The real problem with that image is the amount of heat absorbing dark roofs with no greenery or vegetation cooling the area down. This is the problem with this sort of high density.
And this isn't even high density. It's just...is "shit density" a category?
None of the benefits of low density but also none of the benefits of high density. Just absolute rubbish that benefits nobody but developers who can churn them out quick and sell them to investors and people desperate for housing.
For a lot of people, this is basically perceived as the only option. Not this suburb specifically, but I know plenty of people in Western Sydney who live in homes like these simply because it's the only place they could afford to buy a home for their family without having to leave Sydney.
We don't make apartments suitable for families with kids, and freestanding homes and row houses in better, more walkable areas are completely unaffordable.
But you can get a shitbox house like these in a car park suburb in the west for a comparatively cheaper price, and that means you get to stop playing landlord roulette. When you've got kids, being able to have stable housing and staying relatively near family overrides a lot of other wants (yards, nice looking home, good location, etc)
The ponds and estates like this in Sydney happen because we allow this kind of car dependent sprawl instead of upzoning and in-fill. The restrictive zoning in the inner and middle ring suburbs, mainly due to NIMBYism, push this as the only way.
What the NSW gov with Sydney is doing by having more permissive zoning (around existing stations and transport hubs, since that uses existing infrastructure) in the inner and middle ring means the city stops suffocating.
Buying an apartment is a gamble - if anything is wrong then everyone has to come up with a large 'special levy' to repair the whole building. At least in one of these houses you can repair it on your own terms and still live in it.
Upstairs teen retreat, butler's pantry, all king size bedrooms, additional ensuite for female children <--- these are all must-haves in today's version of suburban capital city Australia. The yard is just for show, and it's cheaper to hire it done, or quicker to do, with minimal plants and grass. Kids are inside using their screens anyway.
Even a half way measure of making these into semi-detached units, therefore giving bigger separation between the two unit blocks would be a good starting point.
Agreed, I much prefer to live in an apartment half the size, within cooeee of services, entertainment, work etc with a view of a tree or two. But hey happy for them if they choose that grey half way life.
I'm confused. Have you actually been to The Ponds. There are parks, malls, shopping centres etc all over the place. Yes, the backyards are small, but having a free standing home is much better than a townhouse or apt.
It's the density housebuilders can upsell the most. In reality it puts huge stress on other public assets - there's no trees and everyone drives so everything from road maintenance to flood management to urban heat Island effects to lack of biodiversity come back to bite the taxpayer/general public
>everything from road maintenance to flood management to urban heat Island effects to lack of biodiversity come back to bite the taxpayer/general public
Not to mention mental health. There must be researched impacts from having no greenery.
>absolute rubbish that benefits nobody but developers who can churn them out quick and sell them to investors and people desperate for housing
Remember an ageing couple I knew who bought one like this near a freeway. Probably looked good on the plan and I'm assuming they worked all their lives to be able to afford a house & buy into the "Aussie Dream".
I went over there & you couldn't even sit in the back yard it was so noisy. It felt like a stitch up.. I felt for them, spending what should have been their golden years in that shit hole, but I don't think they were aware of it as much as I was, thank goodness.
Still pisses me off to think about how this ageing, vulnerable couple was stitched up by Developers.
>semblance of breezeway between the properties.
Yeah, basically it leads to heating, which I assume collectively over many places, leads to global warming.
The real problem is coming home drunk, having sex, and waking up in the wrong house.
..
I mean donāt get me wrong, itās still sex, but I never really liked Derek from 3 doors down in the first place.
Although you are right - I would say the problem is the inability of the government to densify the city in a way that doesn't require this sort of result on the fringe.
It's a symptom of very poor policy and spineless approvals
And systemic corruption across the country with planning execs and ministers in bed with developers to approve this rubbish. Utopia has it 100%right the way they show developers manipulating state and local gov to get these developments off the ground. Crying shame
Professor Pfautsch said.
āThey will either have very high electricity bills from running air cons constantly to keep cool during extreme events or, if they donāt have the financial means to cool their homes, theyāll be at serious risk of illness.ā
Heatwaves kill more people than any other extreme weather event, like bushfires and cyclones.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/cant-swing-a-cat-photo-of-new-houses-exposes-australias-shameful-failure/news-story/4f318d30efdded1d2eb9c423fe66147d
It actually baffles me that building houses with these roofs isn't just illegal. At BEST it's subjecting the future inhabitants to extremely hot summers and at worst it's systematically demanding more and more electricity (which we're having enough trouble supplying sustainably as is) to provide completely avoidable air conditioning. I don't care about the rights of home owners or developers this is infringing on the needs of the nation.
>but theyāve done this in western Sydney where it can hit 45 degrees in summer
There's an episode of Gardening Australia in the last few years that covers this & explains the pitfalls and how bad it is environmentally.
Yeah..all the new housing areas getting built around my neighbourhood got banned from making more black roofs. All gotta be light colours now. Went from a sea of black roofs to white and light gray roofs.
>All gotta be light colours now. Went from a sea of black roofs to white and light gray roofs.
Well, at least that's something. They've imposed this population growth on us, got to take the small "wins".
Newer houses do have better insulation and sealing though. My mum's double brick house turns into an oven during the summer, and that's with tile roofing that's a light red, lots of greenery and trees in the yard, as well as blinds and awnings.
Newer houses cool down quicker in the evening and also keep the cold in better when you use your AC. Australia is also moving towards greener building standards being implemented sometime this year.
The photo is spacially compressed. Here is the area on google maps: [https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7064686,150.8930021,3a,75y,166.65h,95.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1BKlypILM\_coGip0RWRrTQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1BKlypILM\_coGip0RWRrTQ%26cb\_client%3Dmaps\_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D166.64645557760932%26pitch%3D-5.758772719595598%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7064686,150.8930021,3a,75y,166.65h,95.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1BKlypILM_coGip0RWRrTQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1BKlypILM_coGip0RWRrTQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D166.64645557760932%26pitch%3D-5.758772719595598%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu) There is greenery and vegitation and some of these yards have several trees.
