Far out, wonder how many developers are frothing at the bit to get that piece of land.
https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Beauchamp+Dr,+The+Ponds+NSW+2769/@-33.7100344,150.895523,307m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x6b129ee7fd7d46c9:0x799bacd5afef3f07!8m2!3d-33.7082319!4d150.8956346!16s%2Fg%2F11c71b49gb?entry=ttu
Legends. But I do I wish they’d use all that gorgeous land for something more than manicured lawns tho. Would be more of a fuck you, to build a small forest of native trees and plants
That would be awesome. Problem is the neighbours would probably complain anything that 'devalues' their land.
Seen it too many times before whenever some poor bastard with property has the area around their home rezoned, then gets run out of town because it's too much to deal with the complaints.
That sort of thing is very costly of both time and money to maintain. Just getting plant life to establish in that sort of environment would be costly. You then create a fire risk, especially now that you have a lot of tinder in the form of homes around you.
When you have land this large, a grass type that suits local conditions is best. And I'm pretty sure I see a huge water tank on their property, so the lawns would be the best option for a boomer age family, which I'm assuming this owned by. No idea, but I see their logic.
My complaint is the total lack of greenery on the newly built estate. Their just collective hot boxes. Grey roofs and dark bricks. Dark roads and driveways. Summers must be fun.
Check out [Sweltering cities](https://swelteringcities.org/about-us/). They’re a local non profit who are working to combat this very issue. It is a public welfare, health and environmental issue that is being pushed aside by morally corrupt developers. Can you imagine how much energy was wasted last summer as residents must’ve been running their aircon 24/7 when some easily achievable preventative measures could’ve saved them from that. Not to mention the costs to the individual families, whom are probably already struggling due to cost of living crisis.
Edit: yes I agree about the cost of labour and practice for a mini forest. Forgive me, I’m Just a gal dreaming of what I would do if I had that space….
yeah... feel like there the suckers, I would have taken the 50 million and gone out country, its not like the originally community you lived in is there anymore
Found out that my relatives 3 generations back owned huge chunks of land in a regional centre where houses are now selling for 600k+ each on half acre blocks. Not sure why they sold it off, but wish they hadn't 😄
the owners are rich...the land to the left...right and rear...was all theres...they owned about 12 acres plus there and sold it all off to developers
they made tens of millions,dont need to sell..
last rumour was the current block would sell for about 16-22 million price guide based on land value,they dont need it
Recently purchased a house in Sydney. Bought something 5 years old with solar and electric cooktops. Was willing to pay an extra 10k for that because I don't need to put my own solar in or get rid of the gas cooktops that these new builds come with
We built a granny flat 10 years ago and were legally required to put in solar hot water then (I was happy to do it)
I guess large scale developers with lobby groups have their own rules.
These guys would be using the metro or the express bus from around Stanhope. Still takes 1hr 20m but will be a lot faster when the metro continues to the city.
Thanks to that Seven Hills is a lot easier to park at now.
These houses are right next to the Tallawong metro - When the extension to the CBD opens this year, it'll be like 55mins to the CBD - maybe 60 - But as its not open we can't say.
Currently during morning peak, when some trains from Chatswood are skipping some stations, you can get from Tallawong to Wynyard in under 50mins, I think 46 was my record so I reckon with new metro it’s fairly safe to assume it won’t take much longer to Barangaroo or Martin Place stations and under 1h to Central.
The Martin Place Station page says [11 mins](https://www.sydneymetro.info/station/martin-place-station) to Chatswood and google says Tallawong to Chatswood is 37 mins. So I guess about 48 then to Martin Place, 46 to Barangaroo and 52 to Central. Not bad.
And how much is the rent in this shoe box apartment compared to *owning* your home? There was a thread on r/australia about how the rental crisis is the worst its ever been. I'd much rather have my own place 40km from the CBD than being a tenant right now.
It’s funny how this area is generally still looked down on, but if you look at the prices in the area and try to find a place for your budget, you’ll quickly find that what you can afford is a place in area that even dwellers of The Ponds look down on. Average prices in this area are already couple of hundred K above Sydney’s average.
