Sydney " Skyscraper " Decision !

The tallest commercial structure on the Sydney skyline is Sydney Tower with its revolving restaurants at a height of just 309metres.  This is a mere dwarf in comparison with the buildings in New York city, San Francisco and overseas places like Hong Kong.

Seen from the harbour, the city skyline is impressive, but our city is hampered by height restrictions that simple do not apply in most of the rest of the world.  Apart from Sydney Tower, our highest commercial building is  Chifley Tower at 216 metres and now the state government has signalled a height change that will allow new buildings to reach a height of more than 300 metres which will add another 24 storeys to the city skyline.

We are running short of office space and those extra stories will bring jobs that must otherwise go to  other Australian cities or to the fast developing twin metropolis of Parramatta.  We have just spent billions of dollars to reinvent trams and their purpose is to ease the journey in and out of the city for both workers and shoppers and this goes hand in hand with that additional office space.

This height restriction was the work  of State Planning and was set in the 1970's amid concern that our main airport was at Mascot and that air traffic might find tall buildings a navigation hazard is inclement weather.   The time factor in creating such tall new buildings meshes nicely with the construction of a totally new airport at Badgery's Creek and hints that Mascot may have a change of status when that is completed.

Those height restrictions were a safety issue back in the days of propeller driven aircraft when the flying was actually done by the pilots.  The modern jet aircraft are flown by computers and on ground instrumentation guides the incoming aircraft to the correct angle of descent automatically.  They fly well clear of the city centre and tall buildings are no longer considered an air hazard.

Now those height restrictions have been abandoned Sydney has lost the shackles that is preventing it becoming a " world city ".   It is the jaw dropping building heights that visitors come to see that is part of the allure of world cities.  They have a momentum of their own which makes them exciting to visit because many of their citizens both live and work in the metropolitan hub.  A world city is often tagged with the epithet of " the city that never sleeps ".

Sydney is Australia's largest city and it can no longer expand outwards because of the sea to the east, the Blue Mountains to the west and National parks at both north and south.   The only option - is upwards.  This planning rule change insures that will happen  !