We Need Housing Diversity! (ft. Sydney YIMBY)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2023
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Sydney's housing lacks diversity. 55.8% of dwellings in Sydney are detached houses, compared with only 30.7% apartments and 12.8% townhouses. More concerningly, you cannot build anything denser than detached houses around most train stations in Sydney. Many organisations all across Sydney, including Sydney YIMBY, are fighting for intensive reform to how planning works in this city, in order to quickly increase supply and drive down housing prices. But as always, there's a massive obstacle standing in our way; NIMBYs.
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Join Sydney YIMBY: sydney.yimby.au/membership
Follow Sydney YIMBY on Twitter: x.com/SydneyYIMBY?s=20
Join the Sydney YIMBY Discord: / discord
City Connections TH-cam Channel: / @cityconnectionsmedia
Sam Austin's TikTok: / sam_austin_cityplanner
Sam Austin's TH-cam Channel: youtube.com/@CityPlannerSam?s...
Melissa Neighbour's LinkedIn: / melissaneighbour-futur...
NSW Planning Portal showing how each piece of land is zoned in NSW: www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au...
Sydney sprawl costs economy $75,000 more per new home (SMH): www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/s...
Save Dully's Report from 2019: www.savedully.com/our-suburb-...
SMH article about Housing Now! Launch: www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/w...
Channel 7 story on Housing Now! (including Melissa's appearance): • New housing alliance p...
Sharath's appearance on Channel 7 News: • Metro trains for Zetla...
Macarthur Parade Heritage Listing Submission Link: www.sydney.yimby.au/blog/maca...
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Yes, yes, a lot of links haha. There's even more links in the description if you wanna see some of the sources for this video. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this. Be sure to share it so that we can get even more people to view it. Changing people's perceptions of how a good city should be designed is the first step in creating a better Sydney, and I hope we can all achieve that. Thank you for watching :))
When I see a Sharth video. I know it’s gonna be a treat, No matter the topic.
I don't see why terraces are still illegal in Sydney. You could basically triple the density without the loss of your own back yard, and make far more effective use of space, as well as create a greater sense of community. As long as the party walls are double brick and insulated (unlike the Newtown ones where you can hear the conversation going on next door), and 3 storeys, you'd get privacy and plenty of space.
Lol, I know the feeling. I lived in an apartment once, where the walls were so thin, you could hear your neighbor taking a dump on the toilet. I now live in a single-family home.
@@gracedagostino5231 just to add some colour to the conversation, i live in an infill development 8 story building done right - where i hardly ever hear my neighbors at all unless they're crazy people blasting music at 3am, which would annoy anyone, in any form of housing.
Terraces need to be wider as they were built in a time when the average person was a lot shorter than any from post WWII. I've seen old terraces knocked down and replaced with new, and they're simply not wide enough. I've lived in ones where there is one way to put a bed and there's barely enough room to walk around the end of it.
I’m that neighbour in Newtown sorry💀💀
Lol build things in double brick. Good joke.
Thanks for this. Rented an apartment in Dulwich hill when "Save Dully AG" were kicking off, and I am now priced out of the suburb, away from friends, community, and access to the city.
We need far more campaigning coming from the other side. Those wealthy retirees have all the time and money in the world to whinge until they get their way.
It is population increase that has made suburbs unaffordable. And in Australia, population increase is foreigners and the children that they have had since arrival, who are not classified as migrants.
Thank you Sharith for promoting Housing Diversity and the field of Urbanism.
I lived in Sydney for 25 years, mainly in the Inner West and 10 years in affordable flats (MDH) - one of them Art Deco - in Dulwich Hill. I sort of take your point…. But as you clearly illustrate, Sydney does have very many marvellous examples of medium density housing - made successful through effective rezoning. You are totally correct about the greenfield sprawl (‘McMansion heatsinks’) that characterised the 1990s and early 2000s. But the North Penrith precinct, developed over the last decade, is a brilliant example of exactly what you are talking about.
Compared to every other city in Australia, Sydney has often been a model of housing diversity and effective rezoning. Since the end of the First World War, Sydney has had a larger proportion of MDH than any other Australian city -especially over the last 60 years. Yes. Sydney ‘invented’ the ‘garden suburb’ with the redevelopment of Haberfield in the 1940s (which, to be fair is probably the one of the better examples of low-medium density development), and there have been tragic outbursts of suburban sprawl in Western Sydney since the 1970s, which have turned once prime agricultural land into seas of concrete and asphalt. But your presentation implies that Sydney has resisted MDH when in reality (and as you yourselves demonstrate), it has by default, embraced MDH - but could do even better!
I applaud your advocacy of urgent positive change, but even the good examples that you show, you found in Sydney. You didn’t have to go to Amsterdam or Helsinki to find examples of what is desired… and you couldn’t have found more or better examples anywhere else in Australia.
Went to Lane Cove recently is got really nice over the last decade.
It inspired a lot of confidence that we can fix the city
Awesome video Sharath, loved the shoutout for LANE COVE! Although must add that Lane Cove has super frustrating public transport access for most of the suburb, outside those living near the interchange or Mowbray road. Increasing density HAS to go hand in hand with better public transport (just chuck light rails everywhere) or most people still miss out.
An excellent video. I'm in a mid 1970's 12 unit block in Macquarie Park next to Lane Cove National Park. Ryde has a cross section of all housing types like Lane Cove. I was chatting to neighbours in local dog park about how great the community is. The planning for area encourages high rise apartments next to Metro stations as focal points and lower density further out. Goodmans have announced that one of their existing commercial sites next to Mac Park station will be rebuilt as a mixed use commercial and residential with open space
Adopt the zoning system in Tokyo where you can build low, medium or high density housing/comercial on the same block depending on the demand.
Really love this! I'd love to see a future video addressing the other reasons why apartments have gotten such a bad rep in Australia (eg: poor building standards) and what if anything we can do to fix that. It's a multi pronged approach! I'd love to live in a Sydney apartment. But it seems like every apartment in Sydney is built more poorly than the next, and no incentive to do better. There's no point fixing one without the other!
Agreed - it would be great to have a video summarising what medium density should and should *not* be doing.
A lot of NIMBYs are pushing back on densification because they're worried it'll be done poorly, so it's really important that the YIMBY advocates have something to point towards that clarifies what we're supporting.
