Under the cover of meeting its state government-imposed housing targets, Burwood Council in Sydney, recently approved a spot rezoning and site-specific Development Control Plan for a small chunk of its town centre. A development application has now been lodged and this once garden suburb, roughly midway between the Sydney and Parramatta business districts, is being asked to embrace the promise of a glamourous new shopping precinct and residential apartment complex with four new towers up to 42 storeys high.
On the face of it, it’s quite impressive – 1041 brand new apartments, a 64-room hotel and several floors of new office space, room for two large supermarkets, 80 retail shops, a cinema complex, a new childcare centre, and more. It’s a proposal of which the architects and consultants can be proud, but once we consider the local context it’s a safe bet this development won’t live up to its promise if it proceeds as planned along Railway Parade, Burwood.
For those who don’t know Burwood on the fringes of Sydney’s inner west, let me paint you a picture. It’s a federation suburb full of delightful brick-and-tile bungalows, intersected by a buzzing high-street with diverse local businesses running from one end of town to the other.`
There’s already a regional shopping centre, it has excellent transport links and it is just a stone’s throw away from the western edge of the harbour. It is also quite accessible to Western Sydney employment hubs like Bankstown and Parramatta, making it a pretty neat little place that works for a broad range of people.
Oh, and for about the last 10 or so years it’s been an absolute developers’ paradise.
No longer torn between knockdown/rebuilds and heritage restorations, in recent times the landowners of Burwood have had their sights set on mixed-use high-rise development.
Seemingly overnight the downtown skyline has changed its character, with scaffolding, cranes and towers topping out one after the other.
In the neighbourhood where the Burwood Place development is proposed – that’s what they’re calling the 1041 apartments and all those retail outlets we’ve been talking about – there are half-a-dozen brand-new 20 storey buildings where a couple of government office blocks were once the most imposing structures to be found.
Local streets, parks and community facilities are already struggling to keep up with the added load. Beneath the glamour and glitz of a brand-new shopping centre the reality is that 1000 new apartments in Burwood Place would tip the scales towards “critically over-developed” within the precinct.
Let’s take a look at some of the impacts.
First, there’s the traffic. Generating more than 10,000 car trips per hour will see the small suburban streets of Burwood permanently clogged and make getting in and out of the town centre all but impossible by car.
Despite this, 2100 underground parking spaces have been proposed that will induce people to drive rather than encourage walking, cycling or taking the bus.
Even with end-of-trip facilities included in the commercial floorspace provision, this development will be a disaster for our local streets. Not to mention vehicle emissions, since there’s no mention of any EV charging stations anywhere amongst the plans.
Second, it will make housing less affordable in the area. There will be no provision for not-for-profit housing at all in this development, and no contribution required to an affordable housing fund. The vast majority of apartments will be one- and two-bedrooms, whereas the Local Strategic Planning Statement acknowledges the highest demand for housing in Burwood will be from couples with children.
Across the entire development there are only three units planned that will have four bedrooms, and you can bet these won’t be cheap.
The likely outcome is that apartments will be bought by investors rather than owner-occupiers, armed with all the tax-concessions and low-cost finance that makes windfall property gains a pretty safe bet – pushing up prices across the area and making sure home-ownership remains out of reach for the many.
With renting laws such as they are in New South Wales, this will make the local population more transient than settled as well.
Third, the availability of open green space for local residents will continue to go backwards, and a “new urban park” that will be built on an adjacent block looks set to be less than what was promised as a Voluntary Planning Agreement trade-off.
Covering an area of 2200 square metres, this park will provide almost 2 square metres of open space for each proposed new dwelling, and then there’s the 64 serviced apartments and all that commercial space to cater for as well.
Did I mention this is all set to happen directly across the road from the local primary school?
Even before we consider the concept plans this park was never going to cut it, but the design shows it will likely be a small patch of lawn and a coffee cart sitting above three more levels of underground parking and a small community theatre dug into the side of the hill.
It’s hard to imagine how this park could genuinely meet the needs of the communities it will have to serve – sadly it will probably just end up as a receptacle for car fumes and wayward rubbish.
Worryingly, nobody seems to know that this is happening. Plans for Burwood Place have been in development since 2015 but as I talk about this to people across the community I am frequently met with surprise and disbelief, followed by resignation that the council and developers will do whatever suits them regardless of the community’s needs or wishes.