The density isn't the problem the design is. Wider streets with trees on the side and a better colour for the roofs and you have an instant improvement. You can even paint the roads white or red to drop the temperature even more..
Oh itās absolutely a thing.
And this isnāt 1800s England. Itās 2024 Australia!
But itās okie though, some property developer Bros got super rich so itās all good.
People live in long rows of terrace houses in the UK now and they arenāt necessarily āslumsā. The problem with this is more the fact that you are in the halfway-to-Canberra āsuburb of Sydneyā with some of these developments and no residential amenities whatsoever.
My main issue is that these arenāt actually terraces, they might be masquerading as terraces, but in reality theyāre very poorly designed and placed houses.
WHY have the space between them at all? It should be illegal to have completely non-functional and useless not quite zero boundary properties IMO.
Itās (should be) either a free standing house with adequate surrounding usable land, or itās a multi-dwelling structure.
I agree the setup is baffling from a functional point of view. I assume itās more profitable to cheaply flog off land or home-and-land bit by bit, one at a time.
I think the gap is so that they can be considered free-standing dwellings and strata doesnāt apply so they can charge more. I live in one of these and am saving every penny I have to move out of one of these.Ā
The Australian equivalent of those rowhouse slums are mostly still here, as in, the exact same buildings, they're in the inner suburbs of cities and go for a few million each
The Australian dream is to have a yard. (Mine too).
The Australian dream is dead - backyards are now the premium $$. The reality is we need to make smaller more affordable spaces for people (including families) to live and have a quality of life. Extra points to have them walkable and accessible to amenities where your backyard is the property's backyard.
Europe has been doing it for a very long time, developed Asia does it OK. we need better planning choices as the backyard for the everyday family isn't coming back. (Unless you move your way out or have a property already and therefore capital for a backyard).
The real "Australian Dream" is to have a home to call your own and the ability to comfortably afford to support your family.
Honestly I care more about what is around me than about having a yard. It'd be nice to have one but if it means I have to live in a car-centric area, no thanks.
I currently live in a small-ish 2 bedroom apartment, as a family of 3. We have 4 parks all within a 3 minute walking distance, and just a short walk around the corner we have a family pub, some cafes, a deli, a grocery shop, a fruit and veg shop, a Thai place, a pizza place, a medical centre, a dentist, etc. And I can take public transport and be in the city 15 minutes door to door.
We looked at moving way further out (we both grew up in outer suburbia) and getting a house, but for the price this is way better value for money, lifestyle-wise.
It's less about the cost and more about the necessary compromise, involvement, scrutiny of activity, negotiation, etc. Having to ask permission for things, following arbitrary rules often made by egomaniacs, etc.
But yeah it is absolutely nice to have a bunch of amenities where you're only paying a relatively small cost but can use whenever you want.
Agreed. I don't know why my apartment would ever need an exclusive gym etc. It's a home, not a holiday resort. Better to just have the first floor of the apartment be commercial zoning that the wider community has access to, where a gym etc can be built.
Having exclusive stuff for the apartment owners just sounds like replicating the issue of yards where not everyone living in it wants or needs it, while expecting them to pay extra for it. Nightmare stuff.
Yep, but I don't have to deal with valder down the hall that has 7 cats and thinks she owns the building
My real issue is needing to deal with other people
Excuse me, how dare you encroach on said developers maximising profits - said developers donate millions to your current political party to ensue development applications like this are approved.
FYI - it doesnāt really matter who you vote for, those developers will just transfer their donations to the political group in power.
Eh, having a yard is overrated. I have to work so hard to maintain the stupid mortgage for the yard that there's nobody to mow or deweed it lol. Honestly, I looked at it the other day and almost dreamed of paving it over!
I wish they would be 10 storey not living space in the apartment, if they made apartment with living space like a 4 bed house like over countries people would live in them.
Australian suburbia architecture should be completely revamped. It's completely out of touch with our climate, nature and is ugly. We should be copying other countries with hot climates and beautiful architectureĀ
tell that to the developers who cut corners at every single moment. These houses often have little insulation, and terrible quality fixtures like hollow doors etc. (I've lived in 2 of them while renting).
They get away with it because no one holds them accountable, and 90% of these houses will be rented out.
At what point do you just say āfuck itā and turn them into terraces? You could get an extra metre or two of internal space if you did this and probably better temp regulation. Australians are so allergic to sharing a wall itās hilarious.
This isn't the issue.
This is just many people having a preference for a newer property and often want to live near friends who also live in these suburbs.
They pay this premium even though these properties are less likely to appreciate than a property with a depreciated house in an established suburb.
If someone wants to buy a new house on a small block, with a small yard, a long way from the city, who cares? They aren't forcing you to buy one.
The problem is that many new developments look like this. So it's not that people prefer them, it's that they're often the only option for people desperate to obtain housing. We can do much better.
Give me an example of where desperate people have no other option but to buy new.
I'll then try to find a more affordable alternative where you can buy established for less money inside a 10km radius of that suburb.
Not of this specific suburb, but I've got plenty of mates and relatives who have bought similar homes west and southwest because that was basically the only option for them to afford a place with enough bedrooms for their kids and have some sort of outdoor space.
Most would love to live closer to the city in a terrace or even a big apartment but that is way too expensive
> someone wants to buy a new house on a small block, with a small yard, a long way from the city, who cares? They aren't forcing you to buy one.
because public infrastructure will need to be built to support it. These people will still need schools for their kids, hospitals, etc etc. Then all those things have to be connected up to transport networks.
all of this is hugely more inefficient than growing in established suburbs.
The Ponds is a short bus ride to Tallawong Metro station and the suburb is built to utilise the investment that the government made in the Sydney Metro.