Love this channel! This guy tells it like it is. I live in California, and we have been dealing with these issues even longer than Sydney. We have 40 million people jammed in an area smaller than your Victoria. Most Americans think if they move to Sydney, they will have a house overlooking the harbour, or in Bondi Beach. Just like people think when they move to Los Angeles, they will be living in Malibu or Beverly Hills. The truth is going to be a lot different.
Epic. Everything’s epic if it’s posted to this channel.
I hate it when I go back to my parents house and they get upset about the units being built next to the station. I just say it's good and where do you expect me buy a place to live? They don't get it
How do you address poor quality construction and people getting ripped off such as Mascot Towers and Toplace? Even if you buy a simple 70's walk up you might be up for over $100K special levies because of NCAT's poor decisions, with absolutely no accountability or protection afforded to owners and residents.
Very high (such as 30 years, an life of an average mortgage) or even better, indefinite warranty
I LOVE MIXED USED DEVELOPMENT. I LOVE HAVING A GREAT GOOD PLACE. I LOVE HAVING A SENSE OF COMMUNITY WHERE I LIVE.
Can we build medium denisty housing with some character and charm? Built in the style from the early from the 1920s-50s
That is precisely what I was thinking. I feel I would be a YIMBY if it wasn't for the fairly boring urban character that developers go for ;)
That probably depends very much on the architectural fashion at the time.
@@peternickell376 I would get behind it aswell if that was a big part of their plan.
There's a suburb in Paris called Le Plessis Robinson. They completely redeveloped the suburb from brutalist architecture to architecture from earlier in the 20th century. Quite amazing what they've done
Its too expensive to build this way
Love art deco and Californianian bungalows.
I definitely think we should have way more medium high density around all train stations, but I do hope it’s not just these Minecraft looking blocky apartments. I hope they maintain some of the nice old style we see in European cities.
Exactly
Its really annoying how young planners refuse to notice the big drawback of medium density housing - in a word STAIRS. Medium density in practice means multilievel but not enough to require a lift. This is no problem at all for healthy young urban professionals like them, but they make this form of housing unsuitable for the old and those with a mobility disability. That affects more people than you think - eg a healthy 60yo empty nester looking to downsize has to think of the day years hence when they are candidates for a knee replacement (ask me how I know).
@@kenoliver8913that sounds scary, but building two or three floors up on an existing plot of land doesn't reduce the number of ground floors on that plot
@@beatrix1120 I actually think that a better solution to get the benefits of medium density is to make lifts part of the building standards. Single floor water lifts are surprisingly cheap to put in a new building (retrofitting is another matter) and would solve the problem.
I agree. Most new apartments look horrible, so I understand why people don't like them, especially in areas with a lot of pre WW2 houses. I don't mind them tearing down shops and/or industrial buildings (which often have little character) and building 5-10 story apartment blocks or keeping an existing house and building 2-3 townhouses behind it, but the thought of some of the nice houses I saw in this video being torn down doesn't sit right with me. Those are nice houses that should be preserved. Surely we can find some areas with circa 1960's style houses that were relatively cheaply built to be redeveloped or at the very least if we need to tear down places like these they should be replaced with nice looking medium density dwellings, not ugly concrete ones.
As a retiree, I don't envy the issues facing young families. Clearly the house on a quarter acre block is no more given the outrages cost of detached housing. Sydney and I would surmise all of our big cities are in the same boat. It is all fine to make medium and high density living close to public transport and other facilities, but they will be crippled with extreme body corporate fee's and other taxes making it no cheaper than a detached 1/4 acre block elsewhere. This goes beyond state government and in the responsibility of Federal Government. I'm lucky in the sense that I got my house 20 years ago when things weren't so dire. I believe that all urban planners look beyond their wallets.
Medium density housing doesn't attract "massive body corp fees and other taxes". Medium density means terrace houses, townhouses, small apartment blocks (say 2-4 stories). In other words, not far off what "old Sydney" and "old Melbourne" look like.
Shoeboxes in the sky are massively expensive and unsustainable, yes. But the false dichotomy of quarter acre blocks vs. skyscrapers is exactly what this video is talking about. There are other types of housing, it's just difficult to imagine sometimes because those 2 options are about all planning laws have allowed for the last 70 years.
Those “extreme body corporate fee’s (sic)” do pay for everything.
I pay 1400 pq for my “shoebox in the sky” in Wolli Creek. With my income that would translate to 16h per quarter that I could on anything a detached house needs. And that doesn’t even include any insurance or savings for future major works.
The proverbial 1/4 block will, in real terms, cost more if you account for your own time.
Not to mention all the travel time I save and car costs I don’t incur by living in a proper TOD.
My complex has 2 low rise apparently blocks and 2 rows of townhouses. It’s a great diversity just in one complex!
And we are surrounded by both old apartment blocks and detached houses in our neighbourhood, which actually makes the neighbourhood feel more homey
I love the concept of medium density but strata worries me.
Absolutely right to be worried about strata, any trouble and you're on your own, NCAT's poor decisions have directly cost me and my neighbours over $100K each, but at least we've got a roof over our head unlike people who bought into Mascot Towers and Toplace.
Previously the advantage of medium density is nearly no land tax for investment properties. But Victoria changed all these rules. You have to pay heavy tax if you buy the strata title apartments now. Investors are existing the market.
I used to live in the studio apartments by Dulwich Hill station, it may be an eyesore but it was a good home for many years, one that I could actual afford! There is very a severe lack of affordable and social housing in the inner west and that needs to change. In fact the only affordable housing seems to be small studio apartments. As for 'maintaining neighborhood character' lets not forget the many examples of ugly and bland detached housing to go with those beautiful Federation homes. Around the area are also many examples of bland 1960's and 1970's flats, surely prime candidates to be redeveloped into aesthetic, community focused mid rise apartments!
And while were at it, lets not forget the other issue of parking allocations that substantially increase the cost of each apartment, while incentivizing car use. Developments near train and tram stations should at least require less and one care share space should count for a dozen spaces or so.
As a Dully resident I was excited to see Dully mentioned, then not so happy - Dully needs more density
Unfortunately housing is no longer a basic need but an investment plan for those that can afford to play....
I recently came across an insightful article by Alan Kohler, wherein he highlighted a paradox within the housing dilemma. While public outcry for a resolution to the housing issue persists, Kohler astutely pointed out that homeowners, in reality, resist the very remedies needed for a comprehensive cure. His argument revolves around the notion that addressing the problem necessitates embracing solutions like the development of more medium-sized housing options. However, these very homeowners, crucially positioned to facilitate such changes, often impede progress.
