The ever shrinking " Backyard " !

The old " quarter acre block " is now a distant memory in New South Wales.  This week a new State Environmental Planning Policy ( SEPP ) comes into force and the legal size of land for building shrinks even smaller.   It seems that Australia faces a strange building conundrum.   The size of the homes we live in get bigger each decade - and the land on which they are built gets smaller - and the end result is the almost total disappearance of what used to be called " the backyard ".

Todays new home tends to encroach to all four boundaries and there is little room left for a Hills hoist clothesline or kid's play area.   Whatever land is left usually contains a swimming pool and this new SEPP allows what are termed " Fonzie " flats, studio apartments under separate land title to be built above garages. Basically, land sizes have retreated to just 125 square metres in growth areas and from 350 square metres to 250 in low density areas.  

With the median house price in Sydney hovering about the $ 800,000 mark a lot of people are being locked out of home ownership.  This SEPP is expected to ease new building prices by about $ 50,000 for a $ 500,000 property - and height restrictions in inner Sydney are under review.   If Sydney is to continue it's growth pattern it is inevitable that more people will have to embrace apartment living and taller domestic towers make better use of existing facilities.   The biggest problem is that apartments are an efficient way to house masses of people - provided they can do without cars.    Finding room for both people and cars in an inner city has defied the best schemes of city planners.

Obviously, one solution to city overcrowding is to encourage rural living with high speed public transport linking housing to job opportunities, but rural building land seems to be keeping pace with  city prices, even when it is abundantly available.   Plans to link country living with public transport usually lag decades behind  and consequently the ever expanding city relies on the car for individual transport - with all the problems that brings.

When we see the massive tower blocks housing people in Asia's overcrowded cities we are probably viewing the future fate of Sydney and Melbourne.   The  " vertical village " is probably the only way to cope with the concentration of opportunity that draws people to the big cities and their proliferation of good paying jobs.

Somehow nature's example of the " ant hill " comes to mind !