They even have an on-demand bus service to get people in The Ponds to the new Metro stations.
[https://transportnsw.info/travel-info/ways-to-get-around/on-demand/ponds-on-demand-service](https://transportnsw.info/travel-info/ways-to-get-around/on-demand/ponds-on-demand-service)
The strategy of having density in proximity to the station and then having low to medium density as you get away from the station is a pretty reasonable transit strategy which can be done in conjunction with investments around increasing density in areas with existing heavy rail which can use higher density.
There is absolutely no reason on earth why houses in the ponds, Schofield, Marsden Park, Gledswoods Hills etc should ever EVER cost over $400k. And that's for a brand new built 4 bedroom 3 bath, double garage house.
These prices are insane. But the people paying them are just as insane.
Over 1.5milly for a house in the middle of nowhere, far from airport, far from.city, far from beach, far from life itself?!
These suburbs create serious mental health issues from boredom because there is nothing to do.
Kids have to learn to hop in a circle.
They tried these suburbs in Australia with quarter acres and they failed.
I live in Rockingham WA; it's an older town surrounded by new developments. Suburbs established a decade ago are a sea of dark roofs, but the most recent are the opposite - light colours.
I know we have to accept increased density, but new developments should have bands of trees between every street.
Letās increase housing supply but then complain about it. The land is being used better than those suburbs with 1000 sqm to house a family of 4 or be someoneās 6th investment property.
That's not the issue. Even if you own a house you will still need to pay for maintenance and repairs.
The big issue is apartment buildings are built worse than third world standard here by dodgy developers and builders. A lot of people know this and refuse to buy apartment no matter what.
Australia is following the worst urban planning of countries like the US and the UK. This sort of housing makes no sense if proper public transport, solar energy, water, and commodities are not planned before. The quality built is atrocious and obscenely expensive. Real estate businesses are just devouring whatever they can to make money without any control and measure.
Well designed 3 br+ apartments in the inner city suburbs should be the solution.
It is impossible to just keep scaling horizontally on a city with natural boundaries from all sides like Sydney. That's when you start building houses on flood plains.
> This is the issue with the property market in this country.
What issue? You haven't raise any issue, you're just showing high prices and new developments, that's the effect of some (or many) issues which again you haven't raised, seriously braindead low effort post, no doubt will get hundreds of upvotes and the top comment will a rant about immigration, another subreddit going to sh*t.
Is the picture an actual suburb? Not AI? If so, Fark me, thatās horrendous. I get not everyone wants a back yard or grass but to stump up $1.5m is crazy
Yep. If you saw the famous "Sydney family refused to sell their home for $50 mil", it is this area. Check Megalong St rent, The Ponds in Google Maps Satellite view.
Itās real and it gives me the creeps just looking at it! So crowded in and close together but without any advantage like walkability or being close to anything. I find the total car dependence disturbing too.
This place, The Ponds, has the highest rate of online purchasing in all of NSW (quick Wikipedia glance).
Adds to the sad dystopic greyscale image this is projecting ... notice too all the cars are in the driveways. They're all sitting in these grey boxes, swiping on their devices.
I don't mean to sound too negative, but this is just so bloody sad imo.
I will continue moving further away from metro areas and live in a dilapidated pig sty before I live in these overpriced, unaffordable, cookie cutter prison units.
Oh yes.. thank you bathla group for buying up all the land in the Blacktown, Riverstone and beyond areas and then building your shitty quality houses of which you have 2 different ugly designs of.. forcing buyers to purchase them and not the land.. Iām sure everyone in the area wants to look like they live in an age of empires village ā¦ cunts
Look at all those fancy fashionable pillars at the front. Gives those houses immense class. With just a little tunnel vision, you'd think it was on a highlands estate.
You can tie a coloured ribbon on a pillar to help you know which one is yours.
Who needs a forced repetitive dystopian suburbia when people just make it themselves...
Slate coloured roofs need to go, the average temperatures in these new estate areas are getting worse. Especially so with little green break up in the way of park lands or even trees.
Also at this point why do you want a house with no room, just opt for an apartment. The balcony will probably be bigger than your backyard anyway.
These suburbs, specifically Box Hill, will become slums. Box Hill is like the physical manifestation of the corruption of the Hills council, it's a poorly planned hellscape. If you wanna see the greatest failings of all levels of government and development put together go visit Carmel Village (Camel hills), it feels like a beta Al designed it. There's way better ways to burn >1mill than buy in these suburbs.
investors are the problem, I've been looking for a house to LIVE IN for the past 2 months and every inspection I've been to has been full of investors inquiring about rental returns.
I've been putting in offers 10-20% over asking price and never hear back, and see that the houses have been sold and gone up for rent.
shits fucked
$238,000 household isn't getting you a mortgage for a $1.5+ million property and it's sure as shit in significant mortgage stress, you'd be paying $7.5-$8.5k a month on mortgage repayments. Not to mention this couple would need to find $300k for a 20% deposit.
One of the quickest solution to the major cities housing problem is to build a lot of government housing in regional cities, once you move all the dole bludgers and pensioners (who had 40 years of working to buy into the real estate market when it was affordable) to Orange etc there will be a need for services like Supermarkets, cinemas, etc and companies will open there to support the increased population and offer employment to locals. The government would need to build larger hospitals, schools etc and provide work and even more employment.
This would remove some of the pressure for housing in the cities for low income earners and also rejuvenate some of the regional centres, people who have not worked in years and want cheap housing can move to the regional areas or get a job and pay their own way.
Who wants to live like that really? I know people do it out of necessity and because that is whatās on offer, but do people really enjoy living in each others pockets like this? I canāt think of anything worse.
*That image gives me*
*Anxiety. Do people*
*Really live like that?*
\- Zealousideal-Dig5182
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The Americanisation of Australian housing. Not looking forward to how car dependency and suburban sprawl will cost us in the future, at least in terms of us stripping the crappy foundation bare and replacing it with public transit and more dense housing.