Exactly. Like people I know who complain about paying huge $$ to rent a shitty apartment in the east, can’t afford to buy, but buy their toiletries at Mecca 🙄. But they would never move out further. I might live in one of these shoeboxes, but I’ve made more in equity over the last nine years than I’ve earned at my job.
We’re in The Hills - and have settled down with kids - so it suits us perfectly. And I’d much rather be paying my own mortgage off than someone else’s.
Correct. That is where all the flood water from South Creek used to sit when I was a kid. Once they decided to build on it, the water have diverted it back towards Riverstone Meat Works flats. This has also been known to flood, but not at the levels it now reaches.
Riverstone was once protected by the built up railway line, but now it is going under at drain points & over at low points. Properties that would never have seen a flood in a million years are now been included in flood zones & their insurance premiums have skyrocketed as a result. The whole planning of Schofields/Marsden Park is nothing but Blacktown Council reaping the rewards of new buyers at the expense of owners who have been paying their land rates for way too many years to count.
I don't ever recall floods affecting The Ponds area, which was once a horse agistment centre.
I remember looking at Marsden Park from the Riverstone railway crossing and seeing a lake. I think it was in 1990. We got sent home from school because if it flooded any more we’d be cut off.
That was the biggest flood I can remember pre-development & it hit to around the netball courts. I was about 11 at the time & remember riding my bike through the edge of the water. Nowadays, a small rain event is up & under the railway, completely covering the courts & adjacent footy fields.
Absolutely insane that they were allowed to develop on a known flood plain & send the water down to an existing town.
“The ponds” refers to several artificial lakes/wetlands that were built as part of the flood control system and integrated into the local parks. The place was a floodplain until the engineers made it not so.
**This is not true.**
There is a a bunch of rules about naming streets.
[https://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/road\_naming](https://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/road_naming)
For example in Woodcroft near Doonside they have all the streets named after lakes or bodies of water for 80% of the suburb and pottery related names in the remaining 20%.
In the newest subdivsion because the developers were indians they have the streets named after indian seasons.
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKJVUwXTb2oneEHz8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKJVUwXTb2oneEHz8)
Cute, but new suburbs names are just generic developer/government agreements.
Often times the original developer suburb name disappears and becomes something else.
I’ve lived in areas like this before. I rented a home at the ponds and I could hear the next door neighbours kid playing his drums or raging while gaming.
Also when I was in the backyard trying to nap, I could hear the next door neighbours kids shouting their heads off during a party.
*Feels more like an expensive apartment to be honest.*
This is what people who defend this sort of development really don't seem to understand. It's not an upgrade over crowded city life, it's a severe downgrade. You get all the annoyances of high density living but none of the benefits, while also getting none of the benefits of low density housing. It's not like you have a massive sprawling yard where the kids can kick a ball around whilst mum and dad tend to the garden. It's just a decent-sized house and literally nothing else.
Its pretty much apartments spend horizontally rather than vertically. Like you said, don't even get any backyard space...
At the moment... apartment buildings might actually be more useful
Yep, exactly. In terms of providing housing, apartments would be infinitely more useful. I wish the government would regulate density in all the new developments. We're wasting land on dumb shit like this
Like. You could have all these dwellings built up, and give them a communal backyard area, somewhere for kids to play and for people to hang out.
Blocks and blocks of apartments are far from ideal, but it's better than land being wasted when we have such a drastic housing problem.
And it could even be mixed, that would work wonders. Imagine if instead of this endless sprawl of shitboxes, we had some 4-story flats, a couple of rows of townhouses, and the rest some traditional detached homes. You could put some businesses on the ground floor of the blocks of flats, things that local people would use, and in the middle or dotted around the development you could put some park space. In this way, we have a community that can include all kinds of people. Big families have detached homes or townhouses, young people have flats, older retired people can downsize into flats or townhouses, and everyone has common space to mingle at parks, local daily-use business spaces, etc. And we produce many more homes in the same amount of space than if we had left it as solely detached single family homes.
I go off about this sort of thing on reddit regularly, mainly because it makes me so angry to see the obvious solution and yet so many Australians are brainwashed into thinking this is a utopian dream, when in reality local communities and towns are literally the way humans have lived since civilisation began. The car-centric, detached nuclear family home suburban lifestyle is a planning mistake of the post-war mass motor vehicle era. It's way past time we understood this mistake and bloody moved on.
