Going Over the Top in Hornsby … or When Too High is Too Much !

Last month I posted about plans to increase densities in the Ku-Ring-Gai locality by allowing low rise apartment development around transport and shopping hubs.  That plan upset residents and has led to local conflict (see Higher Density Coming to Sydney’s North Shore … Very Very Soon on 31 May 2010).

Well, the Sydney Morning Herald reports in an article by Mathew Moore called Hornsby Raises Stakes in North Shore Apartment Battle that an even higher density development planned tabled in the neighbouring locality of Hornsby has been even more badly received.

Hornsby Local Council has plans to allow high rise apartment development in parts of the area with buildings of up to 20 storeys.

It’s draft Housing Strategy from 2009 was amended in January 2010 to better match the NSW Department of Planning’s Sydney Metropolitan Strategy and it’s target of creating 1.1 million extra dwellings in Sydney in the next 20 years.

Some of the important high density features of the strategy include – 

• Permission for 20 storey apartment buildings in the Linda Street Precinct (which is 300m from Hornsby Railway station and adjoins the retail and commercial centre
• Targeted rezoning and approvals for townhouses, 3 storey units and 8 to 10 storey apartment buildings in various parts of the locality (I counted at least 30 locations where this would be permitted)
• Development of design and planning guides for all this new housing

It’s a well thought out strategy and worth looking at here.

But, not everyone likes it.

1546 submissions were received about the draft Housing Strategy and 85% (or 1,314 submissions) mostly based on local issues (how it affects them in their street), infrastructure and services.

There’s even a new anti-development group called the Stop 20 Group who will work against the proposals getting approved.

But then 4% of the submissions (or 62 submissions) supported the strategy … so it’s not all bad.

An interesting feature of the Hornsby Council’s community consultation was organising something called “Bang the Table’ which is an internet based consultation forum at www.bangthetable.com allowing the community to engage in discussion and debate in a convenient, independently moderated space.  Over 4,000 people visited and viewed over forty-six thousand pages concerning the Housing Strategy using the forum and approximately 1,000 people left 1,150 comments which can also be viewed at www.bangthetable.com.au/hornsbyhousing.

So, it seems that high density and high rise development are not very popular concepts to some of Sydney’s north shore residents despite the inevitability of that happening there … like it will in the rest of Sydney.

Francesco …