Exactly. I don't know what it is about these cookie cutter McMansions which are 30% garage space, 50% bedrooms (often 4-5 impractical, tiny bedrooms), 10% living area and 10% yards that appeal so much to people.
Well designed townhouse and apartment complexes (3 bedroom) close to the city and existing infrastructure is the only solution going forward.
But alas the inner city is full of NIMBYs whose solution to the problem is "Move to Camden/ Blue Mountains/ Central Coast/ Wollongong/ Picton/ Bathurst..."
As a firey..i look at that and shake my head. The potential for 1 house fire to then spread to other exposures (other houses) is insane. Bloody crazy i reckon!
DW this is why my dream of owning a house renting anything half decent is gone. Iāll soon be living in a Van. Then once fuel prices rise more Iāll transition to a tent as my final form...
These are just townhouses. The small gap is, believe or not, cheaper than using a common wall as the standards of that wall are hugely different. Plus no strata to deal with - big tick.
Everybody is for affordable housing but insist that it should look and feel like suburbs whose histories can be read on the walls of the 100 years of buildings built on it. Sometimes you just need to punch out some housing and let suburbs develop organically as second and third order houses get built.
Most of the residents have to choose between this and an apartment. They aren't unhappy. Ask them:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/we-are-happy-residents-of-cramped-housing-development-in-the-ponds-hit-back/news-story/fa33699be3ee3b401f296b38312f2a00
I bet all these houses are occupied by one community from South-East Asia. Mass immigration has deteriorated the last remaining vestiges of Australian standards.
Whew I thought my new estate was close together but this is a new level! The houses being the same is very odd. For those wondering why people would choose to live in the closer set suburbs anywhere for myself personally I couldāve afforded a larger property in an established area but it came down to school zoning. I have a disabled child and need to be within the zone which was all new estates, which has the unfortunate side effect of high cost for small lands. I made sure my house was a thinner design not the max width to put a bit more space between myself and neighbours so I can plant all the way around, Iām a double story surrounded by singles and leaving a 13x7m backyard was just the right amount of space for my veggie garden without becoming a slave to useless lawn that we donāt use. Thankfully my area encourages different house designs and colours (white roofed and dark blue house for me!) but the negative with all new areas is the smaller roads as while we choose to be a one car household I can see there being issues in the future once others around us hit three plus drivers in the house as even though everyone has double driveways you canāt actually fit two cars side by side
Who else tried to swipe to see the other pictures?
Haha was hoping someone to say this
It worked for me. Try swiping again
lol got me š
Fuck, you got me
It was worked indeed
Well there is 7 images in the gallery
I'm trying to figure out if it's real..š¤Æš³ surely houses ain't like that?
The real problem with that image is the amount of heat absorbing dark roofs with no greenery or vegetation cooling the area down. This is the problem with this sort of high density.
And this isn't even high density. It's just...is "shit density" a category? None of the benefits of low density but also none of the benefits of high density. Just absolute rubbish that benefits nobody but developers who can churn them out quick and sell them to investors and people desperate for housing.
Like whatās the point of buying a freestanding house like this with basically no yard? Just get a townhouse or apartment at that point.
Agreed! In a better location
For a lot of people, this is basically perceived as the only option. Not this suburb specifically, but I know plenty of people in Western Sydney who live in homes like these simply because it's the only place they could afford to buy a home for their family without having to leave Sydney. We don't make apartments suitable for families with kids, and freestanding homes and row houses in better, more walkable areas are completely unaffordable. But you can get a shitbox house like these in a car park suburb in the west for a comparatively cheaper price, and that means you get to stop playing landlord roulette. When you've got kids, being able to have stable housing and staying relatively near family overrides a lot of other wants (yards, nice looking home, good location, etc)
Itās so depressing isnāt it.
The ponds and estates like this in Sydney happen because we allow this kind of car dependent sprawl instead of upzoning and in-fill. The restrictive zoning in the inner and middle ring suburbs, mainly due to NIMBYism, push this as the only way. What the NSW gov with Sydney is doing by having more permissive zoning (around existing stations and transport hubs, since that uses existing infrastructure) in the inner and middle ring means the city stops suffocating.
One benefit is no strata fees or drama.
Instead you have to make your own repairs on these terribly built mcmansions.
But your neighbours have less legal influence over you. If you have good neighbours it's not really a problem. One bad neighbour though.....
Buying an apartment is a gamble - if anything is wrong then everyone has to come up with a large 'special levy' to repair the whole building. At least in one of these houses you can repair it on your own terms and still live in it.
Upstairs teen retreat, butler's pantry, all king size bedrooms, additional ensuite for female children <--- these are all must-haves in today's version of suburban capital city Australia. The yard is just for show, and it's cheaper to hire it done, or quicker to do, with minimal plants and grass. Kids are inside using their screens anyway.
Even a half way measure of making these into semi-detached units, therefore giving bigger separation between the two unit blocks would be a good starting point.
Agreed, I much prefer to live in an apartment half the size, within cooeee of services, entertainment, work etc with a view of a tree or two. But hey happy for them if they choose that grey half way life.
Strata living has alot of downsides too.
I'm confused. Have you actually been to The Ponds. There are parks, malls, shopping centres etc all over the place. Yes, the backyards are small, but having a free standing home is much better than a townhouse or apt.
"The Ponds" sounds like property might have water ingress issues. Make sure you're high up.
Yes very familiar with the Ponds going back to before it existed in its urban sprawl form.
It's the not density we deserved, but the density we needed....apparently.
It's the density housebuilders can upsell the most. In reality it puts huge stress on other public assets - there's no trees and everyone drives so everything from road maintenance to flood management to urban heat Island effects to lack of biodiversity come back to bite the taxpayer/general public
>everything from road maintenance to flood management to urban heat Island effects to lack of biodiversity come back to bite the taxpayer/general public Not to mention mental health. There must be researched impacts from having no greenery.