Kohler goes on to propose another unconventional remedy to the housing problem, asserting that a genuine solution would involve a significant stagnation in property value for the next 18 years. This, he notes, is a prospect that particularly unsettles investors. In essence, the article underscores the resistance to reforms and unconventional solutions by homeowners, who, consciously or not, contribute to the perpetuation of the housing crisis.
Some new developers in eastern Sydney are taking away housing diversity and only building luxury apartments for the very rich.
I agree, but we need a better way of doing common property than a body corporate. If you have more than a few units, too many body corporates (bodies corporate?) seem to act like the worst Home Owners Associations that we hear about from the States.
With regard to the housing crisis, how many vacant properties are there, either from developers staggering supply or investors not utilising their properties for long term rentals? A friend of mine bought into an apartment and most of the apartments were vacant for ages. Unsure about recently, haven't spoken to them.
Vacancy rates are currently at historic lows; any investor leaving an apartment vacant for long is a financial idiot. Nor do you see many longtime vacant plots in Sydney for the same reason. I think this is a non-issue.
One issue you haven’t brought up is increasing grey area and heat issues that come alongside decreasing canopy cover. I’m going to specifically talk about the Inner West LGA because you have used both Summer Hill and Dulwich hill as examples. Between 2020-2022 we lost 29 hectares of canopy and in the last 7 we have had grey area increase. You can find this data by looking at the tree canopy report in the council meeting notes from the 8th of august and greening Australia’s audit of LGA’s across Australia from 2016. I am concerned about new infrastructure and housing that does not include plans for keeping current canopy cover because of how low the stock is (16.4%) and how long it takes for a tree to reach a significant height and density to provide the kind of shade benefits that both help reduce heat stress on housing and mean that we have walkable streets during summer as things are already warmer. I lived in the Luna apartments, which are great, but there are no big trees on the property, even along the sides where the bbq and playground area are, meaning that even the playground overheats and there is no shade for parked vehicles along Hudson st. There is a focus on lawn area rather than shade and huge amounts of water funnel into this area, young trees that have been planted have blown over due to wind problems and not replaced. The properties on the other side of the track fair better in that they brought in huge established trees as part of the development for the park area and there is an amazing community building “little big house” which has free events and is phenomenal as a” 3rd place” for people to gather or hold community events. I support this kind of development , that holds the overall community value of canopy, green space and 3rd spaces but have found that YIMBY groups view regulation like this as “red tape” and make it too difficult for developers. There needs to be a balance.
They creates a new suburbs next to and around Penrith station and greater local area with lots of town houses and apartments with the idea people without cars would live there and use public transport. Instead they created huge traffic and parking issues. Creating housing diversity only works if the area has decent infrastructure to keep up with the population increase but unfortunately Penrith is running about 20 years behind in that regard. Only going to get worse when the airport opens.
It's a travesty that so much of new "houses" built in the outer suburbs in the last 20 years are identikit mc mansions 1m from each other with a postage stamp for a backyard. Just build decent terraces or townhouses already!
Yeah mate and you gonna bear the cost eh?
A great and thought-provoking video. There are a few aspects of housing diversity, however, that I feel it could have addressed in more considered or in-depth ways.
Among them are:
Ways in which the sense of an area's heritage can be preserved while also allowing increased density (one house in a completely redeveloped street is not the same as one street in a redeveloped suburb, for example).
Housing to suit all stages of life in the same area; high and medium-density housing that suits young, single people or couples starting a family may not fulfill the needs of families with teenage children, and empty nesters may stay in 'the perfect family home' for decades because there's nowhere else to move that has a spare room and a swing for their grandchildren.
Housing aspirations/expectations; too much of contemporary new-build detached housing prioritises floor area over land use to the extent that it may as well not be detached at all, while people who want a smaller house with a tree, a veggie garden, and somewhere for their kids to play are left looking at more established, more expensive areas.
The diversity of needs that is hidden by simplistic demography; in my case, the dream home would be a one-bedroom apartment with a small garden and a 12x6m workshop space (without growing and fixing your own things, life gets much more expensive)... for a young tradesperson, it might be a two bedroom apartment with parking for a ute and trailer, a place to store tools, and a place for their child to play outdoors... for an independent elderly person, it might be a ground-floor flat with a couple of flower beds that also provides easy access to the centre of the community they've spent their entire life in... I don't know all of the different things that all of the people need but their diverse needs and even greater diversity of situations deserve a lot more consideration than simply changing zoning and letting property developers build cheap-fall apart in five years-higher density housing. Making it better must be better than just picking a mechanism that makes it easier for young office workers to live near a station.
I live in a townhouse in Melbourne, across from some big chunky two storey houses, right next to some modest sized apartment blocks and down the street from more townhouses. Lots of people can be housed and everything is walkable!
We don't want those poor people who can only afford 1.3 million for a townhouse moving near us
Great video - have signed up as a member of Sydney YIMBY.
Still waiting for redevelopment at Rockdale. That Princess Highway has to go, or build pedestrian street over or under.
Great video! I'm definitely going to check out Sydney YIMBY. Lane Cove is a GREAT example of diverse housing. Too bad it's quite expensive to live in. More areas could do with diversification, especially in more affordable parts of Sydney. Pair that with decent access to public transport and you may start to solve the traffic issues without having to build yet another tollway!
I do wish Sydney YIMBY best of luck though. Keeping those property prices high is a good motive for anyone not willing to increase supply, and it's politically powerful too.
Keep up the great work with your videos. Been loving your takes on our city. It's the open honest conversation we needed to have 20yrs ago.
HEY, it was great metting you that day, a great video, keep it up.
Just became a member of Sydney YIMBY :-)
Hugely important topic, great video guys. YIMBY on!
Wanna say, big support for Sydney YIMBYs! I can't join right now as I'm already over capacity in the "stuff I'm doing" department, but know I stand beside you all with getting more R3 zoning approved, including in my neighbourhood, and maybe in 6-12 months will be able to be more active once current everything has died down a bit ❤
Most houses on my street are 2 storey duplexes. My town is about 80 years old and most of the fibro and wooden houses have gone. All new houses are always duplexes apart from the odd family which does a knock-down rebuild. Whenever a single storey house is sold a builder always buys it to have more duplexes. I live on the T8 and on weekends and off peak we get express trains to the city frequently. It takes about 25 minutes by Waratahs and 28 minutes by Tangaras or K sets.
