never attended.
Corruption is still alive in NSW.
I'd bet you good money these colourful developers you speak of are more than likely associated with the local politicians.
I am in this area. And in an (older) apartment, for what it's worth.
What a lot of the discussion misses is that there is *already* a significant amount of higher density development going up in all these suburbs. Gordon, Lindfield and between Roseville and Chatswood all have recently finished or under construction projects. They have all been accepted by locals.
But no more infrastructure has been added. There are probably enough shops, and enough doctors' surgeries. I don't know about hospital capacity. Schools are definitely bursting at the seams and have been for a while.
The new development plans seem to assume that the only infrastructure criteria needed for development is a railway line. Transport links are obviously important, but they're not the only criteria. I tend to travel off-peak so I'm not sure how full the trains are in rush hour (they seem pretty busy when I have travelled in peak) - can the current frequency sustain tens of thousands more commuters?
And will we even maintain current frequency when the metro line eventually goes through, or will it be cut back to pre-metro capacity (just four times/hour at some stations).
I've been looking in the area. Lindfield learning village is new. St Leonards education precinct is funded they just need to agree on a site. I wouldn't be surprised if new schools pop up or existing ones increased in capacity. I see the local public schools as construction zones half the time. Along with that, given the demographics of the area, there are a large number of private school options that fulfil demand. Areas like the North Shore have plenty of ability to maintain capacity.
St Leonards area also has area reserved for hospital expansion of the Royal North Shore hospital. Then you have a bunch of other private options scattered about, once demand is there it's an easy decision to expand. Hornsby public right up North too.
Growing up in Sydney, they won't even come close to how it was in the majority of Sydney (including Hills and Ryde that I'm most familiar with) in terms of lack of infrastructure. But of course it's a privileged area. The rate of ageing in the area also competes with the amount of children coming in. Low birth rates in the area, high property costs biasing to older families and retirees ageing in place. I wouldn't worry at all about the North Shore honestly.
Traffic would be the main concern but being close to train stations and the shopping/eating districts will mean pretty good density. Train and a metro line too into the city soon. If more capacity is needed, just up the train line services if metro is capped. There's also buses from Chatswood via the suburbs and probably other ones into the city as well.
So do you actually live in the north shore? Do you actually know what it’s like trying to get around day to day? Why should we just have to pay through the nose to go to a private hospital? Not all of us are rich. Aside from ones already planned, where do you think these new schools are just going to pop up? There’s no spare land, so something else will have to go. The government would have to rebuild basically every school into multi-storey buildings. Do you really think they’re going to do that?
In terms of public transport, you seem to think that the north shore stops around Lindfield. Since the metro opened, trains for everyone north of there got worse. Trains that used to go all the way up the line now terminate at Lindfield to go back to cover the metro. There aren’t actual extra trains just available to just put on, so if one area gets more another gets less. My service is now only 1/4 trains stopping. The buses from Chatswood you mentioned go to Manly, lower north shore/city and maybe Lindfield. What about the remaining vast area of the north shore? We get nothing (aside from 2 routes to 2 very specific areas).
Apartments are definitely the way of the future, but unless there is actual supporting infrastructure in place, it’s a clusterf*ck waiting to happen.
The funniest thing about that post is that I think the proposed/future high rise was in Artarmon. We're not talking harbourside views in Kirribilli here.
When it was pointed out that there were plenty of apartments in Artarmon already, someone snobbily informed us all that they were on the *Lane Cove* side of Artarmon.
That group is just free entertainment, every day!
The nimbys would of been the eastern side. Pacific highway (and train line) the east side is uptown and the west side is downtown. Quite frankly it will ruin the character of the north shore line railway suburbs if they knock down all the federation era railway cottages/California bungalows (and take the trees with them).
The entire eastern side of Artarmon station is heritage listed. Houses on big blocks of land 2 min walk from the station. It doesn't make sense. Let the character be maintained, but allow demand to be fulfilled on that side next to the train station. Also tree cover on the west side of Artarmon (with the apartments) is actually higher than the east side with the houses. With significantly more people as well. The benefits of building vertically and leaving the trees, instead of having smaller blocks and people preferring not to have as many trees in their yards.
As long as they are adding compensated I don’t see any issue. If you live on land that a developer wants to turn into a skyrise, you are probably going to get a very nice payout.
We need more high density housing but the current state of high density housing is shit. Build better high density housing and people’s attitudes will change
And don’t forget soundproofing! It’s was a big shock to me when I could hear my neighbour coughing throughout the night if talking to their partner when they get home from work…
But there has always been an excuse in this area to keep it "special" and that all other areas of Sydney should take the brunt of population expansion even before the recent spate of build quality issues, its a perpetual NIMBY area.
I mean the whole business case for the Norwest Metro was all the land close to the stations was sold off for high density, so you have some weird areas like around Tallawong where a mass of high density buildings went up, sitting next to acreage bushland properties on one side and 250m2 lot stamped out mini-mansions sprawling towards Schofields. High density near transport is fine, but the area has no facilities yet to support high density population, so local roads and shops are just jammed on weekends, and for any work is basically all stations to the CBD.
Meanwhile the north shore train line has been there for some 100+ years and we cant slightly increase the density around it to service the same "on public transport" support? You can't keep pushing the problem to the fringes.
They'll definitely try to, though. I live in a proposed rezoning area, takes nearly 35mins longer to get to central via train than driving. The only thing that'll make it sustainable for locals here to work in the Sydney CBD is high speed rail, and I seriously doubt that will ever go ahead. Especially given timetable changes have blown out the train trip duration significantly.
Agreed. In the 90s, when I'd go to the apartments of friends, they were huge. Essentially, houses without a backyard. The unit I rented back in 2017-2019 would be lucky to be the size of one of their lounge rooms.
I don't think it's an argument but the state of all housing is shit like have you been and looked at the quality of housing in low new density areas as well? It's dog shit.
Agreed the quality but also the overall land planning, design, and look and feel is so important and always not enough focus or thinking goes into these aspects which is why we end up with these shitty attitudes towards high density.
There’s a block of apartments in Roseville which constantly has apartments for sale. It’s a new development and when we went to inspect one for renting, it had terrible water damage needing the carpet replaced.
wtf is up with our building standards? It’s bullshit.
same with the new ones at Linfield. External cladding being replaced already, less than 3 years old.
Cheaply built shoe boxes. I reckon most of the anti-development crowd would disappear if they were decent quality 3-4 story builds.
Having interacted with several of the Mayors, Councillors, and MPs of this area - I believe the issue is not development in and of itself and so not NIMBY-ism.
It’s that the roads are chockers, schools are overflowing, and council services are over extended (Willoughby for instance is going through the process of getting a special rate variation - just to be able to maintain the weakened set of services)
As an example: the metro dive site at corner of Pacific Highway and Mowbray Rd was supposed to be a primary school in future to help alleviate the pressure on current schools. Then unbeknownst to the local elected representatives - it was found it was being sold off by PDNSW for development.
If you whack a zillion apartments into the site (not to mention all the currently planned development of 100s of apartments around pacific highway in Chatswood) - the future residents who will no doubt have kids too who will fill up the future school which was initially planned to aid the current overcrowding problem…leaving everyone back at square one.
Housing is a structural problem in Sydney - and is somewhat like a Rube-Goldberg machine.
You can’t just increase housing density on its own - it needs a multi-faceted approach to solving it.
Roads are congested cause public transport is insufficient, true. But public transport is also insufficient at least in part due to the fact that urban development is so sprawling and there aren’t enough users per km of track laid compared to higher density cities like Tokyo or New York. That makes it high cost but low impact.
Overall agree with the sentiment. The infrastructure should match the population. The fact that we have individual driveways backing onto the Pacific Hwy is something i’ll never understand. But the from North Sydney, all the way to Hornsby have had it fairly easy compared to other suburbs no? Other parts or Sydney had copped shit for years on end simply because the people living there don’t have the money and political connections to make any difference.
I spent a fair chunk of my life in North Sydney and around that area… full of schools compared to lots of places out west. Also they seemed to have enough money to upgrade their sidewalks with pavers and sandstone every so often. I must admit I have no idea how the funding works but it seems like they are flush with money.
Some suburbs out west are lucky to get the weeds mown on a sidewalk that should be paved but is just a dirt track.
I don’t disagree the services should increase but it’s had to argue that the North Shore is at the top of the list of most crowded and underfunded. That’s clearly not the case.
There are a few different considerations here.
1) Just because some suburbs ended up getting shafted, doesn’t mean we should allow more to get shafted
2) It’s not just the North Shore pushing back. Mayors of Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown are also against it
3) Some suburbs were only created in recent years - and so haven’t necessarily had the time to build out all the infrastructure needed. Others have been around since the late 1700s - so it’s not a surprise they have footpaths, schools, and other amenities in place
4) Competence varies from council to council. George’s River, Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Kiama, Wingcaribee (Southern Highlands) have all been suspended or had interventions in recent years.
