What’s happening to the city between the mountains and sea?

“Are we building the vertical slums of the future?”

That was the question put to respected heritage architect Andrew Conacher at the latest meeting of Neighbourhood Forum 5 (NF5), a community advocacy group created to advise Wollongong City Council.

His answer: “Yes.”

Since 1981, Andrew has been working to ensure development in Wollongong and the region fitted, as best it could, with the unique and much-loved landscape; a beautiful city nestled between mountains and sea, where the views have captured the hearts and minds of visitors, and those lucky enough to call it home.

Andrew was guest presenter at the July meeting of NF5. On the agenda for discussion at the meeting were several highly contentious high-rise buildings.

Perhaps the most controversial is a plan by Sydney developers to build a 38-storey skyscraper on what is currently a car yard adjacent to North Wollongong Station. If approved, it will stand at 140 metres. That’s four times higher than the current permissable use of 32 metres.

Lord Mayor Cr Tania Brown has already flagged she thinks what’s proposed is almost twice as high as should be permissible. Her preference, she told her fellow councillors, would be something more in the order of 20 storeys.

With the number of reach-for-the-sky development proposals being lodged, the next generation Wollongong may look nothing like it does today.

In the CBD, Council recently approved a change in the rules to allow the new Globe hotel tower on the old David Jones site to increase from 55 metres to a maximum of 78.2 metres, despite creating shading issues for the nearby MacCabe Park.

In a Facebook post this week, the South Coast Labour Council said: “We don’t have a housing boom in Wollongong – we have a developer boom."

Andrew Conacher told NF5 members to brace themselves for many more high-rise proposals, as the NSW Government encourages developers to help it resolve the housing crisis by offering sweeteners. These include taller buildings and more apartment approvals, provided there’s a solid “affordable housing” component.

Andrew also encouraged “engaged locals” with concerns to raise their voices now if they felt what’s proposed – including multiple 38-storey buildings – isn’t what the Wollongong of the future should look like.

“These things are ambit claims,” Andrew said. “They (the developers) call it aspirational, and they’ll give it a crack. And if you add some affordable housing in, you might get a better run.”

Andrew said he’s never seen such a rush to build new homes nor a government so focused on making things happen in such a hurry.

For developers, it's a decade where pretty much everything is on the table. “It’s all up for grabs," he said. "You put a DA in and see how it goes, and if it doesn’t get through you just keep trying till you get one over the line.”

As reported in The Illawarra Flame, when councillors were asked “how high is too high?” for new residential tower blocks, most baulked at anything over 20 storeys. Andrew Conacher shares the concerns of those who feel powerless to stop the pro-development juggernaut.

'Told to just suck it up'

“Council has a set of rules but they’re being overridden by state planning,” Andrew said. “The state government has decided it can do a better job than local councils. Local government is being bypassed and told to just suck it up.”

Andrew told NF5 the current housing and affordability crisis shouldn’t have taken anyone by surprise. In the 1950s and 1960s, state governments built tens of thousands of public housing flats and units, but over recent decades that’s been disappearing; sold off for revenue as governments struggle to break even.

“Today we find affordable housing has been passed to the private sector to deal with. The only way the state government can see to get out of this problem is to turn it over to the private sector.”

Andrew also said Wollongong City Council hadn’t been proactive enough to prepare for the inevitable rush to develop, and should have drawn on community expertise years ago to get ahead of the urban infill drive.

“Council has seen this coming but they’ve done nothing about it. Groups like this (NF5) have intellectual clout and can still help Council find solutions.”

In approving a Flinders Street Precinct Urban Design Framework recently, several councillors expressed their concern at the strain thousands of new apartments and many more residents would put on existing infrastructure in the years ahead.

Working group sought

NF5 members agreed, and will seek Council’s support to create a working group involving key stakeholders, including community representatives, “to enable the best possible outcomes for the highly contentious future Flinders Street densification”.

The NF5 motion says: “A working group which gives the community a seat at the table would help to ensure the needs of the existing community and future residents are best met. This would build on the success of a combined government agency and community-based working group which has delivered excellent outcomes to achieve an active transport bridge on the Mount Ousley Interchange upgrade.”

NF5 is awaiting a response to its request from Council.

The author is a member of Neighbourhood Forum 5, which meets in Wollongong City Library on the first Wednesday of the month at 6pm. All interested residents are welcome to attend. The next meeting is on Wednesday, 5 August.