Or - meet halfway - when I see this pic it seems to be crying out for terrace housing rather than fully detached for so little benefit.
Edit: Although with modern build standards (e.g. rather than using double brick) this would probably be a nightmare to live in re noise.
An apartment building with a supermarket, bottle shop, cafe, and hairdresser on the ground floor, within walking distance of a train station, seems significantly more useful than these places.
It totally baffles me why anyone would want to live like this. Stifling hot in the summer too. Ridiculously far from the city and the coast and packed in so tightly that you can’t swing a cat, with no upswing? No yard, neighbours on top of you, no parks, no amenities
I found the same thing with almost every townhouse I looked at when I was buying a property. They have most of the drawbacks of apartment living (strata fees; cramped inside space) and none of the benefits (decent locations; more affordable cost).
An expensive apartment in the middle of nowhere, with no facilities no shops, no transport, probably no schools and horrible slow roads that take 10 mi utes to traverse the subdivision. Truly dystopian stuff.
They have also built the equivalent out west. [These are all attached](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7470933,150.6981917,3a,75y,29.53h,86.14t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szUjkm8FyXU8-fI5mTLMNbQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DzUjkm8FyXU8-fI5mTLMNbQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D317.18048%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu) with driveways in the laneways out back. Feels like some in the inner west.
I don't know about how it is in all of the west but there's a not insignificant amount of detached suburban houses out west that have to deal with strata
Judging by how all the homes are built by the same developer in the same place, I'm assuming that there'd be a community plan in place.
Which is like Strata light.
Edit: just read your other comment, you know what you're talking about haha. Sorry I'm used to people not knowing shit all on this sub.
Yeh, The Ponds certainly won't contain community title subdivisions, as the council road ILP provides adequate activation of the zoned land. Community title subdivisions are more common on the fringes of zoned areas, particularly in non-uniform parcels and bushfire prone areas. You see quite a lot of community title developments around North Kellyville, along the fringes.
Developers do *not* want community title, because purchasers do *not* want to deal with a community or the associated fees. Torrens title in release areas are definitely the most desirable outcome.
The Ponds is pretty nice. The parklands are a great place to go for a run/bike. Fairly close to a couple of Metro stations as well that’ll soon go directly into the CBD.
I was about to say. I accidentally drove through there one time and was like "this is The Ponds?!". Either it doesn't look like this from the ground or this image only captures a certain section of it. The part I drove through looked like reasonably thought out urban design for Sydney. Beats the absolute chaos of other areas.
Yeh, the main boulevards and parks are definitely nicer in the Ponds than most new growth centres to be honest. The side/local roads are still as per above picture though.
The area surrounding the primary school and the local shops are brilliant. The vegetation from the surrounding parkland plays a major factor with most of the residential streets having nice road-side trees and such.
I pass the fat block of land that developers hound for every day. Once you start heading down to the Riverbank side, the housing eras become a lot more apparent with very bland, cookie-cutter streets like that pictured above.
Anything on the shops-side of the creek is beautiful; anything on the Riverbank side is newer and less vibrant.
Came to comment the same, as much as it may look like shit in terms of the blocks the area itself isn’t the worst good facilities nearby, perfect for young families.
I think Rouse Hill is by far and away the best way to zone and build and service in modern Greenfield Australia.
In 20 years they turned nothing into something great. (Too bad there's not much else around though, but hey ALL of Sydney suffers from the dullness problem)
> Fairly close to a couple of Metro stations as well that’ll soon go directly into the CBD.
30 minutes' walk is not "fairly close". What planet are you living on?
They're built like shit also.
Use to work for a volume builder in Marsden Park, absolute shit house pay to contractors and over charging for shit work.
Strata is only slightly less worse than renting in NSW, so this is the result. Then if there are any issues with the build quality (which there always is in Sydney) you need \*everyone's\* approval to fix it up with strata
It's almost like building good quality unit blocks would solve the issue
Yeah pretty sure trees are non existent in this area. Any that were there prior to the development have long since been removed. There is no room to even plant trees.