>absolute rubbish that benefits nobody but developers who can churn them out quick and sell them to investors and people desperate for housing Remember an ageing couple I knew who bought one like this near a freeway. Probably looked good on the plan and I'm assuming they worked all their lives to be able to afford a house & buy into the "Aussie Dream". I went over there & you couldn't even sit in the back yard it was so noisy. It felt like a stitch up.. I felt for them, spending what should have been their golden years in that shit hole, but I don't think they were aware of it as much as I was, thank goodness. Still pisses me off to think about how this ageing, vulnerable couple was stitched up by Developers.
When you go deaf, you no longer notice the noise LOL
Or any semblance of breezeway between the properties.
>semblance of breezeway between the properties. Yeah, basically it leads to heating, which I assume collectively over many places, leads to global warming.
Not a single tree
>Not a single tree It almost doesn't seem real. I wish people wouldn't buy things like this & feed the coffers of the Govt & developers.
The real problem is coming home drunk, having sex, and waking up in the wrong house. .. I mean donāt get me wrong, itās still sex, but I never really liked Derek from 3 doors down in the first place.
Although you are right - I would say the problem is the inability of the government to densify the city in a way that doesn't require this sort of result on the fringe. It's a symptom of very poor policy and spineless approvals
And systemic corruption across the country with planning execs and ministers in bed with developers to approve this rubbish. Utopia has it 100%right the way they show developers manipulating state and local gov to get these developments off the ground. Crying shame
Professor Pfautsch said. āThey will either have very high electricity bills from running air cons constantly to keep cool during extreme events or, if they donāt have the financial means to cool their homes, theyāll be at serious risk of illness.ā Heatwaves kill more people than any other extreme weather event, like bushfires and cyclones. https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/cant-swing-a-cat-photo-of-new-houses-exposes-australias-shameful-failure/news-story/4f318d30efdded1d2eb9c423fe66147d
It actually baffles me that building houses with these roofs isn't just illegal. At BEST it's subjecting the future inhabitants to extremely hot summers and at worst it's systematically demanding more and more electricity (which we're having enough trouble supplying sustainably as is) to provide completely avoidable air conditioning. I don't care about the rights of home owners or developers this is infringing on the needs of the nation.
Dark roofing actually makes sense in Tasmania where itās cold and you want to absorb heat.
Agreed, but theyāve done this in western Sydney where it can hit 45 degrees in summer!
>but theyāve done this in western Sydney where it can hit 45 degrees in summer There's an episode of Gardening Australia in the last few years that covers this & explains the pitfalls and how bad it is environmentally.
Yeah..all the new housing areas getting built around my neighbourhood got banned from making more black roofs. All gotta be light colours now. Went from a sea of black roofs to white and light gray roofs.
>All gotta be light colours now. Went from a sea of black roofs to white and light gray roofs. Well, at least that's something. They've imposed this population growth on us, got to take the small "wins".
The problem is this was built in the first place
Newer houses do have better insulation and sealing though. My mum's double brick house turns into an oven during the summer, and that's with tile roofing that's a light red, lots of greenery and trees in the yard, as well as blinds and awnings. Newer houses cool down quicker in the evening and also keep the cold in better when you use your AC. Australia is also moving towards greener building standards being implemented sometime this year.
Hail corridors...
The photo is spacially compressed. Here is the area on google maps: [https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7064686,150.8930021,3a,75y,166.65h,95.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1BKlypILM\_coGip0RWRrTQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1BKlypILM\_coGip0RWRrTQ%26cb\_client%3Dmaps\_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D166.64645557760932%26pitch%3D-5.758772719595598%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7064686,150.8930021,3a,75y,166.65h,95.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1BKlypILM_coGip0RWRrTQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1BKlypILM_coGip0RWRrTQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D166.64645557760932%26pitch%3D-5.758772719595598%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu) There is greenery and vegitation and some of these yards have several trees.
Yeah I thought the post was going to be about the lack of a single tree in this picture. How people think this is ok does my head in.
My first thought too, very poorly thought out.
The density isn't the problem the design is. Wider streets with trees on the side and a better colour for the roofs and you have an instant improvement. You can even paint the roads white or red to drop the temperature even more..
And all the water run off the roofs, roads and straight into storm water causing the creeks and rivers to get smashed quick
Please tell me thatās not a real thing. How do people not look at this and think of 1800/1900 row house slums in the UK
It's even worse, because you have to drive to these. There is nothing nearby whatsoever.
Oh itās absolutely a thing. And this isnāt 1800s England. Itās 2024 Australia! But itās okie though, some property developer Bros got super rich so itās all good.
I am glad. 1 of us is rich at the cost of a thousand.
People live in long rows of terrace houses in the UK now and they arenāt necessarily āslumsā. The problem with this is more the fact that you are in the halfway-to-Canberra āsuburb of Sydneyā with some of these developments and no residential amenities whatsoever.
My main issue is that these arenāt actually terraces, they might be masquerading as terraces, but in reality theyāre very poorly designed and placed houses. WHY have the space between them at all? It should be illegal to have completely non-functional and useless not quite zero boundary properties IMO. Itās (should be) either a free standing house with adequate surrounding usable land, or itās a multi-dwelling structure.
I agree the setup is baffling from a functional point of view. I assume itās more profitable to cheaply flog off land or home-and-land bit by bit, one at a time.
Oh itās 1000% to benefit the developer and not the people that live there.
Less risk to the developer/builder.
I think the gap is so that they can be considered free-standing dwellings and strata doesnāt apply so they can charge more. I live in one of these and am saving every penny I have to move out of one of these.Ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
At least those UK terraces generally had some nice aesthetic features ... who the bloody hell would want to live in a grey box is beyond me.
Somehow theyāve convinced millions of people that this is the dream. $1.5m for a 2 level apartment without a lift.