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Each of the issues I have outlined above could be resolved with a little more community-led planning, and we could end up with a fantastic redevelopment of the site that really does make Burwood a better place. But it seems the development application will be considered without such genuine input from the community, and this will be another opportunity lost.
I suspect this won’t be the last time the residents of Burwood will be faced with such a garish redevelopment proposal. We’d do well to heed the lessons of Burwood Place, take notes and learn from whatever happens next. With the Metro West line coming and a station proposed at the other end of town, this is just the beginning.
Ned Cutcher is a housing and planning advocate and a local resident of Burwood Heights. He is running as a Greens candidate for Burwood Council in the 2021 local government elections
Got to say I disagree with Alan on this. Burwood already has the least amount of open space per capita of any council in NSW. It has also lost 6% of it’s tree cover since 2013, 2nd worst of any council in Sydney. I agree that we need to reduce carbon emissions, but I remain unconvinced that 40+ storey high rise with thousands of car spaces is the way we’re going to do it. The global building industry creates at least 15% of emissions and there’s not much evidence we’re going to be able to build our way to sustainability. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-25/to-cut-carbon-think-low-rise-buildings-not-skyscrapers
Sacrificing, for example, the Malvern Hill Estate, or the Appian Way for development for “sustainability” seems absurd. That would rely on marginal gains in CO2 footprint eventually offsetting the carbon creation implicit in demolition and replacement. Maybe it would, but I wouldn’t bet on it. And in the meantime you lose heritage, mature trees, gardens etc etc. “Sustainable development” is not designed to save the planet, it’s designed to save the building industry. So call me a NIMBY, see if I care.
I agree with the need for better planning for the community needs and desires. However, how can government “plan” when certain privileged segments of the community wants absolute no change. Yes, I am referring to people who live in those so called “Garden Suburb” outside of Burwood town centre.
This idealisation of the “Garden Suburb” needs to be dispelled.
Garden Suburbs were a significant deviation from Ebenezer’s original “Garden City” concept. Garden City emphasised on balancing residential, commercial and industrial uses that promotes self sufficient communities and create an alternative living lifestyle for the industrial working class. However, this concept was gradually diluted by Garden Suburbs which focused on low-density residential suburban growth which lacked job opportunities, social life and loss of nature due to no restrictions to urban growth (ie. very similar to Sydney’s car dependent suburban sprawl occurring in its growth centres). Original Garden Suburbs in the UK, such as Hampstead and Letchworth, are commonly touted as a “small-scale elitist suburbs” that significantly increased land and housing prices.
Cities need to evolve and adapt to societal needs not freeze in time.
This notion that Burwood needs to preserve its “federation suburb full of delightful brick-and-tile bungalows” has been detrimental and basically a significant contributing factor to all the issues that’s been listed such as traffic, housing affordability. Even on the sustainability front. Inner West Council’s Kinesis Sustainability Study (Pathway to Zero) highlights that Haberfield (cream of the crop “Garden Suburb”) has the highest average household emissions rate due to its high level of detached dwellings and car dependency.
What has occurred in Sydney is a cumulative result of both State Government and Local Councils failing to implement medium density (3-5 storeys) at a broader and consistent level within established suburbs. By pandering for the few seeking to hold onto their idealistic lifestyle adopted from the post-war (big homes, big lots, big yards, big garages), extreme high density within centres/ within the 800m walking distance to a station was simply the only option to increase housing supply within a short timeframe. With NIMBYS in these so called “Garden Suburbs” basically opposing any form of housing density, diversity and uses, where else can these people who cannot afford a property go? They need to live somewhere close to jobs/services/schools and Sydney does not have unlimited land to build detached housing with a backyard for everyone. It’s cause and effect.
Burwood has became the worst place to be
Interesting to observe that China is now knocking down apartments in order to build more parks and walking tracks.
NYTimes.com: China’s Concrete Jungles Make Room for Green Space
From The New York Times:
China’s Concrete Jungles Make Room for Green Space
Greedy developers being by stoked by State government policies under the umbrella of jobs and infrastructure. No percentage of dwellings given for essential workers as affordable and child care centre. No proper compliance controls on quality of new buildings just band aid enforcement officer for NSW. This State is truly run by few wolves in sheep’s clothing.