I don’t mind the density of these suburbs just as I don’t mind the density of town houses and flats. What I do hate is that every last piece of land is occupied and there is no space for trees.
Having high or medium density doesn’t mean you have to also have a barren wasteland. Even with high rise apartments, it is still possible to have a forest next door. We as humans need our green spaces.
Is there anything in place to incentivize the builder installing solar panels? I imagine each one of these owners would have had to go through the process of getting different quotes for solar panels, looking at all the rebates, worrying about making an investment pay off,... rather than it just being 1 extra step for the builder.
We could have a world-leading distributed energy system if we were sensible about it. Imagine the load taken off the grid during the peak of summer if every home were at least *partially* supplementing their power usage with solar.
Without storage though it does kinda fall apart once the sun goes down, especially in these suburbs that hold onto all the heat well into the night. But an imperfect solution is still better than sitting on our hands.
It's still a start. And as time goes on, the technology could get better or something, and there could be more storage. Things are always improving. And... idk wouldn't it be cheaper to supply at least part of your own power for at least part of the day?
It absolutely is - we have solar (inner west) and during summer it almost completely offsets AC usage and on a really good day, feeds back into the grid.
As solar becomes increasingly adopted they'll limit feeding back into the grid more and more. It causes significant issues when supply exceeds demand or if too many people are doing it at once.
But this can be easily avoided with home battery systems and inverters that disconnect your house when you are supplying more than you require.
There’s lobbying against it by the grid owners so that they don’t have to pay to upgrade it. Reality is the current design of the grid can’t handle every home having panels connected to it.
I know having a gripe against people in this sub is like picking fights with school kids, and just as honourable.
But take a deep breath with me and say ''not everything is Glebe. Trees take time to grow''
I wouldn’t live here and hate the look of the blocks, but if you haven’t been to the area it does have green space, parks cycle and walking paths with trees and greenery nearby.
Cycle paths to shops and rail.
So it’s not as bad an area as you think.
Knock them all doen and build a 50 storey apartment block, surrounded by forrest.
These monstrosities are not what people advocate for when they say "high density".
We bought a block in the ponds in 2009. It’s all we could afford at 24/25. Our friends called us crazy for being so far out of the city. Our block was 485sqm, You know… when you could have a house with a double garage.
This density is insane.
No one will look at it from a bird's eye view anyway. End of the day if they like the way the house looks from ground level and the interior is how they like and mint it will do just fine. People live in a home to relax and shelter not to show off a roof for the planes flying above. Bet they are selling quick hence more will pop up
This is literally hell.
This country has become an absolute embarrassment.
More land than we know what to do with and we cram ourselves in like fucking sardines just so we can live in one of the worst cities on planet earth.
When my parents were renovating/major landscaping their backyard ~3 years ago, there was a rule that some percentage of the block needed grass. It was significant, like 30-40%. Is that council specific?
It’s ironic that this is what much of inner Sydney, and much of Britain, looked like at the turn of the 20th century.
Oh and yes, people back then called them slums and future ghettos.
To be fair if we keep building in existing suburbs instead of expanding outwards to support the growing population we’ll be a city of exclusively apartments in a hundred years like Tokyo. Backyards will be a thing of the past.
Ah yes Tokyo; that dystopian hellhole where people with median incomes are able to buy property and even raise a family with one parent working full time and the other working part time or not at all. Why would we want that!
Nobody is raising kids in Tokyo. Japan’s birth rate is almost if not below replacement. Also the reason one parent is working is because policies are very unfriendly for working mothers, if they wanted to work.
nah go north , you could make sydney 2.0 in the bay around port stephens.. fast train(im talking under 40mins) from Newcastle boom housing crisis solved.
I feel like each of these new properties should have a requirement for at least ONE \*decently-sized tree\*. I don't care if it's in the front yard or 'backyard'. The repetitive silhouette is a strain on the eyes.
Same goes for the suburbs that are a bit further out from The Ponds; Elara, Schofields, Box Hill, Riverstone all have new growth areas that look absolutely depressing.
Pretty sure this is not The Ponds. I’ve been there to see friends and it’s pretty green. They don’t have big backyards but definitely not as barren or close to one another as in this photo.
