NSW Premier Chris Minns aims to alleviate Sydney’s housing crisis by expediting the supply of shoebox apartments.
Minns last week accused previous governments of being “timid” due to “the NIMBY [Not In My Backyard] backlash” but argued that the conversation had changed to “opening the gates to more urban consolidation and development”.
“I think Sydneysiders began to think maybe we don’t need to have urban slums, maybe we could have beautiful cities like Paris, London, New York – where people do live closer together but they’re great places to live”.
The gaslighting is unbelievable. Sydney has already built masses of high-rise apartments, many of which were poorly built.
A NSW government strata study published in 2023 revealed that more than half of newly registered buildings since 2016 had at least one significant defect, with repair costs averaging $331,829 per building.
The Strata Community Association of NSW found that waterproofing was the most common major fault, followed by fire safety.
A separate Four Corners Report, “Cracking Up”, revealed a systemic failure to regulate and safeguard consumers despite repeated warnings.
Owners of high-rise apartments have also been burdened with exorbitant strata fees, as uncovered by Four Corners and A Current Affair.
The NSW Productivity and Equality Commission last year recommended bigger towers, smaller apartments, less storage and natural light, smaller balconies, and fewer parking places as solutions to Sydney’s housing crisis.
This doesn’t sound like the urban utopia spruiked by Premier Minns, does it? It sounds more like a sardine can future.
Minns has ignored the inalienable truth that to build homes fast enough to keep pace with Sydney’s population growth, corners and quality will need to be cut, as occurred during last decade’s high-rise apartrment boom.
Nor would these high-rise slums be affordable, given the exorbitant cost of building apartments in Australia, which is well in excess of lower-density housing:
The single best thing that Chris Minns could do to alleviate Sydney’s housing crisis would be to lobby the federal government to slash net overseas migration, which drives all of the state’s population growth:
High-rise shoebox apartments would not be necessary if the federal government did not rapidly grow Sydney via endless mass immigration.
Premier Minns and his government should be honest about the housing situation instead of gaslighting residents into believing that Sydney’s housing shortage is a supply issue and that high-rise slums are the solution.
Excessive net overseas migration is the fundamental problem that is driving younger residents out of Sydney and forcing the rest to live in insecure housing or debt slavery.
