A massive new construction project in one Sydney suburb is set to bring 11,000 new homes packed into area about the size of eight Melbourne Cricket Grounds.
The Moore Point development in Liverpool in the city’s south-west is a step closer to being given the greenlight after it was finally released for public consultation following nearly a decade tangled in red tape.
The project will turn an old industrial zone next to the Georges River into a mini ‘river city’ with the dense, towering development forming a blueprint for how the nation could solve its dire housing shortage.
Residents can buy their own slice of the sky in one of several glass apartment blocks on the 32-hecatre site that will also include shopping centres, restaurants, cafes and bars along with parklands and a specially-built school catering for 1,000 students.
For comparison, the piece of land on which the MCG sits including the playing field, stadium and grounds is 4.05 hectares.
Backyards and garages will be done away with at Moore Point in favour of balconies, for those who can afford them, and public transport via a pedestrian walkway over the river to the Liverpool CBD and train station.
The new development and others similar to it could help the Australian government to reach its objective of 1.2million extra homes to be built by July 2029 in order to address the nation’s housing shortage and skyrocketing property prices.
Getting homes built where they are needed and quickly is a major concern with the latest forecasts from Master Builders Association showing every state and territory is on track to fall short of the National Housing Accord targets – with a total shortfall of about 166,000 properties.
The Moore Point development in Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west will fit 11,000 new households into half a dozen towering apartment blocks
The new ‘river city’ is out for public consultation for rezoning after years of delays
Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet said Moore Point could be the ‘Barangaroo of the west’ referring to the major Sydney CBD waterfront development just north of Darling Harbour.
In March this year Moore Point’s developer Coronation Property wrote to new premier Chris Minns and threatened to walk away from the project after it was held up for years over concerns about flooding despite there being no recorded previous major flooding events of the site.
A new set of flood studies ordered by the Planning Department that would take a further 18 months to complete had prompted the letter, published in The Daily Telegraph.
‘The current situation is no longer tenable and requires certainty from government immediately,’ Coronation wrote.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said Sydney needs to build ‘up’ to provide housing rather than build more urban sprawl
The project is currently at the rezoning phase.
If that is approved it would still need planning approval and building approval for each stage in the project.
Coronation has pledged about 400 of the 11,000 dwellings as affordable housing for frontline workers.
Coronation managing director Joe Nahas said he was excited that after so long, the project was progressing.
‘We are delighted that after so much hard work on the project, including years’ of extensive consultation with our key stakeholders and the community, we have moved to the next step of the planning process,’ Mr Nahas said.
‘We are proud that Moore Point will be the jewel in the crown for southwestern Sydney and is ready to provide 11,000 quality, new homes in an area where the dire shortage of housing is failing to keep up with the growing needs of the community.’
Sydney’s population will reach 6.4million by 2041 according to estimates with an additional half a million houses required
Between 1991 and 2021, the number of people living in Sydney units more than doubled, with 30 per cent of all Aussies now calling apartment blocks home.
Where once there might have been a three-bedroom house on 1,000sqm, developers now offer a tower of 30 $500,000-plus 40sqm studio flats barely bigger than a motel bedroom.
That’s despite the surge of the new housing estates appearing on the city’s outskirts in suburbs such as Schofields in the west, Quakers Hill in the north-west and near Campbelltown in the south-west.
The property market in Sydney is undergoing a radical revolution which is linked to building homes along the city’s main transport routes.
Conventional homes and ageing low-rise unit blocks are making way for the high-density developments shooting up on the main arteries heading north, west and south.
Some developments have upset ‘boomer NIMBYs,’ who are against high-density housing in their suburbs.
They argue that these types of developments strain local infrastructure, and change the character of their community.
‘We have to go up,’ NSW Premier Chris Minns previously said as he backed building big new developments along the city’s transport links.
‘Sydney can’t grow by adding another street to the western fringe of Sydney every other week. The best way…is to have buildings that go up.’
Many have been built with a view to the new metro station that’s opened in Crows Nest. They also lie on the key bus routes running along the Pacific Highway.
Their position is to ensure residents can leave home and be at work in 15 minutes.
Video editor Jake Horne, 32, has no regrets about giving up his home with a garden in Gosford on the Central Coast for a much smaller apartment on Sydney’s north shore.
Video editor Jake Horne, 32, has no regrets about giving up his home with a garden in Gosford on the Central Coast for a much smaller apartment on the city’s north shore
‘The commute was awful,’ he told Daily Mail Australia as he relaxed in the leafy children’s playpark built directly over the rail line at the 88 Christie St development in St Leonards.
‘I was just sick of that long travel.’
‘It’d be nice to have a bigger apartment at some stage. I’ve been in my place for four years and it’s already worth $150,000 more than I paid for it, which is ridiculous really.’
He said the old ideas about apartment blocks were being transformed by the new architecturally inspired designs.
Pointing to the St Leonards development, he added: ‘These look a lot nicer than some of the silos you see in the older developments.
It’s a similar story all along the city’s main road arteries at locations like Mascot, Stanmore and Carlingford, with high-density apartment blocks lining key routes and trainlines servicing the city’s multiple CBDs.
Development like these (pictured is another Sydney project at St Leonards) is a high-end blueprint for Sydney’s future under a 15 minute city philosophy
Biggest of all is the new-look capital of Sydney’s west, Parramatta, which is barely recognisable from what it was just 25 years ago.
Mother-of-two teacher Jo Main, 32, is a huge fan of the children’s playpark at the St Leonards unit block development – but she lives in a townhouse in nearby Crows Nest.
‘We have two kids and we’re quite outdoorsy, so I just don’t think we’d have enough room to store our equipment,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
Mother-of-two teacher Jo Main, 32, (pictured) is a huge fan of the children’s playpark at her St Leonards unit block development
New tower blocks, up to 47 storeys high, around St Leonards on Sydney’s lower north shore are vertical villages, with supermarkets, medical centres and even libraries built into their design
‘Six years ago, a lot of apartments at that time only offered a storage cage at your car park space but that’s no use for storing prams.
‘Even getting prams through a doorway or into a lift can be an ordeal.’
But she added: ‘I love living in an apartment – I used to live in one before and I loved not having to worry about the chores like gardening or maintenance.
‘We only discovered the St Leonards development the other week and saw the mall underneath and it’s incredible. It’s so impressive.
‘It’s great because a lot of people need to live close to work and for people working in the city, it kind of gives you a little bit of everything at your doorstep.
‘It’s fantastic, particularly for people with kids living in one of these apartments to have this exceptional playpark.
‘But I am concerned the high density apartments may overcrowd the local facilities which were not designed for so many people, unless everything else expands to meet the need.
‘There are pros and cons. It’s certainly added a lot to the value of our property because there are fewer homes in the area now and demand is higher.’
