The Sky Is Not The Limit

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday May 28, 2008

CENTRAL Sydney has always been a developers' paradise. Geography is the key. There's water to the north and west, parks to the east, and Central Railway in the south. The developers have always claimed there is nowhere to go but up. Bring on the wrecking balls. Now they are saying it again.

The Property Council of Australia, the voice of big property investors and developers, says a study by the City of Sydney shows central Sydney is running out of office space, despite planned development in Redfern-Waterloo and East Darling Harbour. But here's the surprising part: the study says the crunch is still up to 25 years away. Pedestrians who now jostle for a few square centimetres of footpath at the corner of George and Market streets, or have to shoulder their way to a train through the peak-hour press at Town Hall Station might be forgiven for thinking the crunch is well and truly here already, and has been for some time. They might be happy to hang the "house full" sign on the CBD, and close the door. However, planning now under way will make our crowded house more crowded still.

The City of Sydney's recent Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy expects another 60,000 to join central Sydney's workforce over the next couple of decades. And that's not counting the tens of thousands more who will move into the CBD to live. The Property Council wants the City of Sydney to address the looming shortage of commercial space by increasing the allowable size and height of buildings. "The only growth opportunity is up," says the Property Council's NSW executive director, Ken Morrison. However, there is also out - out to the 26 strategic centres beyond central Sydney identified in the State Government's 2005 Metropolitan Strategy. The Government itself should be more energetic in taking the pressure off the CBD by moving more of its own substantial inner-city bureaucracies to the regional cities (Parramatta, Penrith, Liverpool and Gosford) and suburban centres which are targeted for growth in the strategy. Leave city rents to the big end of town, which seems happy to pay them.

Central Sydney needs not bigger buildings but better, more efficient and more attractive buildings. Cramming more ugly oblongs onto Sydney Town's 19th-century street grid will cast only longer shadows - literal and metaphorical - over the city's heart. The challenge for government and for private investors is to manage the growth in metropolitan Sydney without further compromising the amenity of our crowded CBD.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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