This is terrific and it's great to hear. One of the current criticisms of YIMBYs (and obviously of NIMBYs) is a concern that neither group is really listening to Aboriginal communities whose unceded land forms the 'backyard'. Groups will often find an agreeable person, rather than a whole of community consultation, and it's a pretty cynical approach. As an older Aboriginal person (and a professor at MQ who works in part across housing precarity with our Dignity Project) I am really concerned that all of this work is done in spite of Aboriginal people and communities.
Did the drone survive the crow attack at 4:32 😂
Developers are also a massive problem in Australia, choking up and drip feeding supply so that demand remains high
Local council approval processes play a big role in the 'drip-feeding'.
Is there any evidence for this? Seems demand is already about as high as you could imagine, and developers are just about guaranteed to sell every home they build, so are incentivised to do so wherever it’s legal.
www.macrobusiness.com.au/2022/08/developers-choke-supply-to-drive-up-house-prices/
Much of the debate about higher density has been around new metro stations, but the much larger Sydney Trains network has been largely ignored. There are multiple times more suburban centres on the existing rail network where town centres could be densified with rezoning within 800m of a major transport node, which is about a 10 minute walk. There are instances on the suburban rail network where higher density redevelopment is already happening, such as Burwood, Ashfield , Hurstville, St Leonards and Bondi Junction to name a few, but there are potentially many others where densification could take place if they had the appropriate planning controls in place. It doesn't need a new metro line to kick-start redevelopment.
Take for example the adjoining suburbs of Epping and Eastwood on the Northern Line. Epping was designated as a Priority Precinct, and now a Strategic Centre, because it is at the junction of the Northern Line and the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link, now part of Metro Northwest, The planning controls in Epping were upgraded to allow up to 20 storeys in the town centre core, although this has already been exceeded with a recent development of 29 storeys, and floor space ratios of up to 6:1.
In the Local Government Amalgamation Review, Paramatta City Council which is responsible for that part of Epping on the western side of the rail line and south of Carlingford Rd, took over the former territory of Hornsby Shire Council on the eastern side of the rail line and north of Carlingford Rd. Strangely, It didn't include North Epping, which is now isolated from Hornsby, because of the lack of direct road links. It's interesting to note that all of the redevelopment in Epping has been in the former Hornsby territory, although planning controls are similar on both sides of the rail corridor, which is now within the jurisdiction of Parramatta City Council. Seems rather odd.
In the case of Eastwood, which is a much larger retail/commercial centre than Epping, redevelopment has been stifled because of inadequate planning controls which haven't been updated by Ryde Council for 25 years, in spite of several failed attempts owing to NIMBYism. It still has a height limit of 10 storeys and no floor space ratios, which makes redevelopment within the town centre core unviable. Eastwood has far more redevelopment potential than Epping and If it had similar planning controls, then it would easily outstrip it, notwithstanding the latter being a rail junction and on the metro line.
In comparison, you have the adjoining suburbs of Strathfield and Burwood on the Western Line, where Strathfield is a major rail junction and the larger Burwood is the Strategic Centre for the Inner West. How does the Epping/Eastwood relationship equate with that? It doesn't add up. This is a typical example where the State government should step in and take over the planning controls from the local council, which appears to be unable to upgrade them in the face of what I would suggest is minority opposition, or at least has been in the past. Non-representative NIMBYs IMO, who I suggest no longer hold sway because of changing demographics.
I agree that the R2 zoning should include duplexes, town houses, terrace homes and small scale apartment developments on appropriately sized sites. There will still be an overwhelming proportion of single detached dwellings remaining within the metropolitan region..
I expect the western side of the line at Epping will be next in the queue for redevelopment in the same myopic ad hoc way the eastern side was been. It's just a matter of time.
Just before the pandemic challenged the supremacy of the CBD, the state government took over planning in Epping and "activated" it by effectively banishing long established commercial activity in favour of high-rise residential. Lots are not necessarily consolidated and individual DAs are decided in isolation from their neighbours. The vendors of the land get the value capture rather than the community.
It would be nice to see people thinking differently about the declining importance of the CBD and making better use beyond residential of the sprawling metropolitan area.
@@listohan The state government took over planning in the Epping Town Centre, declaring it a Priority Precinct and now a Strategic Centre, long before the pandemic. The point I was making earlier was that it seemed strange that redevelopment has only taken place in the former Hornsby Council area on the eastern side of the rail line and on the northern side of Carlingford Rd, although planning controls are similar in Parramatta Council's area on the western side.
I agree that it was a mistake to rezone much of Epping's former commercial office precincts for high rise residential with limited ground level retail. The lack of office workers during the day has had a negative impact on the remaining retail businesses. It's obvious that the focus on residential development is to feed into the metro line, without any thought being given to the viability of the commercial businesses. This is Hong Kong's MTR model, which is a partner in the consortium operating Metro Northwest and soon its extension to the CBD and Bankstown.
It's destined to become a high rise residential dormitory suburb which will be empty during the working week, when with more thoughtful planning, it could have been much more and a destination in itself. It's ludicrous that Epping is now designated as a Strategic Centre, when it hardly meets any of the criteria. There's now limited retail/commercial space with no major shopping centre and diminishing commercial office activity. All it's got is a metro line and a rail interchange. Although it's not on a metro line, or potentially could be, the adjoining suburb of Eastwood which is a far larger retail/commercial centre, could satisfy the criteria if its mixed use planning controls were upgraded to allow for greater height and density.
@@exray1 If the powers really wished to drive business to the Metro, they would have extended and should still extend the light rail from Carlingford station to Epping station. While Eastwood is clearly more active than Epping, it is mainly for retail rather than office activities. Office employment drives more use of public transport than shoppers do.
The concentration on the east may have been coincidental with the pending merger of responsibility for the Hornsby and Parramatta LGAs. There is enough disruption without attempting to develop both sides at the same time. The departure of the Chinese developers might be another reason.
My point has been that the combination of the NBN and the post Covid realisation of the limited attraction of the CBD thereby reducing the imperative that all our thoughts should be towards intensifying residential development near to it. This is an inevitable development of Sydney and Melbourne becoming megacities, even by international standards.