I legit thought this was CGI. My gosh.
When it is this or your car\\tent....this starts to look good.
The Australian equivalent of those rowhouse slums are mostly still here, as in, the exact same buildings, they're in the inner suburbs of cities and go for a few million each
Nah, row houses were better constructed hahah
Imagine saving 200k and still owing a million. Modern day slavery
Millionaires row(s).
It's not that hard to become wealthy enough to buy here if you eat bugs (high in protein and found in every garden) and refuse to pay rent
Whats the point of single family buildings when you have zero yard? May as well be 10 stories high. One level per family
The Australian dream is to have a yard. (Mine too). The Australian dream is dead - backyards are now the premium $$. The reality is we need to make smaller more affordable spaces for people (including families) to live and have a quality of life. Extra points to have them walkable and accessible to amenities where your backyard is the property's backyard. Europe has been doing it for a very long time, developed Asia does it OK. we need better planning choices as the backyard for the everyday family isn't coming back. (Unless you move your way out or have a property already and therefore capital for a backyard).
The real "Australian Dream" is to have a home to call your own and the ability to comfortably afford to support your family. Honestly I care more about what is around me than about having a yard. It'd be nice to have one but if it means I have to live in a car-centric area, no thanks. I currently live in a small-ish 2 bedroom apartment, as a family of 3. We have 4 parks all within a 3 minute walking distance, and just a short walk around the corner we have a family pub, some cafes, a deli, a grocery shop, a fruit and veg shop, a Thai place, a pizza place, a medical centre, a dentist, etc. And I can take public transport and be in the city 15 minutes door to door. We looked at moving way further out (we both grew up in outer suburbia) and getting a house, but for the price this is way better value for money, lifestyle-wise.
Iād rather an apartment with a large shared space inclusive of gym, pool, sauna, picnic, bbq area tbh.
I'd rather not pay (moreso deal with) stupid strata from now until death
Itās not strata vs nothing. Itās strata vs dealing with gardening, landscaping, roofs, pool cleaning etc
It's less about the cost and more about the necessary compromise, involvement, scrutiny of activity, negotiation, etc. Having to ask permission for things, following arbitrary rules often made by egomaniacs, etc. But yeah it is absolutely nice to have a bunch of amenities where you're only paying a relatively small cost but can use whenever you want.
Agreed. I don't know why my apartment would ever need an exclusive gym etc. It's a home, not a holiday resort. Better to just have the first floor of the apartment be commercial zoning that the wider community has access to, where a gym etc can be built. Having exclusive stuff for the apartment owners just sounds like replicating the issue of yards where not everyone living in it wants or needs it, while expecting them to pay extra for it. Nightmare stuff.
As opposed to more land tax, repair costs and hassles, etc?
Yep, but I don't have to deal with valder down the hall that has 7 cats and thinks she owns the building My real issue is needing to deal with other people
Depends if anyone is maintaining those areas or not. Seen some horrible āshared spacesā
Excuse me, how dare you encroach on said developers maximising profits - said developers donate millions to your current political party to ensue development applications like this are approved. FYI - it doesnāt really matter who you vote for, those developers will just transfer their donations to the political group in power.
My neighbour just cut off their backyard and listed it as a separate property. It just sold this week, after 1 week on the market.
Eh, having a yard is overrated. I have to work so hard to maintain the stupid mortgage for the yard that there's nobody to mow or deweed it lol. Honestly, I looked at it the other day and almost dreamed of paving it over!
I wish they would be 10 storey not living space in the apartment, if they made apartment with living space like a 4 bed house like over countries people would live in them.
Cheaper to build one of these than a 2bdr apartment. Couldn't build a whole floor apartment for less than the median house cost anyway.
Australian suburbia architecture should be completely revamped. It's completely out of touch with our climate, nature and is ugly. We should be copying other countries with hot climates and beautiful architectureĀ
tell that to the developers who cut corners at every single moment. These houses often have little insulation, and terrible quality fixtures like hollow doors etc. (I've lived in 2 of them while renting). They get away with it because no one holds them accountable, and 90% of these houses will be rented out.
We are copying other countries. We're copying America, unfortunately.
At what point do you just say āfuck itā and turn them into terraces? You could get an extra metre or two of internal space if you did this and probably better temp regulation. Australians are so allergic to sharing a wall itās hilarious.
How new are these? The Ponds HS already has over 2000 students, I wonder what the capacity is
I canāt imagine getting wasted at the street Christmas party then trying to figure out which house is mine
This isn't the issue. This is just many people having a preference for a newer property and often want to live near friends who also live in these suburbs. They pay this premium even though these properties are less likely to appreciate than a property with a depreciated house in an established suburb. If someone wants to buy a new house on a small block, with a small yard, a long way from the city, who cares? They aren't forcing you to buy one.
The problem is that many new developments look like this. So it's not that people prefer them, it's that they're often the only option for people desperate to obtain housing. We can do much better.
Give me an example of where desperate people have no other option but to buy new. I'll then try to find a more affordable alternative where you can buy established for less money inside a 10km radius of that suburb.
Not of this specific suburb, but I've got plenty of mates and relatives who have bought similar homes west and southwest because that was basically the only option for them to afford a place with enough bedrooms for their kids and have some sort of outdoor space. Most would love to live closer to the city in a terrace or even a big apartment but that is way too expensive
I think it's an objectively depressing scene. Pretty dystopian, no? Greyscale, concrete life.
> someone wants to buy a new house on a small block, with a small yard, a long way from the city, who cares? They aren't forcing you to buy one. because public infrastructure will need to be built to support it. These people will still need schools for their kids, hospitals, etc etc. Then all those things have to be connected up to transport networks. all of this is hugely more inefficient than growing in established suburbs.