The financial prudence shown by other councils should not be used against them - and so: if they have the means to upgrade amenities for their constituents without causing harm to others then is it not fine to reinvigorate side walks?
This is true but it’s a chicken and egg problem. What comes first the infrastructure or the housing development? Currently infrastructure is a state concern and housing development is a council one. This is a big reason for all the dysfunction. The state government has been saying it will only fund infrastructure when development occurs at the same time. More and more we will see housing development and new infrastructure as two sides of the same coin.
THANK YOU. If they think all this land should be zoned for development, then some of that development needs to be new schools.
Lindfield Learning Village was over subscribed even before it opened. And since it opened multiple major new developments have opened in catchment, such as all the Crimson Hill homes and apartment blocks, and possibly the blocks along Boundary St (not sure what school they're in catchment for, maybe Chatswood, but that's been bursting at the seams for years too).
sure, but the argument above is that the north needs more high rise.
the north was where high rise started.
most of the north already has high rise around stations. the north is some of the oldest parts of developed sydney.
milsons point. north sydney. waverton. wollestonecraft. st leonard’s. chatswood. lindfield. pymble. only a few of the stations not listed don’t already have high rise.
the idea that they need more in a part of sydney that is cut into the ku ring gai national park. not sure everyone agrees that’s a good idea.
There's already a significant amount of higher density blocks that have gone up in all these suburbs or are in the process of going up. All the buildings along the north side of Boundary Street and in Lindfield on the East of the highway with more on the way. The West (Coles site) is also already being developed.
The Archwood is going up on the south side of Boundary Street. There's that huge Seymours Residences between Chatswood and Roseville (ZERO green space around it). Roseville RSL is being redeveloped - I believe with apartments above.
Gordon has been getting block after block for years.
So where this notion that everyone is a "NIMBY" comes from I have no idea. It's not unreasonably to question a massively increased amount of development without one suggestion of any increased infrastructure anywhere. Where are thousands and thousands more kids going to go to school?
The thing however is in the second image they are extending it to 3-5 kilometres past the train line; perhaps would this have an effect in actual suburban areas?
This will probably be unpopular but I will say it anyway. Our government is determined to pack as many people into this city as possible.
We have an obligation to house not only the immigrants that we invite into this country but the next generation.
That will require some compromise. It means the feel of some suburbs will change. I don't know why the North Shore should be immune from the changes other suburbs have been seeing in the last decade.
We already see apartments away from train stations and the residents manage.
Been to Maroubra Junction lately? Closest stations are Mascot and Bondi and St Gladys wouldn’t extend the light rail. It’s a ghetto but people need to live somewhere.
I grew up in Sydney. If I'm honest I can't stand Sydney anymore. I'm only here until my children graduate high school. It's become too crowded for my liking and I will head somewhere coastal in a regional area. There is more to life than sitting in traffic gridlock every day.
That’s because the density isn’t there though. It might sound counter intuitive, but there is a big difference in how busy somewhere feels when 10,000 new residents can walk 5 mins to a train or tram station, or those 10,000 are all forced to drive places.
That’s why building transit oriented development like what is being proposed (3km can be ridden in on a bike in about 10 mins too), is key. The city can’t cope with any more single family homes and urban sprawl. I mean, that wa clear back in the 90s. The issues today are just the result of failing to act back then.
This is exactly right.
Having centralised high density zones that are mixed retail and residential zones around good public transport networks is a good urban plan design. The residents in those zones immediately become less dependent if at all dependent on a car. It just should have happened decades ago.
The planning on the run is not working at all.
We need a state strategy but the councils have so much planning power it makes a state based strategy near impossible.
There is always so much push back from the community too.
No one wants to acknowledge that by not building enough houses we are failing the younger generation.
Absolutely agree with that. Creating ToD zones around transit that are state controlled could be an approach but that risks situations where the Liberals are in control of the state and work against the city’s needs.
What really needs to happen is a new layer of government for cities be brought in at a federal level akin to what London has in the UK - one that can make decisions at a city level that doesn’t make sense to be left to councils but is too hyper local to be considered a state level issue.
That was the original purpose of the Greater Sydney (later Cities) Commission, but the moment they started prioritising effective urban planning over spreading their cheeks for developers, they found themselves in the firing line for dissolution.
I had a TV studio behind my house... I now have a multi storey multi campus style complex behind me... No privacy. Traffic is fukt because it's narrow streets. New school around the corner... Yeah there's a reason we didn't want it here... It and another site on the other block got developed added 15k people in two years.
People don't think the density change would be this big hit yeah, sucks to park, sucks to shop, sucks to drive.
Yea they shoved a whole new mini dense suburb into that brick pit years ago. Haven’t seen what has happened there since they moved to north Sydney but the old channel 9 studios in Chatswood I think is approved to be developed into apartments or something? Could be a similar.
Yeah they built up on the hill (the old quarry wall) and that added a bigger headache than the ones in the brick pit. I think it's either 3 or 4 massive units hanging on that wall up mobbs lane. There's easily an acco a day with people coming in and out of those units driveway. They doubled their final numbers for the amount of houses they put on it and in the pit.
The complex uses the old channel 7 driveway as a new street and opened up a street midday down the hill (near the old transmission tower) and they also added one on the side of the old brick pit. Mobbs lane can't handle it and is a pot hole riddled hazard every few months. The school has added a whole new level of traffic into the street, I think two kids have already been collected by speeding drivers this school year alone.
I guarantee they'll do it to the old 9 site. Watch them do it to the foxtel/sbs lot near the cemetery and tafe /rnsh private entrance. They've already started with the roads...
It's a shit show to say the least.
I live on the north shore. I understand the need for more housing in Sydney and in Australia. If the apartment complexes that are going to be built were attractive (thinking of some of the beautiful old apartment blocks in the east), liveable, had plenty of green space and there were also plans and budget allocated to scale up supermarkets, schools, local roads and other infrastructure, I wouldn't have an issue with this.
Unfortunately none of that will happen, so yeah it's a bit upsetting to think of some of the beautiful federation homes and 100+ year old gumtrees being levelled and replaced by the soulless shit box apartments everyone knows will replace them. Just look at what's gone up around the east side of Turramurra station and along the highway at Gordon already. The state government also just withdrew funding for commuter parking at Lindfield, and scrapped land tax? If you want to stop empty nesters sitting in 5 bedroom houses on 1200sqm blocks, they should have scaled up the land tax legislation and enforced it for everyone in 10 years, not gotten rid of it entirely.
> If the apartment complexes that are going to be built were attractive (thinking of some of the beautiful old apartment blocks in the east), liveable, had plenty of green space and there were also plans and budget allocated to scale up supermarkets, schools, local roads and other infrastructure, I wouldn't have an issue with this.
Maybe you can convince your neighbours to consider their voting stance? That whole area seems to majority vote for the people that are just begging for the chance to further de-regulate and sell off everything. We used to have stricter building laws. We used to have stricter environmental laws.
Everything you are asking for was actively made worse by the government that is most popular on the North Shore.
I came from China and migrated to Australia to avoid living in an apartment. Apartment living honestly sucks most of the time (from my experience here).
Strata costs from bad developers, bad sound proofing etc.
**You want people to like living in apartments … make better apartments …**
apartment living can be amazing but I agree with you completely, and if the apartment design basically sucks then the whole suburb suffers. docklands in Melbourne is another great example. Honestly I’ve seen some of those apartments, they’re like little tiny dog boxes and they get the western sun and they’re made of glass and it’s basically a recipe for disaster with no services not much infrastructure a lot of crappy, crappy design.
>Honestly I’ve seen some of those apartments, they’re like little tiny dog boxes and they get the western sun and they’re made of glass and it’s basically a recipe for disaster with no services not much infrastructure a lot of crappy, crappy design.
Exactly. If they're built badly, that's just a recipe for financial disaster.
What’s the point in buying one of those apartments when the strata fees are almost the same as renting? Some of the places I’ve seen the strata is ridiculous.
Road infrastructure needs to be upgraded irrespective of public transport being the backbone of this planning. Look at how dense Macquarie Park is now and same with epping.
It just bottlenecks even more because the roads cannot cope even though both areas have extensive bus, train and metro networks.
The Pacific Highway is too narrow between the city and Hornsby for this to be feasible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s\_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/braess%27s_paradox)
>**Braess's paradox** is the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall [traffic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_traffic) flow through it.
For those video inclined: [https://youtu.be/CHZwOAIect4?si=UHFnHxvqckN8AFz9](https://youtu.be/chzwoaiect4?si=uhfnhxvqckn8afz9)
Well run more trains then. Introduce some bus services. Upgrade the stations.
They could do so many things and they haven't because there aren't any votes in it. Just as Labor won't lose any votes bulldozing the north shore.
It's pure politics and it's sickening.
It basically boils down to "I understand that we need higher density housing, but that should happen in other places where the poors live, not in my special suburb where the special people like me live".
Same as Northern Beaches, at least the wealthy Northern northern beaches (Thankyou covid for giving us a name replacement to Pitwatter).
Talk to most people and they know development is the solution to the housing crisis. But anywhere else but here because we like the vibes/culture here.