The question remains what do we think differently? We will always be able to move electrons, more cheaply than people, so we should be concentrating on creating viable centres, especially at rail junctions rather than duplicating existing travel capacity to the CBD. The intervention of the Premier with his urging that some office towers be converted to residential use may be looking after CBD landlords at the risk of failing to devise the best solutions for those destined to live far from the CBD
@@listohan There's not much chance of extending the light rail from Carlingford to Epping and in fact there never was. The only option would have been to extend it in a short tunnel to Carlingford Rd near Carlingford Court and then along a widened Carlingford Rd to Epping. It would be just too disruptive and expensive requiring major property resumptions along the route. That option has now effectively been cut off with the recent apartment development on the northern side of Carlingford Rd at Epping and existing medium density development on the southern side. There was also the problem of locating a terminus in the Epping Town Centre which as you know is already a traffic sewer. Tunnelling along the whole route just isn't an option for light rail. That's why the previous government dropped the idea. They never thought it through from the very beginning.
TfNSW should have stuck with Parramatta Council's original proposal to run from Dundas on the Carlingford Line on the more direct route to Macquarie University via Eastwood, utilising the wide 6-lane Kissing Point Rd corridor and the Eastwood County Road reservation. The line from Dundas to Carlingford as now constructed could still have been a branch. Stage 2 of the PLR from Camellia to Sydney Olympic Park has now cut off the option of a future line to Macquarie Park branching from the Carlingford Line, but it would still be possible if it branched from the PLR line at Church St North Parramatta along Victoria Rd to Kissing Point Rd.
Eastwood still has a significant amount of commercial office space and isn't just all retail. It's probably more than Epping now since much of the latter's office space has been redeveloped for high rise residential. Eastwood's development has been hamstrung by the failure of Ryde Council to update its Town Centre Master Plan over the last couple of decades. It wants to retain its "village" atmosphere.
I don't agree that the Sydney CBD will lose its attraction and I believe that over time it will return to its rightful place as the focal point of transport, employment, entertainment, culture and tourism for the region and the state. Successful cities are based on the concentration of intellectual intercourse. That doesn't mean to say that smaller regional centres like Parramatta, Macquarie Park etc don't also have a place, but they will be subordinate to the primary focus of the Sydney CBD.
I think Chris Minns is on the wrong track in promoting conversion of vacant office towers to residential use. It's not as simple as it is made out to be. If it were ever to eventuate, it would be for the high end market, like the former IBM tower on the approaches to the harbour bridge.. Clover Moore is right. The core of the CBD should be reserved for commercial/retail use with residential on the fringe. The mayor of Waverley has expressed similar sentiments with regard to Bondi Junction and doesn't want to see its commercial/retail core diminished by residential development. The experience in Epping should be a lesson in that.
One thing that I do agree on with Minns though is that there has to be greater densification within the inner and middle ring suburbs where a significant number of people would probably prefer to live, rather than out on the fringe, but can't because it's unaffordable. That doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be high rise development.
I do meter reading for power and my favorites are actually terraces (such as one i do sometimes in north sydney) and of course apartments where i can fly by doing ranging more than 50-100 reads in one go (and in some cases just spending an whole hour in a apartment block)
Haven't really done like a 25+ story apartment, but since northern sydney (mostly northern beaches but i go to north shore area like once a month or whenever they need my demand) is my area, its would be rare as fuck. Highest tower i would have done is an office tower in chastwood lol.
I really think anything within a km of a train station should be automatically higher (and anyone that want low density to disagreed by planning or courts by default) than R2 or whatever it is and the more service, the higher the density its should be. (At least chatswood/st lennords in my neck of the woods is high density, but i believe places like stratty should go a step further in density than chatswood or even parra in its own right)
Hey, Sharath! Love your work. Yes, it’s completely nuts that here in Sydney we are second only to Hong Kong in terms of housing cost. The housing crisis here is dire and state governments are now ramming through urban planning legislation that will override a lot of public consultation that allowed concerned residents to have direct say about developments in their local community. In itself, it wasn’t a bad thing = democracy. So in this context it seems to me that the NIMBY/YIMBY war kicked off in earnest about a year ago. Of course the NIMBYs are hopping mad and while they tend to have some valid arguments (although not entirely irrefutable), the time has passed when they could have advocated for better planning outcomes rather than just resist densification outright, particularly in our largely gentrified inner city for so long. We have this crazy donut effect in Sydney where we have a dense CBD then a slightly dense inner city and the density really picks up again in middle ring suburbs before hitting sprawl with only a few exceptions (you will hear NIMBYs say without any hint of irony “put more apartments out in Blacktown!”). I thought about joining my local YIMBY group but hesitated, not because I’m spooked by the (untrue) implication that they are in any way enabling developers and investors in their efforts, but because they have co-opted some similar tactics from the NIMBY playbook, which is unfortunate…combing through DAs, turning up at Council meetings, lobbying politicians, etc. One could rightly say NIMBYs created their very own nemesis and they’re reaping what they sow. So now I'm a MIMBY - MAYBE in my backyard. Increasing density around railway stations and city centres is a no-brainer - with some important caveats such as building behind or slotting in with heritage and preserving trees and increasing green spaces. Honestly, I used to have sympathy for NIMBYs, having a professional stake in museums and heritage, but the more I observe the issues and have begun to witness and personally experience the benefits of densification, the more I support it. I do hope YIMBY can evolve where NIMBYs haven’t been able to. Eventually, the campaign ends once permanent change has occurred and real sense in urban planning is firmly legislated and prevails. 👍🏻
YIMBYism would probably be more accepted if the big buildings had architecture reminiscint of the times of the smaller homes they replaced
I wasn't looking at the screen when the video started and I wasn't expecting Mark Fennel's voice, the I looked up and saw that it was some guy named Sam Austin (who I have never heard of before), their voice is so similar.
Would love to see this same group do a video on the number of backyard tennis courts in Sydney, especially near the north shore train line.
Meanwhile, as a resident on the Northern Beaches, this video has given me plenty of ideas to fight the YIMBYS in my area
Great video! I would really love to see more medium density housing in Sydney. But also standards for apartments to predominantly face north, or to at least have cross breezes to make apartments more livable.
It's a shame lane cove doesn't have train or metro access.
The maps are great. Could you potentially post the map files to the community tab?
Excited to join Sydney yimbys.
High density or even medium density is not suited to families. There simply isn't enough space within the dwellings or externally. If housing supply is the issue, consideration needs to be given to extreme immigration levels.
However, streets surrounding planned metro stations from Marrickville to Canterbury on the Metro City and Southwest line are not currently being contemplated as key targets for priority upzoning.