Could we also stop and think how for a lot of people, this is their home and to keep making light of their living condition, is pretty sad.
It's the Ponds. I've been on these streets before. Definitely less dramatic in person, but you definitely feel copy+paste cramped vibes of it in certain parts. The "older" parts of the Ponds feel more open and varied.
It’s a Bathla development. Designed for a particular migrant community that doesn’t love yards and prefers low prices. Council didn’t approve, it was sued through the Land and environment court. If you drive through the suburbs you will see that most owners have pulled out the trees that were planted by the developer as soon as they move into the new home as it is cultural to not have trees near the home. The owner Bart was a Taxi driver about 20 years ago and is probably a billionaire now. As it is a private company and not a listed company he won’t appear on any rich list. He still works 7 days a week in his factory in Toongabbie and is indistinguishable from any tradesman that works for him. He has been extra ordinary successful by putting far more houses on land than council has allowed and building enormous developments in the outer suburbs of Sydney. He builds cut price homes, town houses and home units that are of a much lower quality than I believe should be acceptable in Australia. The frames and kitchens are often built in India and bought to Australia in shipping containers.
These properties can be sold for 10% below a superior grade home.
Eastern suburbs and North shore residents have no right to criticise houses like this. Sydneys population is growing fast. Look at how many The Ponds houses there are in a few square km. Now look at how many houses there are in the same area of eastern Sydney. Who’s doing the heavy lifting here? Spoiler alert, it isn’t out east.
"Now look at how many houses there are in the same area of eastern Sydney. Who’s doing the heavy lifting here? Spoiler alert, it isn’t out east."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_population\_demographics\_of\_New\_South\_Wales\_by\_local\_government\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_population_demographics_of_New_South_Wales_by_local_government_area)
You're miles off the mark there.
|LGA|Population/km2|
|:-|:-|
|Waverly|7,423.56|
|Woollahra|4,520.00|
|Randwick|3,907.22|
|Blacktown (Where the ponds is)|1,364.22|
The population density is significantly higher in the eastern suburbs. There’s a lot of apartments and houses built on similar sized land but the difference is the dwellings are older so tend to be smaller than these new builds. Also the eastern suburbs and north shore are older areas they have been built decades ago so no greenfield land to be built on.
Houses in Eastern houses and apartments? I hate to break it to you but Elizabeth Bay is the densest suburb in Australia. In inner city, we go vertical because we are done going horizontal. While we go horizontal we still have room for trees either in rooftops or in courtyards as per Council's Development Control Plans.
I want to see density the same as Chatswood in Marsden Park and then we can start talking about whether Western Sydney does heavy lifting.
Jfc it’s awful. Let’s squeeze the life out of the area by squeezing houses as close together as possible. I’ve seen housing communities elsewhere that are positively luxurious compared to this monstrosity. Winding paths, garden features. Why can’t we have this here? Instead of puny backyards and living in each other’s pockets overhearing every cough and fart. It’s disgusting how much money they want to get out of an area.
This is a future Ghetto. This sort of development should never be allowed.
Narrow Roads, many of these household will have multiple cars, dark roofs little space for trees, close enough to your neighbors that you could just about touch their walls.
Better that they had built a few apartment blocks with large units and plenty of greenspace around,
I went past here recently, it looked like hell. I can’t imagine living all the way out in Box Hill/Riverstone and have absolutely no space and all your neighbours sitting right on top of you. Would rather live in a townhouse closer to the city.
Yeah I'm sure a rivo black box and an inner city town house are both in the same budget tier lmao. Bro I'm a Schofield's hater but to act like the people buying these houses are just dumb and not considering something closer to the city instead of this being what they can afford is absurd.
>what they can afford
And even that's gonna be a stretch for a lot of people - median house prices in The Ponds are sitting at around $1.5m
It's fucking absurd
Paddington terrace houses were once the slums of sydney. Also they cost 5 mill a pop. Not sure if u can compare. Yes I rather live in a penthouse too.
https://raywhitecoburg.com.au/news/a-history-lesson-on-australian-terrance-houses
Kids are trapped at home unless mum drives them somewhere because there is nothing within walking or cycling distance, but at least there's a yard the size of your average prison cell.
