By Frances Howe
There was only one item on the agenda at Ku-ring-gai Council’s extraordinary meeting on Monday, yet it was hours before councillors could debate it.
For almost three hours, members of the public rotated in front of a lectern to express their opinions on the council’s proposed alternative to the NSW government’s transport-oriented development (TOD) program.
Ku-ring-gai council residents Michael Clayden, Peter Tulip, Samantha Bing, Todd Cefai, Jo Karaolis and Matthew Hayes in Roseville.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The government’s scheme rezoned four areas – Gordon, Killara, Lindfield and Roseville – to help deliver 23,200 homes in six-storey buildings within 400 metres of train stations. The council rejected that scheme and, aiming to protect the area’s heritage and environment, instead put forward plans to allow apartment buildings up to 28 storeys in an 800-metre radius.
The proposed alternative resulted from mediations after Ku-ring-gai Council initiated proceedings against the government in the NSW Land and Environment Court, arguing that the TOD plans were invalid. The alternative plan is dubbed the “preferred scenario”, yet the council sees the plan as the result of having been backed into a corner. As Councillor Martin Smith said on Monday: “We’re in a shit sandwich – do we want white bread or brown bread?”
Just under a third of the 100 written or spoken submissions in Monday’s public forum, held before the vote, supported the preferred scenario.
Samantha Bing, 29, was forced out of Gordon when her rent increased. Bing, working in disability support in St Ives, said she is part of a generation of essential workers who will be unable to live in the areas they service.
She doesn’t support the alternative plan, which sets aside less than 2 per cent of the proposed apartments for affordable housing.
Ku-ring-gai Council Chambers, where Monday’s meeting and public forum were held. Credit: James Brickwood
“A vibrant community depends on a mix of income levels and accessible housing for everyone, not just the wealthy,” she said.
Her Ku-ring-gai Housing Group colleague, Jem Punthakey, was also against the proposal: “We are fighting to stop Ku-ring-gai becoming an elite gated community of the old and wealthy, waited upon by a servant class of essential workers that have no choice but to commute hours each way and each day from suburbs far away.”
Michael Clayden, 24, lives with his family in St Ives and cannot afford to move out. However, he supported the proposal as he believed homes needed to be built now.
“We are watching our own community become a place only the wealthy can afford, forcing out young people, businesses and diversity and for what?” he said.
Shankar Sapkota, 30, was also against the proposal, though not for the same reasons. Sapkota believed the housing crisis can only be solved by capping immigration numbers. The son of immigrants and a member of Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment, which supports neither proposal, Sapkota said the livability of the area shouldn’t fall second to accommodating new residents.
“Our backyards have been taken away from us,” he said.
Councillors voted unanimously to endorse the alternative plan, which will go back on exhibition for public feedback.
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