All are in Labor seats, with Labor-dominated councils and well-organised resident groups.
Marrickville and Dulwich Hill are in Transport Minister Jo Haylen's electorate, Canterbury is in Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis' electorate, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's federal electorate of Grayndler includes parts of all three suburbs.
A previous draft strategy by the NSW Department of Planning called for rezoning around Marrickville and Canterbury metro stations to allow for high rises and medium-rise buildings up to eight storeys within 400m of stations, and medium-rise apartment buildings up to seven storeys at Dulwich Hill.
Fantastic- build more MDH and add active transport corridors, and urban branches, throughout Sydney with more tree coverage and it'd be such an enjoyable (and affordable) place to live.
Whilst I can understand people are calling for dmore diversity in housing however it has mostly been units and where townhouses have been built by knocking down a house the townhouse ends up costing more than the house it was built on. This happened to the house on the street behind me. I have lived in the Eastern Suburbs since the 70's. I have seen Zetland, Alexandria, Rosebery, Pagewood, Mascot, Maroubra, Hillsdale, Little Bay & Botany all add tens of thousands of units, and to a lesser extent townhouses. This all started in the 1980's when the Matraville drive in theatre was built upon with town houses. Price henry Hospital was closed and units were built on it. Thousands of units were built in Zetland, Pagewood next to Eastgardens. Zetland and north Rosebery was industrial / warehouses. This has increased traffic in these areas Gardeners Rd is a standstill most weekends. Another issue is that when units are built on shopping centres exactly how long will it be before they decide to knock down the shopping centre in Hilsdale, Maroubra and Matraville. Lastly it's generally the reas in Suburbs that have no units that become desirable that everyone wants to live, they call for more units etc in those areas but high rise development would destroy what makes these Suburbs desirable in the first place.
Just rezone Dulwich Hill and build period-style townhouses and apartments.
We should build more of those period style dwellings around Sydney. Simple modern architecture doesn't look as good
Im all for medium high rises so long thier is a comminity parks close by because this is the only way for families to have thier 'own back yard' if they were living in detached housing
This is a good starting point, but there are so many problems with Sydney housing (I understand that addressing all of this would be out of the scope of any video). I'm all for higher density housing (I live in one), but have a lot of empathy for home owners who are worried about the entire landscape of their neighborhoods taken over by the aesthetically ugly, shoddy, cookie-cutter apartments. Sydney needs to urgently focus on a sense of place and quality, and not allow large developers to build whatever ugly architecture they feel like building. Some of the older art deco style apartment blocks from Potts Point, Darlinghurst, Eastern Subs, etc, are good starting point for understanding aesthetic value that we should add to Sydney. We also need better protections for home owners and renters for the quality of apartments that are built. And like you briefly mentioned, policies like negative gearing have made housing stock affordable only to wealthy investment buyers, who don't give a crap about the quality of housing or the neighbourhoods. Meanwhile people who actually want to invest their lives in a neighbourhood (long time renters or owner-occupiers) are priced out.
When I lived in Sydney I would have been fine living in medium density housing, and was considering it before we left. Thing is, most of them are unaffordable for low income people, like us, even in supposedly 'affordable' suburbs, as renters, let alone if one is a home buyer. We were looking in Campbelltown. Also there's the fear in terms of poor build quality, especially over the longer, of many of these new apartments. Not enough, aka nothing, is being done to aid in affordability. Vienna in Austria is cited as a stand out for well designed and well thought out public and low income medium density housing. This is what Sydney needs, on top of those featured in this video in expensive, higher socioeconomic, areas.
Agree with your comment, housing affordability is terrible here. Public transport in most suburbs not near train lines is also terrible. I was paying 350pw for a one bedder unit in the Bennelong area (Gladesville) a couple years ago. Now I am paying 500pw for the same exact thing, in a worse location further from the main roads (Victoria Rd) and further from the CBD. Getting around in this part of Sydney requires 45-50 minutes of bus/train switching to get from A to B - which geographically might only be a 15-20 minute drive.
I'm moving to Melbourne next year, it feels so hopeless in Sydney, it's like running in a rat wheel. Hopefully your move worked out for you!
Really great video, nice work
Challenges in housing crisis. Eg: Dept of Planning, Council Regulations, Bad Developers etc...
Putting my economist hat on, we want to maximise the good to society. What creates the greater good for the society: the amenity of the heritage of an old detached house occupied by several people, or the amenity of 20 apartments making say 50 more people close to public transport, shops, jobs, and other facilities?
It's unambiguously the latter.
Also, I disagree that the several residents in that detached home have a right to block development next door, because who advocates for the 50 people who would be living there? Why should the former's voice carry more weight than the latter.
Agree. Also not to mention the many examples of corruption that occurs in councils due to restrictive zoning in Sydney - clearly current zoning legislation is failing.
IMO - zoning should not be under the scope of local councils. It should be Federal.
And really there should only be IN1-4 and R, that would lead to truly diverse housing.
It would go a long way into eliminating corrupt practices in local councils and increasing competition among builders.
While it wouldn't eliminate the speculative nature of housing in AU (as you mention a lot of other factors at play here). However, it would allow those high prices and speculative activity to drive an eventual oversupply.
Would that be such a bad thing in the context of the current environment?
apartment with high strata fees is very costly, is there any way to reduce the strata cost?
Even if you change the zone from R2 to R3, you will still need a way to accumulate adjacent properties to make up proper sized blocks available for quality medium density housing.
Without the means to do that, you are just farting against thunder.
You may be able to get a couple of high density apartment blocks built directly above a train station, but everyone will just point to the lack of medium density and say that's why we shouldn't change
You've completely forgotten to mention what Sydney lacks most of all : land where you can both build a house and a business together on the same property. Oh, that and relocateable home parks.
There is plenty of land in central coast. All you need is a high speed rail to link them. We can build a satellite city there. It can be as crowded as like in Hong Kong or Shanghai.
ok im cool with re developing denistone as long as i get my vending machine (and the station remains like old looking it kinda cool like that)
Working as a NSW gov planner means ignoring planning rules and making individual decisions to advantage big developers. Homelessness by design
But "advantaging big developers" is the only way to get more housing built. You cannot have your cake and eat it too my friend.
More medium density housing would not be an issues if the roads were more free flowing. Increased traffic due to higher housing density means AI needs to be used in road traffic management as currently the lights near me appear to turn red as a bunch of 15 cars are approaching the lights which is bad for the environment and creates traffic conjestion instead of the lights staying green for another 25 seconds and keeping the traffic flowing.
