Housing solution does not rest in bigger and higher
Planning must be strategic and must be centred around the health, wellbeing and lifestyle of existing and future residents of a location.
While I appreciate that the State Government is pressuring local councils to reduce planning regulations to enable developers to cram more and more onto what were once considered small housing blocks.
Now accommodating three units, tripling living capacity, developers now want the same areas to accommodate five units.
Plans to rezone vast areas to build three or five storeys with underground parking are totally insane.
We have recently seen that wealthy commercial constructions, such as Woolworths and Ettalong Diggers, cannot cope with constant rain filling underground car park.
What hope would residents of strata units have of running water pumps 24 hours a day for weeks on end to keep underground car parks dry and usable.
The entire Peninsula, which is the guardian to the entire Brisbane Water is technically a sand bar, held together by a diminishing supply of large trees.
(Read Gwen Dundon's Shipbuilders of Brisbane Waters NSW and you will better understand.)
Throw in hundreds of underground car parks which will daily pump out the equivalent of three olympic swimming pools each which will lower the existing water table.
Currently, you can dig a post hole anywhere between Umina, Ettalong and Woy Woy, knock off for a cuppa and come back the hole is filled with water.
Locals have installed shallow bore water pumps to use that resource to water lawns and gardens for as long as I can remember.
Then also read the history of Victoria's Mallee desert and what caused it.
It was once lush farming land, now poisoned by rising salt table, in which nothing will grow.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what will happen to Brisbane Water's guardian Peninsula, should the same happen here.
The solution to the State's demand for housing does not rest in building bigger and higher, robbing people of sunlight, greenery and a pleasant community.
It could be found in restoring country rail systems, adding rapid rail hubs, decentralising major businesses and industries to create communities where societies can flourish, not high-rise slums and endless traffic jams and flooded major roads.
I sincerely hope everyone on the Peninsula gets involved with the local residents' association and demand council hear your voice.
SOURCE:
Email, 16 Mar 2022
Michael Emmett, Umina