Sydney is in danger of becoming a tale of two cities, a leading architect has said. Releasing land in the outer suburbs will not solve housing affordability problems and could result in a polarised city, Peter Smith, director at Habitation, told Architecture & Design.
The problem with releasing land in the outer suburbs for low-income housing is that it is those new suburbs that have poor services and poor access to transport — amenities that people on low incomes need most.
Providing cheap, affordable housing only in the outer areas creates a rich-poor divide that sees people on lower incomes “shunted out to the edges”, Smith said.
The rate of land release is not the cause of the property pressures at the moment, Smith said, but rather it is the lack of opportunity in the inner city areas.
“Most of the operations undertaken in a city are done by people on low incomes, so we need a planning policy that actually encourages lower income housing within 15 to 20km of Sydney’s CBD for the city to function properly,” Smith said. “And also, from a social point of view, to ensure that there is a mix of all different socio-economic groups to create that rich, fine grain.”