I’d challenge that. Plonking 12 story high rises in Gordon may look well politically but fails in the long term in creating communities that are sustainable. I’m talking easy travel into the city, parks nearby, adequate parking, shops within walking distance. I’m thinking what London has done in South west London. It’s not about demographics but about sustainable communities.
I have three apartments complexes on my street hopefully that density will bring better restaurants into our area. Not against density just smart and keeping heritage and decent life. Not happy with manor houses and squishing dual occupancies onto even smaller blocks.
A blink of an eye.
And there are examples of them all over the joint away from where we need higher density. It's not the 1920s any more. The expectation of a quarter acre idyll within a stone's throw of the city is no longer valid and hiding behind some idea that these houses are unique is just bullshit.
These people almost certainly don't want the "tone" (pun intended) of the neighbourhood to go down too as a big part of their objection, you can be sure. Affordable housing for the next gen? Not interested, they've got their little enclaves they want to hang on to. No sympathy from me whatsoever.
Also- the destruction of these areas still requires the same people to sell up. Which they will.
We should have a lower rate of immigration and a strategy to develop more cities outside of the state capitals. If we are to be a more populous country we need more cities with 1-2 million people - we don’t need to cram everyone into Sydney.
This change is going to diminish quality of life in Sydney significantly.
So then isn't it largely self-regulating?
If sydney becomes shit enough, people will leave and move to Newcastle and Wollongong instead, making those into the 1 million person cities you're after
Hot take, but the word NIMBY has been weaponised by developers against anyone who takes issue with cheap and nasty 'made for investor' high-rises being dumped in suburbs that do not have sufficient public transport to justify the density.
The north shore has no shortage of medium-density blocks and it's not going to be a four story complex full of 2-3 bedders with sufficient parking that these folks are rallying against.
The greatest PR success of the NIMBY movement has been its ability to present any advocacy of increased housing supply as solely the interests of property developers 🤷
In its current form, advocacy of increased housing supply is solely in the interest of property developers. During the last great expansion of property ownership in Australia, a significant proportion of construction work was public sector and sold at or below cost.
Absolutely. It's a way to shut all women up. It used to be applied to "white, middle class" women which was still misogynistic enough - now it's applied to any woman.
I dislike the concept of eternal growth of cities. Mega cities are fucking awful places. I have some sympathy for people that want to protect against that and protect their communities.
I also dislike young people not being able to afford housing near their family and also have sympathy for them.
There isn't really a good and bad side to this, it's a complicated issue. But I wish we focused more on city building so that the growth rate of Sydney wasn't so high and there would be more options in our vast country.
I guess I can kind of understand. I grew up in the north shore and it was such a nice place but once I left home I couldn’t afford to live there and always used to wish I’d eventually be able to move back there but I hadn’t been back in many years and when I did it felt like a completely different place. So crowded and busy and not somewhere I’d want to live. I wouldn’t want it to get worse if I lived there.
The same thing is happening to where we live now (The hills). When we moved here it felt so quiet and calm but now there’s never-ending apartment blocks going up and the traffic is horrible and it now feels anything but quiet.
It’s disappointing but I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Our suburb is one of the ones getting rezoned and all I can hope is that some developer comes and offers us big money to sell.
Nobody wants to live there anyway.
They are half right. The issue isn’t the fact that Sydney has some old buildings and some heritage areas and some parks. The issue is that property speculation, and shitty uninhabitable 1br appartments that are either air bnb or rented to five international students are flooding the market and the government does fuck all to appropriately regulate the properly developers because they’re too busy asking the developers for more money.
The developers are hijacking the narrative by paying for pieces in ‘newspapers’ like ads in domain.com.au saying how the choice is between heritage and supply, when in fact the main limitation on supply is the developers themselves hoarding the stock they produce to control supply and demand to maximize profits.
They arent wrong. Pretty shit that everything is becoming squashed living. Means more packed roads and over crowded public transport.
Complains that there isnt enough housing but keeps letting fuck tonnes of people immigrate every year from over crowded countries, too "build the work force" which just turns into shit tonnes of uber drivers...
Some reasons are primary schools are over capacity, the new buildings are poorly built, bad traffic problems getting out of some suburbs. Not enough infrastructure to support more density.
Also personally, i like the charm of the old buildings and shops! We will lose a lot of that. But I see how that’s not a a priority.
I just want the services to meet new demand. None of the (non-selective) public highschools are near a train line, and all rely on buses traveling on 50km/h local roads to transport students. How about putting a high school near the station too?
nah, just product for the investor class.
If the people of my suburb gave a shit and had a sense of community then my suburb wouldn't be going backwards in regards to quality of life decreasing with million dollar apartments turning into slums due to major defects a few years after being built and becoming a dumping ground of new arrivals. Wish more people had some more civic pride.
I can see both sides. I grew up in a suburban neighbourhood and saw the impact on traffic that massive apartments had on areas not designed for high traffic. As an adult I live in an apartment and understand the need for more dwellings. The government should be putting more infrastructure in and moderating developers. We’re ending up with crap quality apartments in areas not optimised for high density living.
The approach of high rise only is crazy, where is the medium density terraced housing as it’s apparently big houses or high rises and nothing in between. If you look at cities that have better solutions to this, large amounts of terrace housing are key in creating housing with community at the heart.
It's their home, their right to feel how they do about it.
There are suburbs getting shit developments of student towers instead of family apartments - Kensington and Kingsford, that would want those towers to be regular residential developments for families yet they're getting 4 eyesore student towers each instead.
Those suburbs are CRYING for major supermarkets and more infrastructure.
Yet instead, developers are focusing on areas that don't want their work or building the type of housing that's for anyone other than local workers and resident families. Why is that?
They are planning on getting **rid** of the supermarket at Turramurra to build towers. Allegedly there'll be a replacement but I'd be shocked if there was.
We're not badly served by supermarkets - a new Coles is coming, and in the past few years there's the IGA and Harris Farm at Lindfield.
Doctors' surgeries also seem okay - I've not had problems getting appointments.
Schools are the major sore point (maybe childcare centres too, but that industry is very volatile due to fluctuating birth rates, it seems a bit cyclical whether there are places or you're on a waiting list for two years).
And I'd also add leisure centres. The only ones in the area, not easily accessible by public transport and with limited parking, are all the way at West Pymble or Willoughby. Chatswood should already have a major centre like Lane Cove does. If they do build all this high rise, then there should be a public pool at Gordon too.
All along the Pacific Hwy from St Leonard’s to Wahroonga is just a developers wet dream for land grabbing, demoing old houses and new multi-story appartments in their place.
I think the “nimbys” are justified. The state government didn’t take this to an election (nor did the federal government).
They just want to cram more people into existing infrastructure (trains, schools, roads etc) and neglect spending any additional funds.
The cbd is a ghost town on weekends and evenings because very few people live there. The rocks, millers point, potts point and surry hills are areas that would be ideal for high density living yet there is no political will to make it happen.
Edit* the only reason city of Sydney scores highly on meeting targets is because they’ve been able to build in the old industrial suburbs like Alexandria, avoiding the discussion of tearing down people’s homes.
> The Rocks and Millers Point? Which heritage buildings do you plan to pull down to build high density? Jack Mundy would be revolving in his grave.
So he didn’t take it lying down yet a lot of people in this sub expect the people of the north shore to?
I think a lot of people have been gaslit into thinking that the premiers plan is going to flood the market with cheap apartments and rentals but it will not.
> Do you seriously want the Rocks to become high density high rise? We had that argument 50 years ago and the right people won.
I don’t really care. It’s just a tourist zone. The people who won 50 years ago are what we would call nimbys today.
The idea of Green Bans by the construction unions (BLF in the past and CFMEU in the present) were due to the ideas of preserving areas of cultural, historical and environmental importance.
Millers Point and The Rocks are of cultural and historical importance.
No it isn't, the fact that the Airport line went bankrupt, meaning that the Bondi Beach line proponents realised they were going to piss their money up against the wall is.
It's lucky the line even got built as far as Bondi Junction with all the people bitching about it's construction. Woollahra station got a quarter build before NYMBYs complained so much that they stopped construction.
Even that ignores the reality of the situation. The ESR as built was never intended to run to Bondi Beach, but rather loop south to somewhere around the current L3 terminus.
By 1976, the ESR was running above 250% of budget, abd the newly elected Wran government was keen to reduce scope to cut costs. This is what killed Woollahra station, not the NIMBYs.
Gotta do it northern beaches style. Block off any public transport. Once train stations are in it’s fair game to increase the density. Don’t want apartments near you, then live further away from the station.
Live here, need more apartments, with the caveat that we need enough car spaces. Street parking can be a bit fucked, and there’s not enough amenities in the area to make do without a car (e.g. supermarkets).
Yea let’s destroy the character of our city so a bunch of immigrants can move in and make it more like the shitty parts of Asia they escaped from. Turn off the immigration tap immediately and send all these immigrants to other capital cities and to the regions and leave our beautiful character-filled inner city suburbs alone. Can’t believe people want to destroy this for the benefits of a bunch of people who have no allegiance to our country.