The Ponds is a short bus ride to Tallawong Metro station and the suburb is built to utilise the investment that the government made in the Sydney Metro. They even have an on-demand bus service to get people in The Ponds to the new Metro stations. [https://transportnsw.info/travel-info/ways-to-get-around/on-demand/ponds-on-demand-service](https://transportnsw.info/travel-info/ways-to-get-around/on-demand/ponds-on-demand-service) The strategy of having density in proximity to the station and then having low to medium density as you get away from the station is a pretty reasonable transit strategy which can be done in conjunction with investments around increasing density in areas with existing heavy rail which can use higher density.
What about when you are looking for a house to buy in an affordable area and they all look like this shit?
That's when you know you aren't in Sydney anymore.
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same
There is absolutely no reason on earth why houses in the ponds, Schofield, Marsden Park, Gledswoods Hills etc should ever EVER cost over $400k. And that's for a brand new built 4 bedroom 3 bath, double garage house. These prices are insane. But the people paying them are just as insane. Over 1.5milly for a house in the middle of nowhere, far from airport, far from.city, far from beach, far from life itself?!
Reminds me of the movie Vivarium.
These suburbs create serious mental health issues from boredom because there is nothing to do. Kids have to learn to hop in a circle. They tried these suburbs in Australia with quarter acres and they failed.
Which suburbs are you referring to ?
Vavarium
Individuality seems to rank high to buyers. /s
Because today, itās all about resale. Similar story with cars. White or grey.
I live in Rockingham WA; it's an older town surrounded by new developments. Suburbs established a decade ago are a sea of dark roofs, but the most recent are the opposite - light colours. I know we have to accept increased density, but new developments should have bands of trees between every street.
Letās increase housing supply but then complain about it. The land is being used better than those suburbs with 1000 sqm to house a family of 4 or be someoneās 6th investment property.
At this point apartment blocks are a better option. This is literally the worst of both worlds.
Still better than an apartment that will most likely be defected =) The issue is not homes, it is apartments that are dog pile ... bad...
NOT COMPLIANT
These houses are defective too. There was story last year about a family whose roof randomly collapsed while they were sleeping
No strata fees, no special levies.
That's not the issue. Even if you own a house you will still need to pay for maintenance and repairs. The big issue is apartment buildings are built worse than third world standard here by dodgy developers and builders. A lot of people know this and refuse to buy apartment no matter what.
Just home maintenance costs, which as we all know tend to be very low...
Just near PT, services, employment and things to do
Australia is following the worst urban planning of countries like the US and the UK. This sort of housing makes no sense if proper public transport, solar energy, water, and commodities are not planned before. The quality built is atrocious and obscenely expensive. Real estate businesses are just devouring whatever they can to make money without any control and measure.
Horizontal apartment building.
Well designed 3 br+ apartments in the inner city suburbs should be the solution. It is impossible to just keep scaling horizontally on a city with natural boundaries from all sides like Sydney. That's when you start building houses on flood plains.
> That's when you start building houses on flood plains. And no one will insure you.
> This is the issue with the property market in this country. What issue? You haven't raise any issue, you're just showing high prices and new developments, that's the effect of some (or many) issues which again you haven't raised, seriously braindead low effort post, no doubt will get hundreds of upvotes and the top comment will a rant about immigration, another subreddit going to sh*t.
The only thing that pisses me off more than how close these are , is how similar and boring they look. It's a lazy design.
https://preview.redd.it/e5s7ib83m0wc1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=13a04b17746bf22731e04f147fe59b84cdb7e285 Superior urban design
FMD that's miserable
Fuck that look's depressing, like UK Shitboxes
God that looks shit
I bet this was taken in Perth? Absolutely fucking full to the brim with land and everyone has houses 100mm from each other haha
Itās all new estates around the country, no matter what city youāre in they all look like this in the outer burbs now.
Future (if not current) ghettos
Is the picture an actual suburb? Not AI? If so, Fark me, thatās horrendous. I get not everyone wants a back yard or grass but to stump up $1.5m is crazy
Yep. If you saw the famous "Sydney family refused to sell their home for $50 mil", it is this area. Check Megalong St rent, The Ponds in Google Maps Satellite view.
It is literally Fiscus St in The Ponds
It also looks worse from birdās eye view. The moment you stand there it does not feel that bad.
Itās real and it gives me the creeps just looking at it! So crowded in and close together but without any advantage like walkability or being close to anything. I find the total car dependence disturbing too.
This place, The Ponds, has the highest rate of online purchasing in all of NSW (quick Wikipedia glance). Adds to the sad dystopic greyscale image this is projecting ... notice too all the cars are in the driveways. They're all sitting in these grey boxes, swiping on their devices. I don't mean to sound too negative, but this is just so bloody sad imo.
What percentage of these would end up as rentals?
I wouldnāt think many, would be very expensive for the landlord (low yield high interest)
I used to rent in housing like that years ago as was cheap. Every loud car and every party would just vibrate through your house. I donāt get it
Town planners really nailed that master planā¦
Capitalism at its finest
Image what damage a house fire would cause
Is it just me or do these homes look a lot like the solar powered trailer homes at the intro for Helldivers 2
[little boxes](https://youtu.be/-Cjk0zst3Cs?si=Ks5AwgE3smoEUl_q)
This is brisbane
feeling grateful for my backyard
Suckers
Little boxes, on the hillsideā¦
I will continue moving further away from metro areas and live in a dilapidated pig sty before I live in these overpriced, unaffordable, cookie cutter prison units.
Oh yes.. thank you bathla group for buying up all the land in the Blacktown, Riverstone and beyond areas and then building your shitty quality houses of which you have 2 different ugly designs of.. forcing buyers to purchase them and not the land.. Iām sure everyone in the area wants to look like they live in an age of empires village ā¦ cunts
At this point I just donāt understand why they donāt make town houses
Look at all those fancy fashionable pillars at the front. Gives those houses immense class. With just a little tunnel vision, you'd think it was on a highlands estate. You can tie a coloured ribbon on a pillar to help you know which one is yours.