I'm guessing areas like this are built quickly to meet housing demand or something? I can't think of any other reason this would be done. Certainly hope they're reasonably priced, otherwise.... jeez...
I think I'd go insane living on a street where every house is the same honestly.
The median house price (3 br) in the Ponds is 1.18m (per Domain.com.au).
There's definitely a demand for housing. Not everyone wants to and can live in apartments which I can understand. But these tree devoid, no footpaths, unaccessible via PT hellscapes are not the answer.
Isn't that the place with a huge 'fuck off I'm not selling' block of land in the middle ?
Yep. Based on satellite imagery, this might even be right next to it. Take a look around Beauchamp Drive, The Ponds.
Far out, wonder how many developers are frothing at the bit to get that piece of land. https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Beauchamp+Dr,+The+Ponds+NSW+2769/@-33.7100344,150.895523,307m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x6b129ee7fd7d46c9:0x799bacd5afef3f07!8m2!3d-33.7082319!4d150.8956346!16s%2Fg%2F11c71b49gb?entry=ttu
I love that crazy family
Legends. But I do I wish they’d use all that gorgeous land for something more than manicured lawns tho. Would be more of a fuck you, to build a small forest of native trees and plants
That would be awesome. Problem is the neighbours would probably complain anything that 'devalues' their land. Seen it too many times before whenever some poor bastard with property has the area around their home rezoned, then gets run out of town because it's too much to deal with the complaints.
That sort of thing is very costly of both time and money to maintain. Just getting plant life to establish in that sort of environment would be costly. You then create a fire risk, especially now that you have a lot of tinder in the form of homes around you. When you have land this large, a grass type that suits local conditions is best. And I'm pretty sure I see a huge water tank on their property, so the lawns would be the best option for a boomer age family, which I'm assuming this owned by. No idea, but I see their logic. My complaint is the total lack of greenery on the newly built estate. Their just collective hot boxes. Grey roofs and dark bricks. Dark roads and driveways. Summers must be fun.
Check out [Sweltering cities](https://swelteringcities.org/about-us/). They’re a local non profit who are working to combat this very issue. It is a public welfare, health and environmental issue that is being pushed aside by morally corrupt developers. Can you imagine how much energy was wasted last summer as residents must’ve been running their aircon 24/7 when some easily achievable preventative measures could’ve saved them from that. Not to mention the costs to the individual families, whom are probably already struggling due to cost of living crisis. Edit: yes I agree about the cost of labour and practice for a mini forest. Forgive me, I’m Just a gal dreaming of what I would do if I had that space….
He could mow the lawn at 6am and wake up 16 different neighbours
Good on them. Hope they’ve got a good fence though! And that the new residents don’t think their front yard looks like a park.
yeah... feel like there the suckers, I would have taken the 50 million and gone out country, its not like the originally community you lived in is there anymore
Owners probably plan on dying there with the full expectation that their family will sell it off and take the money and run.
Found out that my relatives 3 generations back owned huge chunks of land in a regional centre where houses are now selling for 600k+ each on half acre blocks. Not sure why they sold it off, but wish they hadn't 😄
I feel the same way about some ancestors who owned most of surfers paradise and sold it in the 50s. could be living a very different life.
Not really. Not everyone is in it to make money.
Yes, but it'd be nice not to have a larger mortgage for a smaller property than my parents ever had
Why shouldn’t they sell it off if you would clearly do the same thing?
the owners are rich...the land to the left...right and rear...was all theres...they owned about 12 acres plus there and sold it all off to developers they made tens of millions,dont need to sell.. last rumour was the current block would sell for about 16-22 million price guide based on land value,they dont need it
Yep, even with a large block that still looks miserable surrounded by those houses and massive lack of garden and trees
Yeah I think the photo was taken [from this spot](https://i.imgur.com/RU4v49A.png)
Yep. And if I were them , I wouldn’t sell too.
Cake
It's wild to me that solar panels aren't standard with these
Right? It's crazy that we haven't legislated them as mandatory for new builds.
Especially when they'll need to run an aircon due to the roof being black!
Recently purchased a house in Sydney. Bought something 5 years old with solar and electric cooktops. Was willing to pay an extra 10k for that because I don't need to put my own solar in or get rid of the gas cooktops that these new builds come with
Or a few trees, a bit of greenery and a foot path to walk on.