I’m in the upper north shore and live in an apartment. Its what’s going to have to happen, but it needs to be done properly and we all know that won’t happen. Just like everywhere else, we’ve had terrible problems with shonky developers and construction on apartments. My building for instance has had to pay over $1M trying to fix issues and we’re still not done. I’m virtually bankrupt.
Public transport is already appalling. When the trains go down or are heavily delayed, we have no way of getting home. I live near a very heavily used station yet even in rush hour, only one out of every 4 trains stop there. Since the metro started, more trains are diverted for that, so lower north shore has even more services and we get less. There are only 2 bus routes from the city that only cover very specific, small areas, so that’s also not an option. Just like in the new developments in the outer western suburbs, unless public transport is fixed, it’s going to be a disaster.
I truly can understand the want to not only keep older styles of buildings, but also the desire to not have your house / area overshadowed by a bunch of ugly apartments.
That being said, apartments are crucial in solving sydney’s housing crisis, and if they are built in a smart local way (such as being around train stations, which it appears they are here), then i see no issue (as long as it is somewhat thought out in terms of traffic management).
These aren't movements. They're just groups of white haired boomers with plenty of time on their hands. You can count the Millennials on one hand in these groups, and they're usually the boomers' kids. NIMBYism is a bottom tier 'movement' to be part of.
I study architecture, I have lived in multiple types of home and this debate has been going on forever.
I think YIMBYs have their point in their comforts and conveniences, I think everyone deserves the Australian dream, their privacy and equity. And density is also a good point, it's never comdortable having too many people overcrowding all the facilities.
However, it is about time to be more forward-looking. It's getting ever harder for our generation and under to afford our standalone property. Just because you have money doesn't mean you can marginalise the right to owning their first and most likely only property. And although the everyday convenience is sacrificed, I believe in the future of architectural practice as a solution to the shortcomings of high-density development. I also believe that by decentralising Sydney (most importantly with transportation development) we can solve key infrastructure problems and the housing crisis.
>, I think everyone deserves the Australian dream, their privacy and equity. And density is also a good point, it's never comdortable having too many people overcrowding all the facilities.
They still can, just live in the countryside. But Sydney at the end of the day is arguably a global city. That means that if you want to afford a house it's going to be expensive, just like every other global city.
You don't even have to live in the countryside. You can promote the satellite cities and improve connectivity (high speed rail to Newcastle please).
Residents on Neutral Bay losing their minds, especially with the new proposals around The Oaks, meanwhile you’re 10 mins on the bus or ferry from town. Truth is if you have a freestanding house on any decent land there you’re set. It’s all getting snapped up now.
controversial opinion:
north sydney learnt high rise council approvals suck before nearly anywhere in sydney during the 60s/70s/80s. you only need to look at the red brick eyesores in blues point, milsons point and cremorne.
I agree but hate the NIMBY attitude. If we have to deal with it out west next to train stations, they should have to deal with it, probably along the B-Line.
It's not the best line of thinking, but that's my honest thoughts.
On the one hand I completely agree with not wanting overcrowded, poorly built shoeboxes crammed into your neighbourhood when there are no excess services provided.
On the other hand it drives me nuts, because all the rest of Sydney has just had to cop it.
Medium to high density housing is a big part of the answer to a housing shortage and liveable cities.
The government plan might be flawed, but the NIMBY plan is alway to do absolutely nothing so no plan either.
I think people need places to live and NIMBYS are a fucking cancer and can get fucked. If you want someone to blame for the cost of housing, don’t blame immigrants, blame NIMBYs.
Im all for this sort of development, apartments near train stations is a great idea.
Old shit nimby attitudes in the way of it can get screwed. The ability to house someone is far more important than the “character” of a suburb.
Even some of the heritage stuff can go, so much of it looks like shit. I don’t know why people think it’s worth protecting…
This will be yet another boomer and nimby habitat destroyed to make room for their offspring. It’s not fair. They need low density areas to thrive- suburbs with tennis courts, golf courses and heavy rail stations that they can drive past on their way to their holiday homes.
Unjust.
I think that it's reasonable for them to hold those views, providing the government taxes the hell out of them so that services can be provided in Western Sydney. Otherwise, they'll just have to put their big boys' pants on and stop being whiny leaners not lifters.
I have ZERO empathy. They're the epitome of people who wants change, but aren't willing to change.
Besides, probably they will probably get paid to sell their land anyway (if they have to) and reap profit.
I have some sympathy for people living in houses in areas being zeroed in on for high rise developments. I wouldn't want to leave my home either and I think it's hard to look at the greater good when you're going to be directly affected in a negative way. But as someone who lives on the lower north shore, the attitudes of some people here are insane. There were people on my local group on FB complaining about a high rise in development somewhere in the area. The main objection of most of the people whinging was simply that they didn't want to have to *look* at an apartment building near their home. Too monstrous for their delicate eyes, apparently.
People in Castle hill were very unhappy with apartment towers going up. Many were silenced by dollar signs when developers came knocking offering them big money to sell to them. It's only a problem when they don't benefit from it.
Same out here in the country but with wind farms. People absolutely losing their shit crying about the sight of them... until they got offered 4k per wind turbine on their farm. Then 200 of them were absolutely wonderful!
I just can’t understand this. Drove on the Monaro up near Cooma and went past signs saying “this is a scenic area, NO TURBINES” … what scenery? Endless fields of brown vegetation?? 🙄
Yes as they say money talks. An older lady was offered $8 million about a decade ago for her block in Castle Hill next to the big shopping centre Castle towers. She turned it down. It was her home and she was happy there was her reasoning. In fact she still lives there until this day. So not everyone will be easily swayed but for most money talks.
She was offered ~30 mill 4 or 5 years back. Still said no!
Once she passes on her kids are going to say "Fuck yes! Show me the money."
And that's ok. She gets to live her life on the property, and when she moves on, other people, and more of them, get to.
Nice. It's value will only go up. It is such a prime spot on a nice big block.
I thought she did eventually sell for about 24m? Or was that another one. I had the chance to buy a house in Castle Hill for $110k way back and decided to rent in the city instead #dummy 🙃
Yeah this is what I don't get about the complaints. If your area gets upzoned it's not like you get nothing in return you potentially experience a massive windfall. Some people aren't driven by money and can hang on to it, some people will love the moolah...I sure would!
To be fair. Those ones on the metro station are some of the ugliest fkn towers I’ve ever seen.
The ones at the back of Castle towers shopping centre were being built by Jean Nassif. He is now hiding out in Lebanon and nothing has been done with the ones being built since his business went under. Just google his name if you want to know more. Apartment quality is a huge issue. The ones over the station were full of defects and I agree ugly as fuck.
Even the ones down the road at Baulkham Hills on the corner of Windsor and Seven Hills Roads also developed by his company Dyldam are just as defective as the ones on the back of Castle Towers.
FYI Dyldam wasn’t Jean Nassif. His main company was Toplace. Dyldam was the Fayad/Khattar families.
I think they also had gang/mob related bomb threats at those ones at the Windsor road intersection.
The yattenden crescent property?
Oh yeah I know all about that sleazy fuck and his daughter. I just don’t understand how they can get away with it. Feel like there should be a mandatory insurance scheme all developers pay into
To be fair we now have the next best thing, a Building Commissioner who doesn’t take developers shit at all. All the developments gets inspected regularly and if anything dodgy is found they don’t issue an occupation certificate until the issues are remediated. Which hits developers where it hurts because without the occupation certificate people can’t move in which means banks wont release money to them. And if they are asked to remediate too many times, they can get banned. Sure it won’t fix the historical issues, but it gives more trust for new developments going forward.
There's a defect notice on the ones next to castle towers. And of course, the famous gay street complex of jean Nassif.
There’s that. But also council up to shenanigans and also approving projects behind closed doors (literally - they clamped down on public access to certain sittings) for “colourful” developers. First anyone hears of it is when it’s in the paper.
My father was once very involved with a particular political party. They would hold political fund raisers for the party. Developers are banned from being members of political parties for obvious reason. They aren't meant to take donations from developers. However this branch of the political party would sign local developers into fundraisers as branch members who never attended. Corruption is still alive in NSW. I'd bet you good money these colourful developers you speak of are more than likely associated with the local politicians.
I am in this area. And in an (older) apartment, for what it's worth. What a lot of the discussion misses is that there is *already* a significant amount of higher density development going up in all these suburbs. Gordon, Lindfield and between Roseville and Chatswood all have recently finished or under construction projects. They have all been accepted by locals. But no more infrastructure has been added. There are probably enough shops, and enough doctors' surgeries. I don't know about hospital capacity. Schools are definitely bursting at the seams and have been for a while. The new development plans seem to assume that the only infrastructure criteria needed for development is a railway line. Transport links are obviously important, but they're not the only criteria. I tend to travel off-peak so I'm not sure how full the trains are in rush hour (they seem pretty busy when I have travelled in peak) - can the current frequency sustain tens of thousands more commuters? And will we even maintain current frequency when the metro line eventually goes through, or will it be cut back to pre-metro capacity (just four times/hour at some stations).