My sister just rent a new 2BR apartment in lane cove. It costs her $1000 per week. These apartments are from the rezone of the land. When I look at YIMBY I cannot help laughing. In other words medium density apartment cannot solve your housing problem in particular if you are poor, unless you can drastically increase your supply in huge numbers, at the same time, not in coming 10 years! I can guarantee you that the new built rental apartments are extremely expensive in those low density suburbs. The low income tenants are still not able to get into these communities.
eyyy you got on the news awesome
The problem is (developers), not people trying to preserve the heritage of an area. They dont want it to be ruined by a dirty property deceloper that wants to make a quick buck with all the developer insentives included, weither its structurally sound or not.
Very important content.
Dulwich Hill has a lot of old money and it is real estate real estate over there. I have worked there and you can believe me, people living there are not poor. That always makes a difference when it comes to rezoning and not in our backyard syndrome.
It's only not in our backyard syndrome when developers are ripping people off and destroying areas at the same time. Building apartments everywhere in nice areas will not make prices go down.
Drab, detached houses..perfect description of these oversized homes, tiny gardens and not a tree in sight. Being older, living in an apartment I like villas. they give tha option of a garden and no stairs. No such animsl in the eastern suburbs. Great presentation.
Have fun with strata. I'll keep my semi detached thanks.
I suggest a campaign for city-wide Council adoption of R4 zoning on the sun-ward side of train-lines and arterial roads; this would enable R4 developments in more areas where R4 would be viable (e.g. close enough to transit hubs). Then a campaign to get uniform R3+ zoning on the southern side of the lines and arterial roads. Although I don't agree with your assumptions and blind obedience to Treasury demands for never ending population expansion (no matter how much it profits Real Estate profiteering) ; however R2 zoning next to train stations is inherently wasteful & uneconomic.
How can access the access to train stations map that you showed in the video ? Any link ? Thank you
Strata title developments are not affordable in established suburbs, and their strata levies are not affordable.
But interest rates are not high.
If they rise more, affordability would improve.
Savings too.
I kind of understand the issue of heritage in Dulwich Hill and I think its a big problem not just with high and medium density house but with almost all modern housing, they are just very bland and do not match the aesthetics of these heritage areas. I think if they reverted the styles to match the areas such as Dulwich Hill there would be less NIMBY’s.
You're right in that most new dense developments are ugly and bland, unfortunately this is a response to meet demand as quickly and cheaply as possible. Until enough areas have been rezoned / tax benefits regressed and enough supply built sydney wont be able to go the extra mile to create those dreamy euro style areas. Not to mention there are supply chain pressures that make materials more costly and labour shortages already so unfortunately we have to compromise.
I am a firm believer of developments and Dulwich Hills absolutely should rezone as high density. Especially since it has a rail, light rail and bus services! However I believe moreso in appropriate developments, bland design of apartments gives people a disdain of high rise living. Personally summer hill is very grey to me. We need to incorporate high density living with design of character
Good video, need more of this in Adelaide where everywhere is detached houses. New projects such as Bowden are promising but too few and far between
Would be nice if we can build more rail, tho would be happy with more dedicated bus lanes!
Was trying to find a one bedroom apartment and couldn't find anything outside of sharehouses or uni students 😞
Love this
Half price chips are $4.25!!!
Truly insane
Yep. I used to buy a pack of thins at the end of every week. For more than a decade they've been 1.85, since covid they're 4.75!
@@alimfuzzy I can’t fathom how a 175g bag of chips at full price could be more than a hamburger!
@astra6712 Here, a McDonald's cheeseburger is $4.85.
@@alimfuzzy here a Big Mac is $7.15 a plain hamburger is $7.50 from the local takeaway
NIMBY is not a minority group. For example your community density exceeds by 400%, from R2 to R4…. Can your kids be able to get into the good public school? Probably not that easy. Council will further divided the suburb into smaller one.
I think only the business drivers such as profit and incentive can change the situation. The people who support YIMBY are those who have the detached house in the community ? As far as I know, most people live in the high density prefers that there are large park or low density house in the street where they live.
To be realistic, it is hard to change anything if the YIMBY are not the major stakeholders of the community but the outsiders.
To resolve the housing crisis, I believe the high speed rail from Sydney to the central coast and Newcastle is the solution.
Sydney needs to decentralize and build a high-speed rail through its Northwest/Southwest corridor. This rail would connect to the new Airport, and the speed rail would directly link to Canberra/Wollongong in the south and Newcastle in the north. Potentially, this route could also connect to Brisbane and Melbourne. The land in these locations is accessible, and it can easily be connected to Sydney's existing rail network. As they continue to upgrade the current train service, it would coincide with medium-sized developments, such as units and townhouses, along Sydney's already developed train network.
At the rate Sydney is going, new Suburbs like Oran Park or Marsden Park will be planned the same way and probably spread all the way to Goulburn or Richmond in the next 20 years, where these new suburbs will be built along old, unusable train line services and the backlogged country road where traffic with people still commuting to work in Sydney business hub or the existing overpopulated and underserviced Sydneys west.
They are doing this, it's called the Sydney Metro, from Tullawong in the North West, through the city and all the way to Bankstown in the South West.
@@seangooley8696 The Metro line would have been better suited with High-speed rail and decentralization in Sydney to offset the cost of living in surrounding cities in the regions like Canberra, Goulburn, Wollongong, Central Coast, and Hunter region. Having an automated train network is only a shorterm and slower solution compared to decentralization and high-speed rail infrastructure where you can redistribute the population growth.
you mean NSW needs to decentralise. Sydney is pretty polycentric.
@@peepeetrain8755 Sydney needs to be decentralized into major metropolitan that have an interconnected network with its surrounding cities through better infrastructure like high-speed rail, just like London, Singapore, New York, and Tokyo. The problem with NSW is it hasn't decentralized from Sydney's old city network and infrastructure/road back logs
Decentralisation never works and it creates a type of inefficiency where jobs and facilities end up spread across the city and people have to criss cross the entire city to get to get to them. It’s what causes Canberra so many problems. Centralisation is more efficient. The decentralisation argument relies on this misguided idea that the city is somehow full. Other more successful global cities are vastly more compact than Sydney with equivalent or larger populations. Rather than decentralise we need to massively bulk up housing supply as close to the CBD (and Parramatta) as possible so that commutes are as short as possible on infrastructure that is as cheap and efficient as possible.
