by AARYAN KAPOOR
A local Sydney council is deeply concerned after the revelation earlier this week that the entire inner west local government area would be rezoned to allow six-storey apartments.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne has said that the widespread rezoning goes much further than what the government previously disclosed.
“I don’t know if rezoning the whole of the Inner West is just another bureaucrat’s thought bubble, but this contradicts public statements of the Premier and the Planning Minister,” he said.
“Allowing 6 storey apartment blocks in every single street in the Inner West is absurd and we will fight hard against such a simplistic proposal,” he continued.
The mayor went on to say that they are still waiting for the state government to provide dwelling targets.
But the briefing document revealed there is little chance that the government’s push for increased density will help reach the 378,000 National Housing Accord targets that Premier Chris Minns agreed to last year.
The document, prepared for the Minister for Planning by his Department, identifyied what the Government’s various rezoning proposals would mean if implemented.
Mid-rise apartment blocks will be allowed in areas up to 800 metres away from transport and town centres in medium-density zones and “appropriate employment zones”.
The inner west is entirely mapped as “well located”, the document states, meaning six-storey apartments will be possible across the area.
Mayor Byrne expressed his frustration in a press conference on Wednesday, saying “If the Government will simply give us dwelling targets, we can get on with working out where the new housing can best be located.”
“Our solutions will be more effective and nuanced than the Department of Planning’s approach of just drawing circles on a map.”
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You should see what they have done in Strathfield and Burwood. These suburbs are is a mess today! Overdeveloped chaos and NONE of it has created affordable housing within the areas. The premise of these re-zoning reforms are to create housing affordability to ease the housing crisis however, as proven in other Sydney area that is a total fallacy. It does not happen when the developers roll in. Historic homes in Strathfield are being purchased by companies in preparation for these new reforms, look at the old education department site in Albert Rd Strathfield that the liberal government sold to a company and currently being used as an illegal boarding house.
Now the government wants to overdevelop Haberfield into the next Strathfield and Burwood. The Inner west is already overdeveloped and schools are full building demountable units on playground space. That is all before one realistically considers the other basic infrastructure, for instance our existing current power grids that are already overloaded. The Minns State government needs to do some quality future proofing and urban planning in the three cities located outside the Sydney Basin Area. Disperse the population in areas where there is space to provide and grow the basic infrastructure. Stop trying to dictate to Australians that we should all be living similar to that of Asian Cities in sky-high overpriced apartments. It is simply un-Australian. It is not our way of life or what tax paying voters want in this country. If that is the life style they want, then they can re-locate elsewhere in search of that.