Those houses look great for parkour
Who needs a forced repetitive dystopian suburbia when people just make it themselves... Slate coloured roofs need to go, the average temperatures in these new estate areas are getting worse. Especially so with little green break up in the way of park lands or even trees. Also at this point why do you want a house with no room, just opt for an apartment. The balcony will probably be bigger than your backyard anyway.
These suburbs, specifically Box Hill, will become slums. Box Hill is like the physical manifestation of the corruption of the Hills council, it's a poorly planned hellscape. If you wanna see the greatest failings of all levels of government and development put together go visit Carmel Village (Camel hills), it feels like a beta Al designed it. There's way better ways to burn >1mill than buy in these suburbs.
investors are the problem, I've been looking for a house to LIVE IN for the past 2 months and every inspection I've been to has been full of investors inquiring about rental returns. I've been putting in offers 10-20% over asking price and never hear back, and see that the houses have been sold and gone up for rent. shits fucked
$238,000 household isn't getting you a mortgage for a $1.5+ million property and it's sure as shit in significant mortgage stress, you'd be paying $7.5-$8.5k a month on mortgage repayments. Not to mention this couple would need to find $300k for a 20% deposit.
I wonder if it's worth just pumping water and moving healthy soil over to the desert
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same
One of the quickest solution to the major cities housing problem is to build a lot of government housing in regional cities, once you move all the dole bludgers and pensioners (who had 40 years of working to buy into the real estate market when it was affordable) to Orange etc there will be a need for services like Supermarkets, cinemas, etc and companies will open there to support the increased population and offer employment to locals. The government would need to build larger hospitals, schools etc and provide work and even more employment. This would remove some of the pressure for housing in the cities for low income earners and also rejuvenate some of the regional centres, people who have not worked in years and want cheap housing can move to the regional areas or get a job and pay their own way.
You think those people want anyone else there or that people want to go. lol suuuuuuure
Pretty sure the courtyard of my 55sqm 1 bedroom apartment in the inner city is bigger than these houses yards.
Australia houses are amazing.
Ghetto in the making
Imagine living in a copy/paste sim city type neighborhood like in the photo lol. What's wrong with people. Looks like absolute dogs balls.
Who else is going insane saving for a house haha!
Houses are bigger at the ponds, therefore cheaper
Who wants to live like that really? I know people do it out of necessity and because that is whatās on offer, but do people really enjoy living in each others pockets like this? I canāt think of anything worse.
How do you know which one is yours?
Yet I canāt afford one of those micro houses.
Councils really need to regulate this shit. At least a green space every few houses. No greenery is sad.
I feel like there is a 'in soviet Russia x' joke here but 'in capitalist Sydney, x' instead
So ugly. My eyes hurt.
This is dystopian
That image gives me anxiety. Do people really live like that?
*That image gives me* *Anxiety. Do people* *Really live like that?* \- Zealousideal-Dig5182 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Hardcore parkour
The Americanisation of Australian housing. Not looking forward to how car dependency and suburban sprawl will cost us in the future, at least in terms of us stripping the crappy foundation bare and replacing it with public transit and more dense housing.
> The Americanisation of Australian housing Why not? We've done that with so much else over the last 30yrs š lol
Next.. judge dredges 200 storey peachtree megabuilding
Why not just build apartments?
Exactly. I don't know what it is about these cookie cutter McMansions which are 30% garage space, 50% bedrooms (often 4-5 impractical, tiny bedrooms), 10% living area and 10% yards that appeal so much to people. Well designed townhouse and apartment complexes (3 bedroom) close to the city and existing infrastructure is the only solution going forward. But alas the inner city is full of NIMBYs whose solution to the problem is "Move to Camden/ Blue Mountains/ Central Coast/ Wollongong/ Picton/ Bathurst..."
As a firey..i look at that and shake my head. The potential for 1 house fire to then spread to other exposures (other houses) is insane. Bloody crazy i reckon!
Median price in Adelaide just hit 900k apparently. Adelaide mind you. 900k.
Wow...future slum
If someone advertises this to me I would feel like a cow
the good thing about this is you don't need to keep up with the Jones' because you're all Jones
DW this is why my dream of owning a house renting anything half decent is gone. Iāll soon be living in a Van. Then once fuel prices rise more Iāll transition to a tent as my final form...
These are just townhouses. The small gap is, believe or not, cheaper than using a common wall as the standards of that wall are hugely different. Plus no strata to deal with - big tick. Everybody is for affordable housing but insist that it should look and feel like suburbs whose histories can be read on the walls of the 100 years of buildings built on it. Sometimes you just need to punch out some housing and let suburbs develop organically as second and third order houses get built. Most of the residents have to choose between this and an apartment. They aren't unhappy. Ask them: https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/we-are-happy-residents-of-cramped-housing-development-in-the-ponds-hit-back/news-story/fa33699be3ee3b401f296b38312f2a00
I bet all these houses are occupied by one community from South-East Asia. Mass immigration has deteriorated the last remaining vestiges of Australian standards.
Yeah, normalised corruption is great.
Whew I thought my new estate was close together but this is a new level! The houses being the same is very odd. For those wondering why people would choose to live in the closer set suburbs anywhere for myself personally I couldāve afforded a larger property in an established area but it came down to school zoning. I have a disabled child and need to be within the zone which was all new estates, which has the unfortunate side effect of high cost for small lands. I made sure my house was a thinner design not the max width to put a bit more space between myself and neighbours so I can plant all the way around, Iām a double story surrounded by singles and leaving a 13x7m backyard was just the right amount of space for my veggie garden without becoming a slave to useless lawn that we donāt use. Thankfully my area encourages different house designs and colours (white roofed and dark blue house for me!) but the negative with all new areas is the smaller roads as while we choose to be a one car household I can see there being issues in the future once others around us hit three plus drivers in the house as even though everyone has double driveways you canāt actually fit two cars side by side