Yeah well it hasn’t helped much in lane cove. Have you seen the prices? Disgusting.
...errr aren't all of the diverse medium density housing examples shown in the first minute of this video located in Sydney??
did you watch the whole video? There's not enough of it and not able to be built in many areas
@@emilylockwood8817 Fair enough, but I think it is a failing to ignore the urban history of Sydney, which the video rather does. Given the demographic of the creators this can be forgiven (sorry cheap revenge shot for all the casual ageism). Huge swathes of single family houses in middle ring suburbs were bulldozed in the 1960s and 1970s and replaced with 3-storey walk-ups of varying quality (including in Dulwich hill if you look more closely at the drone shots) by lots of pretty shonky developers. These blocks might be salvaged, and some of them are not that bad and have contributed to lots of really lively multicultural suburbs. But they are a major part of the collective memory of the generation of Sydney-siders that the video is so critical of. It's not just about protecting investments.
@@jack2453older apartments aren’t accessible which makes them difficult or not possible for young families, older people or people with disabilities. We need diverse types of housing and also a diverse range of apartments - many families love apartment living so we need family sized apartments.
And given who primarily owns homes in Sydney and who we see turn up to council to say no to housing is it ageism or is it just acknowledgement of who is stopping more housing?
We’re in a housing crisis! It very much feels like “I’ve got mine, you can live a hard life”
@@emilylockwood8817 The people I disagree with are old, so old people are bad.
Going to challange a few points on this one
- The housing crisis, while supply is an issue, I would say is more about liquidity. There's just too much lending and debt sloshing around which pump prices. That's the No. 1 reason for Australia's entire housing crisis by far.
High interest rates IMPROVE affordability. Low interest rates HURT affordability. Yes, it's counter-intuitive, but so are many things in life. The point @ 14:37 that high rates are bad is completely false.
- Immigration is too high. Sorry, there's just no getting around the fact that dumping hundreds of thousands of people onto a city already at its limits isn't good.
- Strata. I hear nothing but bad things. I'm trying to buy a home now and I want detached, because I don't want to be at the mercy of strata.
- A lot of new construction is very poor quality. Think Opal Tower, Mascot Towers, etc. And even new stuff like the "detached" housing in The Ponds, apparently all rubbish. Developers, builders etc all cutting every corner to make a buck at the risk of people's investment and even safety.
Also, you completely missed a whole other category of housing: Granny Flats. I usually hate the things, but it is something you could discuss.
3 long commie blocks have the same floor space as the burg kalefa in Dubai or something I’d have to google full fact
Last time it was Turkey and then Libya now Libya so many places just got destroyed overnight
You also need to look at obstacles to building, even when the zoning has been resolved. Finance, for example.
For example, I know of a couple who own two houses in R3 zoning, within a few minutes walk of Cardiff railway station (suburban Lake Macquarie/Newcastle). They could knock the houses down and build a 3-storey development (height limit recently increased from 10.5m to 12.5m) with 14 units, but finance to build it is a problem. The building society that they currently use will not lend on anything more complex than a duplex. Apparently this is fairly common.
The most perverse thing about this is that once the apartments are built, they could be strata titled and sold separately, and lenders who would not lend to build them would happily lend for people to buy individual units.
I'm all for development of things if it doesn't produce congestion on our roads and if it doesn't have the potential to harm the community, or we already have several of what we already have, a few years ago, I was one of many residents that opposed a development of a Bottle shop in the city where I live. We opposed it because it would have very dire consequences for the community if the Bottle shop was to be built such as an increase of broken glass and violence. In Albury, they changed the direction of travel to Wodonga from Albury by bus on dean street and got rid of the cinema section, They have also built a temporary bus interchange outside of the officeworks at the Albury train station, The interchange has very poor ammenities, partially because of the Nearby businesses being NIMBYs.but also because of the entrance road to the train station being owned by the railway. I know many locals that would like a better bus network, from teenagers to older retired people like my grandparents but there are some that just don't care about it and those people are mainly the NIMBYs. those people often come up with the dumbest excuses such as "We'Re a ReGiOnAl cItY" Cities around the country and across the world with similar populations to Albury/Wodonga have very good bus networks, Our Public transport is not as good as systems in Other cities around the country and in europe but is still way better than systems in the USA and canada.
You cant make everyone happy.
Yeh nimbies like urban sprawl too much and support car dependency
We need people to use public transport more often. I am a YIMBY in the Subrub in Epping and i want devolopment to continue.
@@ethans-dk4bk I hope the uncrossable line gets fixed soon. Its gonna be hard, but I think now extending Parramatta light rail from Carlingford to Epping may be the only option. I wish they had of send rail along there but its way too late now
Is this YIMBY or more YIYBY (yes in your backyard).
I think it is YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard)
They get to not have change and they make more money/inflate the value of their property. So, NIMBYs will likely always stop change. At least they are consistent.
Hey my g
Is Marsden Park beyond repair?
I must confess -
I am a tiny bit of a NIMBY. No, no, I'm not evil, trust me, it's just the history of planning in my area.
So, back in the 1970s (and I've talked about this a lot on the Building Beautifully Discord), there was a study on Sydney transit, and one of the proposed highways would have sped right past the bottom of my bush-clad house. Now, there was a very hard YIMBY family living next to our house when this was proposed, and they ceded part of their block to the government, but the rest of our street kept our land.
Now, more recently, the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link made me think if I really was a NIMBY or a YIMBY. A bridge across the Lane Cove River instead of a tunnel would have allowed for a local station at the old UTS, and would've served the multiple surrounding suburbs well with services that would've been extended with the rest of the ECRL to the city in 2024. Overall, I would've supported that bridge if I had a say, but alas, all that's left is some mid-density housing, a school on the site of a university, and a Bus Bay looping around an empty semicircle where the entrance would have been.
Edit: I might add, the tunnel made it slightly more expensive - not by much, but its clear to see how overbudget ECRL was.
I completely understand why people want to maintain their standard of living but I have so many clients in huge family homes built in the 1960s they could allow a family to move in and make that their family home but these elderly people are holding onto memories. This is why the government paused for so long on housing expecting the boomers to downsize and that just hasn’t happened as was anticipated. I get advice from boomers they have no clue how much has changed especially after the GFC in 2008 forcing banks to adjust lending criteria. The positive is you were born in the goldilocks period.