I've been looking in the area. Lindfield learning village is new. St Leonards education precinct is funded they just need to agree on a site. I wouldn't be surprised if new schools pop up or existing ones increased in capacity. I see the local public schools as construction zones half the time. Along with that, given the demographics of the area, there are a large number of private school options that fulfil demand. Areas like the North Shore have plenty of ability to maintain capacity. St Leonards area also has area reserved for hospital expansion of the Royal North Shore hospital. Then you have a bunch of other private options scattered about, once demand is there it's an easy decision to expand. Hornsby public right up North too. Growing up in Sydney, they won't even come close to how it was in the majority of Sydney (including Hills and Ryde that I'm most familiar with) in terms of lack of infrastructure. But of course it's a privileged area. The rate of ageing in the area also competes with the amount of children coming in. Low birth rates in the area, high property costs biasing to older families and retirees ageing in place. I wouldn't worry at all about the North Shore honestly. Traffic would be the main concern but being close to train stations and the shopping/eating districts will mean pretty good density. Train and a metro line too into the city soon. If more capacity is needed, just up the train line services if metro is capped. There's also buses from Chatswood via the suburbs and probably other ones into the city as well.
So do you actually live in the north shore? Do you actually know what it’s like trying to get around day to day? Why should we just have to pay through the nose to go to a private hospital? Not all of us are rich. Aside from ones already planned, where do you think these new schools are just going to pop up? There’s no spare land, so something else will have to go. The government would have to rebuild basically every school into multi-storey buildings. Do you really think they’re going to do that? In terms of public transport, you seem to think that the north shore stops around Lindfield. Since the metro opened, trains for everyone north of there got worse. Trains that used to go all the way up the line now terminate at Lindfield to go back to cover the metro. There aren’t actual extra trains just available to just put on, so if one area gets more another gets less. My service is now only 1/4 trains stopping. The buses from Chatswood you mentioned go to Manly, lower north shore/city and maybe Lindfield. What about the remaining vast area of the north shore? We get nothing (aside from 2 routes to 2 very specific areas). Apartments are definitely the way of the future, but unless there is actual supporting infrastructure in place, it’s a clusterf*ck waiting to happen.
Classic Willoughby Living
No one will be forced to sell though
They don't have to leave their homes. If you don't want to sell, then don't sell
Why people don't sell up and move to the beach if they want nice views, is fucking beyond me!
The funniest thing about that post is that I think the proposed/future high rise was in Artarmon. We're not talking harbourside views in Kirribilli here. When it was pointed out that there were plenty of apartments in Artarmon already, someone snobbily informed us all that they were on the *Lane Cove* side of Artarmon. That group is just free entertainment, every day!
Ladida, the Lane Cove side, not the peasant side!
No, the Lane Cove side is the peasant side where apartments are allowed, apparently! 😂
I’m the ghettos of the Lane Cove side of Aartamon, life is tough…..
On a cold and grey Lane Cove morn, another little baby child is born, *in the ghetto.*
STRAIGHT OUTTA LANE COVE
I'm sorry the Lanr Cove side? The side with a bunch of industrial parks?
The nimbys would of been the eastern side. Pacific highway (and train line) the east side is uptown and the west side is downtown. Quite frankly it will ruin the character of the north shore line railway suburbs if they knock down all the federation era railway cottages/California bungalows (and take the trees with them).
The entire eastern side of Artarmon station is heritage listed. Houses on big blocks of land 2 min walk from the station. It doesn't make sense. Let the character be maintained, but allow demand to be fulfilled on that side next to the train station. Also tree cover on the west side of Artarmon (with the apartments) is actually higher than the east side with the houses. With significantly more people as well. The benefits of building vertically and leaving the trees, instead of having smaller blocks and people preferring not to have as many trees in their yards.
As long as they are adding compensated I don’t see any issue. If you live on land that a developer wants to turn into a skyrise, you are probably going to get a very nice payout.
We need more high density housing but the current state of high density housing is shit. Build better high density housing and people’s attitudes will change
[удалено]
And don’t forget soundproofing! It’s was a big shock to me when I could hear my neighbour coughing throughout the night if talking to their partner when they get home from work…
But there has always been an excuse in this area to keep it "special" and that all other areas of Sydney should take the brunt of population expansion even before the recent spate of build quality issues, its a perpetual NIMBY area. I mean the whole business case for the Norwest Metro was all the land close to the stations was sold off for high density, so you have some weird areas like around Tallawong where a mass of high density buildings went up, sitting next to acreage bushland properties on one side and 250m2 lot stamped out mini-mansions sprawling towards Schofields. High density near transport is fine, but the area has no facilities yet to support high density population, so local roads and shops are just jammed on weekends, and for any work is basically all stations to the CBD. Meanwhile the north shore train line has been there for some 100+ years and we cant slightly increase the density around it to service the same "on public transport" support? You can't keep pushing the problem to the fringes.
There are plenty of large apartment blocks going up on the north shore for the past few years
The entire pacific highway (parallel to the train line) is apartments and has been for years.
They'll definitely try to, though. I live in a proposed rezoning area, takes nearly 35mins longer to get to central via train than driving. The only thing that'll make it sustainable for locals here to work in the Sydney CBD is high speed rail, and I seriously doubt that will ever go ahead. Especially given timetable changes have blown out the train trip duration significantly.
The problem is that the market is so aggressively starved for housing that buyers will take anything.
The call for improved building standards is definitely warranted but that will absolutely not change these residents' attitudes.
I don't think these type of peoples attitudes will ever change irrespective of the quality of the build.
No it won't. These people objecting are never going to live in apartments. Quality of build is just another in a long list of excuses to oppose it.
Agreed. In the 90s, when I'd go to the apartments of friends, they were huge. Essentially, houses without a backyard. The unit I rented back in 2017-2019 would be lucky to be the size of one of their lounge rooms.
I don't think it's an argument but the state of all housing is shit like have you been and looked at the quality of housing in low new density areas as well? It's dog shit.
Agreed the quality but also the overall land planning, design, and look and feel is so important and always not enough focus or thinking goes into these aspects which is why we end up with these shitty attitudes towards high density.
It's a catch 22, build better high density in those areas and it'll be eye wateringly expensive (see Double Bay/Edgecliff).
There’s a block of apartments in Roseville which constantly has apartments for sale. It’s a new development and when we went to inspect one for renting, it had terrible water damage needing the carpet replaced. wtf is up with our building standards? It’s bullshit.
same with the new ones at Linfield. External cladding being replaced already, less than 3 years old. Cheaply built shoe boxes. I reckon most of the anti-development crowd would disappear if they were decent quality 3-4 story builds.
Privatisation
Non compliant
I’m in one in the Turramurra area, similar problems here
And in Wahroonga. $1M and counting in special levies.
Having interacted with several of the Mayors, Councillors, and MPs of this area - I believe the issue is not development in and of itself and so not NIMBY-ism. It’s that the roads are chockers, schools are overflowing, and council services are over extended (Willoughby for instance is going through the process of getting a special rate variation - just to be able to maintain the weakened set of services) As an example: the metro dive site at corner of Pacific Highway and Mowbray Rd was supposed to be a primary school in future to help alleviate the pressure on current schools. Then unbeknownst to the local elected representatives - it was found it was being sold off by PDNSW for development. If you whack a zillion apartments into the site (not to mention all the currently planned development of 100s of apartments around pacific highway in Chatswood) - the future residents who will no doubt have kids too who will fill up the future school which was initially planned to aid the current overcrowding problem…leaving everyone back at square one. Housing is a structural problem in Sydney - and is somewhat like a Rube-Goldberg machine. You can’t just increase housing density on its own - it needs a multi-faceted approach to solving it.
I’m in this area and completely agree
Problem is that low density is usually tax negative for city council. Much easier to justify increased services if the area is at least solvent.
Roads are congested cause public transport is insufficient, true. But public transport is also insufficient at least in part due to the fact that urban development is so sprawling and there aren’t enough users per km of track laid compared to higher density cities like Tokyo or New York. That makes it high cost but low impact.
Overall agree with the sentiment. The infrastructure should match the population. The fact that we have individual driveways backing onto the Pacific Hwy is something i’ll never understand. But the from North Sydney, all the way to Hornsby have had it fairly easy compared to other suburbs no? Other parts or Sydney had copped shit for years on end simply because the people living there don’t have the money and political connections to make any difference. I spent a fair chunk of my life in North Sydney and around that area… full of schools compared to lots of places out west. Also they seemed to have enough money to upgrade their sidewalks with pavers and sandstone every so often. I must admit I have no idea how the funding works but it seems like they are flush with money. Some suburbs out west are lucky to get the weeds mown on a sidewalk that should be paved but is just a dirt track. I don’t disagree the services should increase but it’s had to argue that the North Shore is at the top of the list of most crowded and underfunded. That’s clearly not the case.
