Sydney pro-development YIMBYs have issued an RSVP invitation to their members to attend a public meeting at Marrickville on Sunday about proposed housing so they could order the correct size YIMBY t-shirt to wear on the day.
If you want to dive deep into the very heart of our housing crisis then go along to the meeting at Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west on Sunday.
You’ll experience first hand the intense heat that’s been building on housing, as local residents contest plans by the local Inner West Council to increase density by 31,000 homes, adding to the current tally of 80,000.
Where we live and call home could not signify a more powerful indicator of our sense of security and belonging. It’s not unique to Sydney or anywhere else; it’s throughout all cultures and all nations and time. Our claim on the space we make our home, raise our families, build our villages – and the resources that go with them – are what wars are fought over.
So when the media savvy and feisty residents of Marrickville get going to defend their patch, and when the pro development YIMBYs issue an RSVP invitation to their members to attend the meeting so they could order the correct size YIMBY t-shirt to wear on the day, you get the sense things could get heated.
And political.
For a start, it’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s seat. Next is that the crisis in housing is starting to impact strongly at the federal level as young voters now dominate baby boomers.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is already on board with the YIMBYs.
She said last week: “I love the YIMBY movement. To tackle the housing crisis, we need to say yes to more housing right across Australia and the YIMBY movement is driving that change.”
So what are the key issues?
In essence, Marrickville is now suffering from its own success story.
Just a few decades ago no-one from the more refined areas of Sydney wanted to live there. Today it’s considered pleasant, blessed with good transport amenity and peppered with great flavour thanks to its multicultural demographic that kept many home seekers in the past well away.
It’s a classic case of gentrification, something that’s gone on from time immemorial.
But today the pressure for affordable housing is intense and perhaps no more so than in Sydney where people often need to travel ridiculous distances even for low paid so-called essential worker jobs.
The distances travelled are a drain on the nation’s productivity but so too the impossibility of housing for many people who might once have been motivated to work hard and spend less as they aimed for their own home but now can’t see the point.
Alongside the horror of climate change that’s a lot of counterweight to the work hard ethic.
Both sides of this looming Battle for Marrickville argue they have nuanced positions.
Last week’s Spinifex OpEd article by local Marrickville resident Keren Lavelle published by The Fifth Estate challenged the Inner West Council’s Our Fairer Future plan, noting that it attempts to outbid the state government’s transport oriented development (TOD) local environmental plans (LEP) – with substantially more dwellings than the state government proposed.
The YIMBYs want development because they’re at their wits’ end in the housing dream to own or even have secure, affordable long term rent of a home.
On the other side are the NIMBYs who say they are not against development as long as it’s reasonable and doesn’t destroy the amenity that attracted the developers in the first place.
But there’s a lot more to unpack on both sides.
The YIMBYs tend to cling to the idea that abundance will lead to more affordable housing, like a consumer product.
This has been strongly countered.
Developers who have approvals for apartments won’t build unless the market can recompense them for the currently very high cost of labour, materials and finance – not to mention land in Sydney right now.
So that kind of abundance is not what where the housing crisis resides right now.
But the YIMBYs say on their Facebook page: “We disagree strongly – building more homes does work, as it has in Melbourne, which builds much more than us and has much lower prices.
“As it has in Auckland, where city-wide upzoning was found to reduce rents in two bedroom and three bedroom dwellings by about 20 per cent after six years. Zoning is probably the strongest tool we have for addressing affordability, and the elected representatives who control it should understand that.”
Planning or zoning is part of the cost, but just a part.
And the Auckland “miracle” has been roundly debunked by academics who say the data and analysis are deeply flawed.
But the market does in fact work to bring down prices for housing and places that are less desirable.
Melbourne is now experiencing falling prices, especially for shitty badly built apartments that are shunned by people who don’t want to be saddled with the after-care required of fixing defects or paying huge energy bills.
In fact, there are 8000 completed empty unsold apartments. Which adds an entirely other story to the dilemma.
Badly built housing creates societal burdens whose cost must be picked up by We the Taxpayer in one way or another. In Melbourne they’re suggesting the government buy the apartments that no-one else can afford for social housing and then let the private sector go again – with the same result perhaps.
High profile political activist Hall Greenland, a former Leichhardt councillor and member of the NSW Greens says the Inner West Council’s proposal is for 1000 affordable, social housing units for essential workers, young families and the homeless is a “very sad aspiration given the challenges we face”.
He goes on to analyse what’s wrong with the proposal from the start.
“The consultants’ report that prompted these increased heights, densities and developer bonus over and above TOD – on the grounds that TOD did not offer enough incentives to developers – should be made public …. At present this key document is secret – apparently even from councillors.”
Maybe what we need is more, way more public housing without the inherent profit margin. And let the private sector do what it’s good at – building private housing for those who can afford it. But with strong controls that prevent the externalities that so often fall on someone else to pick up.
The public meeting is 2–4 pm Sunday 27 July 2025 Addi Road Community Centre, Gumbramorra Hall 142 Addison Rd Marrickville