Key takeaways
A brand new condo complicated deliberate for Oxford Avenue in Bondi Junction ought to be a textbook instance of good metropolis improvement.
The Bondi Junction mission is precisely the sort of housing Australia wants: well-located, close to transport, jobs, faculties, retailers, and open area.
But it faces delays from complicated approval processes, together with each NSW planning guidelines and the Federal Surroundings Safety and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Sydney misplaced over 41,000 residents in 2023–24, many younger individuals leaving as a consequence of unaffordable housing.
With out extra provide in high-demand areas, inequality will deepen and cities danger dropping their youthful generations.
A brand new condo complicated deliberate for Oxford Avenue in Bondi Junction ought to be a textbook instance of good metropolis improvement.
Sixteen storeys of housing, proper subsequent to a practice line and bus routes, inside strolling distance of Centennial Park, Bondi Seashore, retailers, jobs, faculties, and even the harbour.
On a website at present occupied by a automobile rental yard, it will convert low-value land into dozens of properties the place individuals really wish to stay.
And but, this mission is shaping as much as be a case research in why Australia struggles so badly to construct sufficient properties.
The approvals maze
Regardless of there being no historic or cultural heritage considerations on the positioning, the developer nonetheless has to safe approval not simply from the NSW planning system, but additionally the Federal Authorities underneath the Surroundings Safety and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Surroundings Minister Murray Watt has acknowledged the Act is cumbersome and outdated, promising reform by 12 months’s finish.
Finally rely, round 30,000 housing and development initiatives had been ready on approvals underneath this federal legislation.
That’s tens of hundreds of properties delayed whereas Australia faces a rental disaster, hovering home costs, and widespread affordability pressures.
NIMBY pushback from rich areas
The second main hurdle is native opposition.
Sydney’s jap suburbs are among the many wealthiest within the nation, however they’re additionally among the many most resistant to vary.
Residents argue the towers will forged shadows over Centennial Park and damage native character.
Former Sydney Morning Herald editor Darren Goodsir, now a senior college govt, submitted that such developments “favour profit-driven ventures” and danger making a housing marketplace for the rich.
However let’s be blunt: Sydney’s jap suburbs are already one of many wealthiest housing markets in Australia.
Blocking new housing there doesn’t create affordability, it entrenches exclusivity.
The official custodians of Centennial Park themselves mentioned the affect can be minor: a sliver of additional shadow for about an hour on one winter morning. Hardly a biodiversity disaster.
The YIMBY response
This combat has triggered a sharper response from Sydney’s rising YIMBY (Sure In My Yard) motion.
Their argument, backed by economists like former RBA researcher Peter Tulip, is easy: each new residence helps.
Even when a brand new condo isn’t low cost, the one that strikes in frees up one other residence for another person.
Over time, that chain response eases stress throughout the entire market.
Limiting provide, then again, solely drives up costs and rents additional.
As one Sydney YIMBY put up put it: “Step 1: Engineer a housing disaster by blocking new properties. Step 2: When any person proposes constructing properties, complain they’re not inexpensive. It’s simply so unbelievably self-serving.”
Governments are nonetheless fuelling demand
The provision bottleneck wouldn’t be so extreme if governments weren’t concurrently pouring gasoline on the demand aspect.
Lately the federal authorities introduced ahead its first-home purchaser subsidy program.
What was as soon as capped and income-tested is now open-ended, no revenue check, no restrict on locations.
Which means extra consumers with additional buying energy competing for a similar inventory of housing.
In truth, it’s instructed that 70,000 new first-home consumers will reap the benefits of this scheme within the first 12 months.
And as economist Saul Eslake dryly noticed, governments hold doing this as a result of voters need home costs to rise quicker than incomes.
It’s a political cycle: householders vote for larger property values, governments ship, and affordability for youthful generations slips additional out of attain.
The social price of Nimbyism
The larger image is stark. Sydney misplaced over 41,000 residents final monetary 12 months, a lot of them younger individuals priced out of their birthplace.
They’re shifting to extra inexpensive components of the nation, taking their expertise and spending energy with them.
In the meantime, councils like Woollahra proceed to oppose densification, even arguing that new flats can be “unaffordable.”
However refusing to construct extra properties in high-demand areas ensures costs keep elevated in all places.
As NSW Premier Chris Minns put it, too many communities have embraced a “tradition of no.”
The result’s fewer individuals dwelling in well-connected suburbs than within the Seventies, regardless of many years of inhabitants development.
Some closing ideas
The Bondi Junction saga highlights every thing flawed with our housing system: over-regulation, self-interested native opposition, and political incentives that prioritise rising values over affordability.
If we’re critical about fixing the housing disaster, we are able to’t simply throw subsidies at consumers or go away planning energy within the palms of those that already personal properties in unique postcodes.
We’d like planning reform, quicker approvals, and a willingness to construct extra properties within the locations the place individuals wish to stay.
As a result of with out change, Sydney and different capitals will hold dropping their younger individuals, and with them, their future.