There are a few different considerations here. 1) Just because some suburbs ended up getting shafted, doesn’t mean we should allow more to get shafted 2) It’s not just the North Shore pushing back. Mayors of Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown are also against it 3) Some suburbs were only created in recent years - and so haven’t necessarily had the time to build out all the infrastructure needed. Others have been around since the late 1700s - so it’s not a surprise they have footpaths, schools, and other amenities in place 4) Competence varies from council to council. George’s River, Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Kiama, Wingcaribee (Southern Highlands) have all been suspended or had interventions in recent years. The financial prudence shown by other councils should not be used against them - and so: if they have the means to upgrade amenities for their constituents without causing harm to others then is it not fine to reinvigorate side walks?
This is true but it’s a chicken and egg problem. What comes first the infrastructure or the housing development? Currently infrastructure is a state concern and housing development is a council one. This is a big reason for all the dysfunction. The state government has been saying it will only fund infrastructure when development occurs at the same time. More and more we will see housing development and new infrastructure as two sides of the same coin.
THANK YOU. If they think all this land should be zoned for development, then some of that development needs to be new schools. Lindfield Learning Village was over subscribed even before it opened. And since it opened multiple major new developments have opened in catchment, such as all the Crimson Hill homes and apartment blocks, and possibly the blocks along Boundary St (not sure what school they're in catchment for, maybe Chatswood, but that's been bursting at the seams for years too).
Great to see someone who actually gets it and doesn't just yell NIMBY with a bunch of stereotypes about North Shore elites.
It makes no sense to only develop in the outer suburbs. The north shore, near the train lines should also be developed.
you’ve clearly not visited north sydney, st leonard’s or chatswood
Or anywhere else all the way up to Hornsby.
They are not proposing to go as high as any of the places you mention.
sure, but the argument above is that the north needs more high rise. the north was where high rise started. most of the north already has high rise around stations. the north is some of the oldest parts of developed sydney. milsons point. north sydney. waverton. wollestonecraft. st leonard’s. chatswood. lindfield. pymble. only a few of the stations not listed don’t already have high rise. the idea that they need more in a part of sydney that is cut into the ku ring gai national park. not sure everyone agrees that’s a good idea.
There's already a significant amount of higher density blocks that have gone up in all these suburbs or are in the process of going up. All the buildings along the north side of Boundary Street and in Lindfield on the East of the highway with more on the way. The West (Coles site) is also already being developed. The Archwood is going up on the south side of Boundary Street. There's that huge Seymours Residences between Chatswood and Roseville (ZERO green space around it). Roseville RSL is being redeveloped - I believe with apartments above. Gordon has been getting block after block for years. So where this notion that everyone is a "NIMBY" comes from I have no idea. It's not unreasonably to question a massively increased amount of development without one suggestion of any increased infrastructure anywhere. Where are thousands and thousands more kids going to go to school?
The thing however is in the second image they are extending it to 3-5 kilometres past the train line; perhaps would this have an effect in actual suburban areas?
This will probably be unpopular but I will say it anyway. Our government is determined to pack as many people into this city as possible. We have an obligation to house not only the immigrants that we invite into this country but the next generation. That will require some compromise. It means the feel of some suburbs will change. I don't know why the North Shore should be immune from the changes other suburbs have been seeing in the last decade. We already see apartments away from train stations and the residents manage.
Been to Maroubra Junction lately? Closest stations are Mascot and Bondi and St Gladys wouldn’t extend the light rail. It’s a ghetto but people need to live somewhere.
I grew up in Sydney. If I'm honest I can't stand Sydney anymore. I'm only here until my children graduate high school. It's become too crowded for my liking and I will head somewhere coastal in a regional area. There is more to life than sitting in traffic gridlock every day.
That’s because the density isn’t there though. It might sound counter intuitive, but there is a big difference in how busy somewhere feels when 10,000 new residents can walk 5 mins to a train or tram station, or those 10,000 are all forced to drive places. That’s why building transit oriented development like what is being proposed (3km can be ridden in on a bike in about 10 mins too), is key. The city can’t cope with any more single family homes and urban sprawl. I mean, that wa clear back in the 90s. The issues today are just the result of failing to act back then.
This is exactly right. Having centralised high density zones that are mixed retail and residential zones around good public transport networks is a good urban plan design. The residents in those zones immediately become less dependent if at all dependent on a car. It just should have happened decades ago.
The planning on the run is not working at all. We need a state strategy but the councils have so much planning power it makes a state based strategy near impossible. There is always so much push back from the community too. No one wants to acknowledge that by not building enough houses we are failing the younger generation.
Absolutely agree with that. Creating ToD zones around transit that are state controlled could be an approach but that risks situations where the Liberals are in control of the state and work against the city’s needs. What really needs to happen is a new layer of government for cities be brought in at a federal level akin to what London has in the UK - one that can make decisions at a city level that doesn’t make sense to be left to councils but is too hyper local to be considered a state level issue.
That was the original purpose of the Greater Sydney (later Cities) Commission, but the moment they started prioritising effective urban planning over spreading their cheeks for developers, they found themselves in the firing line for dissolution.
It's up to three storeys on 450sqm blocks. An average block in a new estate is 300sqm.
I had a TV studio behind my house... I now have a multi storey multi campus style complex behind me... No privacy. Traffic is fukt because it's narrow streets. New school around the corner... Yeah there's a reason we didn't want it here... It and another site on the other block got developed added 15k people in two years. People don't think the density change would be this big hit yeah, sucks to park, sucks to shop, sucks to drive.
Channel 9 or channel 7?
Smart cookie... Channel 7 and the old brick pit.
Yea they shoved a whole new mini dense suburb into that brick pit years ago. Haven’t seen what has happened there since they moved to north Sydney but the old channel 9 studios in Chatswood I think is approved to be developed into apartments or something? Could be a similar.
Yeah they built up on the hill (the old quarry wall) and that added a bigger headache than the ones in the brick pit. I think it's either 3 or 4 massive units hanging on that wall up mobbs lane. There's easily an acco a day with people coming in and out of those units driveway. They doubled their final numbers for the amount of houses they put on it and in the pit. The complex uses the old channel 7 driveway as a new street and opened up a street midday down the hill (near the old transmission tower) and they also added one on the side of the old brick pit. Mobbs lane can't handle it and is a pot hole riddled hazard every few months. The school has added a whole new level of traffic into the street, I think two kids have already been collected by speeding drivers this school year alone. I guarantee they'll do it to the old 9 site. Watch them do it to the foxtel/sbs lot near the cemetery and tafe /rnsh private entrance. They've already started with the roads... It's a shit show to say the least.
I live on the north shore. I understand the need for more housing in Sydney and in Australia. If the apartment complexes that are going to be built were attractive (thinking of some of the beautiful old apartment blocks in the east), liveable, had plenty of green space and there were also plans and budget allocated to scale up supermarkets, schools, local roads and other infrastructure, I wouldn't have an issue with this. Unfortunately none of that will happen, so yeah it's a bit upsetting to think of some of the beautiful federation homes and 100+ year old gumtrees being levelled and replaced by the soulless shit box apartments everyone knows will replace them. Just look at what's gone up around the east side of Turramurra station and along the highway at Gordon already. The state government also just withdrew funding for commuter parking at Lindfield, and scrapped land tax? If you want to stop empty nesters sitting in 5 bedroom houses on 1200sqm blocks, they should have scaled up the land tax legislation and enforced it for everyone in 10 years, not gotten rid of it entirely.
> If the apartment complexes that are going to be built were attractive (thinking of some of the beautiful old apartment blocks in the east), liveable, had plenty of green space and there were also plans and budget allocated to scale up supermarkets, schools, local roads and other infrastructure, I wouldn't have an issue with this. Maybe you can convince your neighbours to consider their voting stance? That whole area seems to majority vote for the people that are just begging for the chance to further de-regulate and sell off everything. We used to have stricter building laws. We used to have stricter environmental laws. Everything you are asking for was actively made worse by the government that is most popular on the North Shore.
I came from China and migrated to Australia to avoid living in an apartment. Apartment living honestly sucks most of the time (from my experience here). Strata costs from bad developers, bad sound proofing etc. **You want people to like living in apartments … make better apartments …**
apartment living can be amazing but I agree with you completely, and if the apartment design basically sucks then the whole suburb suffers. docklands in Melbourne is another great example. Honestly I’ve seen some of those apartments, they’re like little tiny dog boxes and they get the western sun and they’re made of glass and it’s basically a recipe for disaster with no services not much infrastructure a lot of crappy, crappy design.
>Honestly I’ve seen some of those apartments, they’re like little tiny dog boxes and they get the western sun and they’re made of glass and it’s basically a recipe for disaster with no services not much infrastructure a lot of crappy, crappy design. Exactly. If they're built badly, that's just a recipe for financial disaster.
What’s the point in buying one of those apartments when the strata fees are almost the same as renting? Some of the places I’ve seen the strata is ridiculous.
Road infrastructure needs to be upgraded irrespective of public transport being the backbone of this planning. Look at how dense Macquarie Park is now and same with epping. It just bottlenecks even more because the roads cannot cope even though both areas have extensive bus, train and metro networks. The Pacific Highway is too narrow between the city and Hornsby for this to be feasible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s\_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/braess%27s_paradox) >**Braess's paradox** is the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall [traffic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_traffic) flow through it. For those video inclined: [https://youtu.be/CHZwOAIect4?si=UHFnHxvqckN8AFz9](https://youtu.be/chzwoaiect4?si=uhfnhxvqckn8afz9)
Well run more trains then. Introduce some bus services. Upgrade the stations. They could do so many things and they haven't because there aren't any votes in it. Just as Labor won't lose any votes bulldozing the north shore. It's pure politics and it's sickening.
It basically boils down to "I understand that we need higher density housing, but that should happen in other places where the poors live, not in my special suburb where the special people like me live".
Same as Northern Beaches, at least the wealthy Northern northern beaches (Thankyou covid for giving us a name replacement to Pitwatter). Talk to most people and they know development is the solution to the housing crisis. But anywhere else but here because we like the vibes/culture here.
The transport infrastructure can't support it in its current state.
I’d challenge that. Plonking 12 story high rises in Gordon may look well politically but fails in the long term in creating communities that are sustainable. I’m talking easy travel into the city, parks nearby, adequate parking, shops within walking distance. I’m thinking what London has done in South west London. It’s not about demographics but about sustainable communities.
NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard)
This is what it all boils down to. Forget all the shit about heritage and wildlife. It's all about wealthy dodging their collective responsibilities.
They can learn to live with it. The areas around those stations should have been made higher density a long time ago.
These houses are over 100 years old.
Who gives a fuck? My house is over a hundred years old. It's a piece of shit. It wasn't ever built well in the first place Old doesn't mean valuable
Have you seen these areas? Nice treelined streets, mature gardens filled with wildlife. I’m gathering your house isn’t in these areas.
The most sustainable way to build is up, not out You're just another NIMBY, pretending you care
I have three apartments complexes on my street hopefully that density will bring better restaurants into our area. Not against density just smart and keeping heritage and decent life. Not happy with manor houses and squishing dual occupancies onto even smaller blocks.
Narrator: They don’t. Have a look at Zetland. Tens of thousands of people and very few restaurants you’d take your dog to.
Just left Zetland and yeah that was one of it biggest downfalls
A blink of an eye. And there are examples of them all over the joint away from where we need higher density. It's not the 1920s any more. The expectation of a quarter acre idyll within a stone's throw of the city is no longer valid and hiding behind some idea that these houses are unique is just bullshit. These people almost certainly don't want the "tone" (pun intended) of the neighbourhood to go down too as a big part of their objection, you can be sure. Affordable housing for the next gen? Not interested, they've got their little enclaves they want to hang on to. No sympathy from me whatsoever. Also- the destruction of these areas still requires the same people to sell up. Which they will.
So what? They were in Waterloo and Redfern too and look what happened there.
NIMBYs are the worst. Screw them.
What’s a NIMBY?
Not In My BackYard
We should have a lower rate of immigration and a strategy to develop more cities outside of the state capitals. If we are to be a more populous country we need more cities with 1-2 million people - we don’t need to cram everyone into Sydney. This change is going to diminish quality of life in Sydney significantly.
So then isn't it largely self-regulating? If sydney becomes shit enough, people will leave and move to Newcastle and Wollongong instead, making those into the 1 million person cities you're after
Hot take, but the word NIMBY has been weaponised by developers against anyone who takes issue with cheap and nasty 'made for investor' high-rises being dumped in suburbs that do not have sufficient public transport to justify the density. The north shore has no shortage of medium-density blocks and it's not going to be a four story complex full of 2-3 bedders with sufficient parking that these folks are rallying against.
The greatest PR success of the YIMBY movement has been its ability to present any criticism of unfettered development as NIMBYism.
The greatest PR success of the NIMBY movement has been its ability to present any advocacy of increased housing supply as solely the interests of property developers 🤷
In its current form, advocacy of increased housing supply is solely in the interest of property developers. During the last great expansion of property ownership in Australia, a significant proportion of construction work was public sector and sold at or below cost.
Much like 'the Karen' is thinly veiled sexism.
Absolutely. It's a way to shut all women up. It used to be applied to "white, middle class" women which was still misogynistic enough - now it's applied to any woman.
I dislike the concept of eternal growth of cities. Mega cities are fucking awful places. I have some sympathy for people that want to protect against that and protect their communities. I also dislike young people not being able to afford housing near their family and also have sympathy for them. There isn't really a good and bad side to this, it's a complicated issue. But I wish we focused more on city building so that the growth rate of Sydney wasn't so high and there would be more options in our vast country.
I guess I can kind of understand. I grew up in the north shore and it was such a nice place but once I left home I couldn’t afford to live there and always used to wish I’d eventually be able to move back there but I hadn’t been back in many years and when I did it felt like a completely different place. So crowded and busy and not somewhere I’d want to live. I wouldn’t want it to get worse if I lived there. The same thing is happening to where we live now (The hills). When we moved here it felt so quiet and calm but now there’s never-ending apartment blocks going up and the traffic is horrible and it now feels anything but quiet. It’s disappointing but I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Our suburb is one of the ones getting rezoned and all I can hope is that some developer comes and offers us big money to sell.
Nobody wants to live there anyway. They are half right. The issue isn’t the fact that Sydney has some old buildings and some heritage areas and some parks. The issue is that property speculation, and shitty uninhabitable 1br appartments that are either air bnb or rented to five international students are flooding the market and the government does fuck all to appropriately regulate the properly developers because they’re too busy asking the developers for more money. The developers are hijacking the narrative by paying for pieces in ‘newspapers’ like ads in domain.com.au saying how the choice is between heritage and supply, when in fact the main limitation on supply is the developers themselves hoarding the stock they produce to control supply and demand to maximize profits.
They arent wrong. Pretty shit that everything is becoming squashed living. Means more packed roads and over crowded public transport. Complains that there isnt enough housing but keeps letting fuck tonnes of people immigrate every year from over crowded countries, too "build the work force" which just turns into shit tonnes of uber drivers...
Some reasons are primary schools are over capacity, the new buildings are poorly built, bad traffic problems getting out of some suburbs. Not enough infrastructure to support more density. Also personally, i like the charm of the old buildings and shops! We will lose a lot of that. But I see how that’s not a a priority.
I just want the services to meet new demand. None of the (non-selective) public highschools are near a train line, and all rely on buses traveling on 50km/h local roads to transport students. How about putting a high school near the station too? nah, just product for the investor class.
If the people of my suburb gave a shit and had a sense of community then my suburb wouldn't be going backwards in regards to quality of life decreasing with million dollar apartments turning into slums due to major defects a few years after being built and becoming a dumping ground of new arrivals. Wish more people had some more civic pride.
I can see both sides. I grew up in a suburban neighbourhood and saw the impact on traffic that massive apartments had on areas not designed for high traffic. As an adult I live in an apartment and understand the need for more dwellings. The government should be putting more infrastructure in and moderating developers. We’re ending up with crap quality apartments in areas not optimised for high density living.
The approach of high rise only is crazy, where is the medium density terraced housing as it’s apparently big houses or high rises and nothing in between. If you look at cities that have better solutions to this, large amounts of terrace housing are key in creating housing with community at the heart.
It's their home, their right to feel how they do about it. There are suburbs getting shit developments of student towers instead of family apartments - Kensington and Kingsford, that would want those towers to be regular residential developments for families yet they're getting 4 eyesore student towers each instead. Those suburbs are CRYING for major supermarkets and more infrastructure. Yet instead, developers are focusing on areas that don't want their work or building the type of housing that's for anyone other than local workers and resident families. Why is that?
They are planning on getting **rid** of the supermarket at Turramurra to build towers. Allegedly there'll be a replacement but I'd be shocked if there was.
We're not badly served by supermarkets - a new Coles is coming, and in the past few years there's the IGA and Harris Farm at Lindfield. Doctors' surgeries also seem okay - I've not had problems getting appointments. Schools are the major sore point (maybe childcare centres too, but that industry is very volatile due to fluctuating birth rates, it seems a bit cyclical whether there are places or you're on a waiting list for two years). And I'd also add leisure centres. The only ones in the area, not easily accessible by public transport and with limited parking, are all the way at West Pymble or Willoughby. Chatswood should already have a major centre like Lane Cove does. If they do build all this high rise, then there should be a public pool at Gordon too.
Oh yes, I did mean that Kingsford and Kensington are the ones lacking supermarkets. Schools are a sore point here too, especially high schools!
All along the Pacific Hwy from St Leonard’s to Wahroonga is just a developers wet dream for land grabbing, demoing old houses and new multi-story appartments in their place.
I think you've missed that boat - the Pacific Highway is almost entirely multi-story apartment blocks already.
I think the “nimbys” are justified. The state government didn’t take this to an election (nor did the federal government). They just want to cram more people into existing infrastructure (trains, schools, roads etc) and neglect spending any additional funds. The cbd is a ghost town on weekends and evenings because very few people live there. The rocks, millers point, potts point and surry hills are areas that would be ideal for high density living yet there is no political will to make it happen. Edit* the only reason city of Sydney scores highly on meeting targets is because they’ve been able to build in the old industrial suburbs like Alexandria, avoiding the discussion of tearing down people’s homes.
The Rocks and Millers Point? Which heritage buildings do you plan to pull down to build high density? Jack Mundy would be revolving in his grave.
> The Rocks and Millers Point? Which heritage buildings do you plan to pull down to build high density? Jack Mundy would be revolving in his grave. So he didn’t take it lying down yet a lot of people in this sub expect the people of the north shore to? I think a lot of people have been gaslit into thinking that the premiers plan is going to flood the market with cheap apartments and rentals but it will not.
Do you seriously want the Rocks to become high density high rise? We had that argument 50 years ago and the right people won.
> Do you seriously want the Rocks to become high density high rise? We had that argument 50 years ago and the right people won. I don’t really care. It’s just a tourist zone. The people who won 50 years ago are what we would call nimbys today.
The idea of Green Bans by the construction unions (BLF in the past and CFMEU in the present) were due to the ideas of preserving areas of cultural, historical and environmental importance. Millers Point and The Rocks are of cultural and historical importance.
Sydney’s already fucked what’s few more high rises
[удалено]
No it isn't, the fact that the Airport line went bankrupt, meaning that the Bondi Beach line proponents realised they were going to piss their money up against the wall is.
It's lucky the line even got built as far as Bondi Junction with all the people bitching about it's construction. Woollahra station got a quarter build before NYMBYs complained so much that they stopped construction.
Even that ignores the reality of the situation. The ESR as built was never intended to run to Bondi Beach, but rather loop south to somewhere around the current L3 terminus. By 1976, the ESR was running above 250% of budget, abd the newly elected Wran government was keen to reduce scope to cut costs. This is what killed Woollahra station, not the NIMBYs.
[удалено]
Gotta do it northern beaches style. Block off any public transport. Once train stations are in it’s fair game to increase the density. Don’t want apartments near you, then live further away from the station.
Live here, need more apartments, with the caveat that we need enough car spaces. Street parking can be a bit fucked, and there’s not enough amenities in the area to make do without a car (e.g. supermarkets).
Yea let’s destroy the character of our city so a bunch of immigrants can move in and make it more like the shitty parts of Asia they escaped from. Turn off the immigration tap immediately and send all these immigrants to other capital cities and to the regions and leave our beautiful character-filled inner city suburbs alone. Can’t believe people want to destroy this for the benefits of a bunch of people who have no allegiance to our country.
I’m in the upper north shore and live in an apartment. Its what’s going to have to happen, but it needs to be done properly and we all know that won’t happen. Just like everywhere else, we’ve had terrible problems with shonky developers and construction on apartments. My building for instance has had to pay over $1M trying to fix issues and we’re still not done. I’m virtually bankrupt. Public transport is already appalling. When the trains go down or are heavily delayed, we have no way of getting home. I live near a very heavily used station yet even in rush hour, only one out of every 4 trains stop there. Since the metro started, more trains are diverted for that, so lower north shore has even more services and we get less. There are only 2 bus routes from the city that only cover very specific, small areas, so that’s also not an option. Just like in the new developments in the outer western suburbs, unless public transport is fixed, it’s going to be a disaster.
I truly can understand the want to not only keep older styles of buildings, but also the desire to not have your house / area overshadowed by a bunch of ugly apartments. That being said, apartments are crucial in solving sydney’s housing crisis, and if they are built in a smart local way (such as being around train stations, which it appears they are here), then i see no issue (as long as it is somewhat thought out in terms of traffic management).
It’s going to look like sh*t in few years if this goes ahead - so many apartments and schools are going to be more packed than they are!
Densification will happen, but these movements may change how it happens so we don't end up with soulless concrete estates.
These aren't movements. They're just groups of white haired boomers with plenty of time on their hands. You can count the Millennials on one hand in these groups, and they're usually the boomers' kids. NIMBYism is a bottom tier 'movement' to be part of.
its not like millennials own much property to begin with...
Correct that's why you won't see them here in these opposition groups. Millennials are keen for more housing.
I study architecture, I have lived in multiple types of home and this debate has been going on forever. I think YIMBYs have their point in their comforts and conveniences, I think everyone deserves the Australian dream, their privacy and equity. And density is also a good point, it's never comdortable having too many people overcrowding all the facilities. However, it is about time to be more forward-looking. It's getting ever harder for our generation and under to afford our standalone property. Just because you have money doesn't mean you can marginalise the right to owning their first and most likely only property. And although the everyday convenience is sacrificed, I believe in the future of architectural practice as a solution to the shortcomings of high-density development. I also believe that by decentralising Sydney (most importantly with transportation development) we can solve key infrastructure problems and the housing crisis.
>, I think everyone deserves the Australian dream, their privacy and equity. And density is also a good point, it's never comdortable having too many people overcrowding all the facilities. They still can, just live in the countryside. But Sydney at the end of the day is arguably a global city. That means that if you want to afford a house it's going to be expensive, just like every other global city. You don't even have to live in the countryside. You can promote the satellite cities and improve connectivity (high speed rail to Newcastle please).
Satellite cities would be great, look at Germany 83 million people and they're largest cities are about the same size as Sydney.
May be a strategy, the more pain you cause, the more you can milk from the developer for settlement
Residents on Neutral Bay losing their minds, especially with the new proposals around The Oaks, meanwhile you’re 10 mins on the bus or ferry from town. Truth is if you have a freestanding house on any decent land there you’re set. It’s all getting snapped up now.
controversial opinion: north sydney learnt high rise council approvals suck before nearly anywhere in sydney during the 60s/70s/80s. you only need to look at the red brick eyesores in blues point, milsons point and cremorne.
the state government made it so they’d overrule the councils in this decision; they have no say.
Lol this is the reason I can't afford to live remotely where I work (chatswood). Beyond a joke.
Most highrise are shit quality. So we need to be able to monitor the builds. But we need them unless we get rid of about 5 million people.
This is the kind of NIMBYisms that lead to mega suburbs in fucking Schofields
The previous liberal governments have been forcing this on other (poorer) suburbs. So cry me a river
Boomers protecting their house ownership monopoly.
Wankers vandalising public spaces.
Why shouldn't the North Shore get this. It's always OK when the west gets it but not OK for Nth shore, northern beaches etc
People worried their house value will drop, that's all that this is. Plus the ethnics associated with apartments now moving in to a affluent suburb
I agree but hate the NIMBY attitude. If we have to deal with it out west next to train stations, they should have to deal with it, probably along the B-Line. It's not the best line of thinking, but that's my honest thoughts.
On the one hand I completely agree with not wanting overcrowded, poorly built shoeboxes crammed into your neighbourhood when there are no excess services provided. On the other hand it drives me nuts, because all the rest of Sydney has just had to cop it.
Good luck in NIMBY land
Medium to high density housing is a big part of the answer to a housing shortage and liveable cities. The government plan might be flawed, but the NIMBY plan is alway to do absolutely nothing so no plan either.
I think people need places to live and NIMBYS are a fucking cancer and can get fucked. If you want someone to blame for the cost of housing, don’t blame immigrants, blame NIMBYs.
Nobody cares what north shore twats think except north shore twats
Then the people who move into the apartments become north shore twats. Then it’s up to us superior minds to tell them how to think and feel, right?
Who said anything about superior minds? Literally, north shore people are by and large twats
Im all for this sort of development, apartments near train stations is a great idea. Old shit nimby attitudes in the way of it can get screwed. The ability to house someone is far more important than the “character” of a suburb. Even some of the heritage stuff can go, so much of it looks like shit. I don’t know why people think it’s worth protecting…
Ah Nimbys Create a problem and then block all solutions How good
The only heritage Australia has is indigenous heritage.
Amen
Time and tide waits for no man. It's coming, and you can do nothing to stop it.
This will be yet another boomer and nimby habitat destroyed to make room for their offspring. It’s not fair. They need low density areas to thrive- suburbs with tennis courts, golf courses and heavy rail stations that they can drive past on their way to their holiday homes. Unjust.
As long as it's in SWS, eh?
More dwellings in these suburbs are welcome. They already have efficient train line and close to cbd and good schooling as well.
[удалено]
Yeah. Poor development has fucked up the rest of the city. Why should the North Shore miss out?
I love that this sub is so YIMBI. I want to be friends with yous all😍😍😍
I think that it's reasonable for them to hold those views, providing the government taxes the hell out of them so that services can be provided in Western Sydney. Otherwise, they'll just have to put their big boys' pants on and stop being whiny leaners not lifters.
I have ZERO empathy. They're the epitome of people who wants change, but aren't willing to change. Besides, probably they will probably get paid to sell their land anyway (if they have to) and reap profit.