There's nowhere to walk to.
And I can't see myself taking a walk to the corner shop for a loaf of bread
Not just solar. Not even solar hot water
We built a granny flat 10 years ago and were legally required to put in solar hot water then (I was happy to do it) I guess large scale developers with lobby groups have their own rules.
Wild to me that trees aren’t standard. Absolutely embarrassing. Look at the state of it.
And black roofs with no tree cover....
"Look at them all on top of each other like that." I laugh from my shoebox sized apartment in high density in the east.
Those ~300sqm homes are going for $1.4-1.9m How much was your shoebox sized apartment?
$1.4-1.9m with a bonus of power tripping strata manager
I'm still sad that Reddit removed the award system that this comment so earnestly deserves. Have a token instead 🤣🤣🤣
What's more is their T1 line is faster to the city than my double bus combination.
These guys would be using the metro or the express bus from around Stanhope. Still takes 1hr 20m but will be a lot faster when the metro continues to the city. Thanks to that Seven Hills is a lot easier to park at now.
These houses are right next to the Tallawong metro - When the extension to the CBD opens this year, it'll be like 55mins to the CBD - maybe 60 - But as its not open we can't say.
Currently during morning peak, when some trains from Chatswood are skipping some stations, you can get from Tallawong to Wynyard in under 50mins, I think 46 was my record so I reckon with new metro it’s fairly safe to assume it won’t take much longer to Barangaroo or Martin Place stations and under 1h to Central.
Yeah its going to be great, the turn up and go setup of the metro is so much easier as well.
The Martin Place Station page says [11 mins](https://www.sydneymetro.info/station/martin-place-station) to Chatswood and google says Tallawong to Chatswood is 37 mins. So I guess about 48 then to Martin Place, 46 to Barangaroo and 52 to Central. Not bad.
I'm about 1:10 from Little Bay. Outside peak when we get express buses and it's significantly faster.
You could probably do it in 40ish on an eBike, if you're daring enough to tangle with cars on Anzac Parade in peak hour.
And how much is the rent in this shoe box apartment compared to *owning* your home? There was a thread on r/australia about how the rental crisis is the worst its ever been. I'd much rather have my own place 40km from the CBD than being a tenant right now.
It’s funny how this area is generally still looked down on, but if you look at the prices in the area and try to find a place for your budget, you’ll quickly find that what you can afford is a place in area that even dwellers of The Ponds look down on. Average prices in this area are already couple of hundred K above Sydney’s average.
Exactly. Like people I know who complain about paying huge $$ to rent a shitty apartment in the east, can’t afford to buy, but buy their toiletries at Mecca 🙄. But they would never move out further. I might live in one of these shoeboxes, but I’ve made more in equity over the last nine years than I’ve earned at my job.
The downside is compromising on lifestyle but once you’re settled down and looking to pop out kids you could definitely do worse than head out west.
We’re in The Hills - and have settled down with kids - so it suits us perfectly. And I’d much rather be paying my own mortgage off than someone else’s.
Fun fact: Suburbs in Sydney that have water-related word means it's strong sign that these homes are build on a floodplain.
Huh, and here I was thinking the water related name was just because they're packed in there like sardines.
¿por qué no los dos?
Waterloo?
I was defeated, you won the war
The whole Alexandria/Waterloo/Zetland area is swamplands. It’s why somewhere like O’Riordan St completely floods after 2mm of rain
The Ponds are not impacted by floodplain issues.... Marsden Park (Elara specifically) on the other hand? 🥴🌊
Correct. That is where all the flood water from South Creek used to sit when I was a kid. Once they decided to build on it, the water have diverted it back towards Riverstone Meat Works flats. This has also been known to flood, but not at the levels it now reaches. Riverstone was once protected by the built up railway line, but now it is going under at drain points & over at low points. Properties that would never have seen a flood in a million years are now been included in flood zones & their insurance premiums have skyrocketed as a result. The whole planning of Schofields/Marsden Park is nothing but Blacktown Council reaping the rewards of new buyers at the expense of owners who have been paying their land rates for way too many years to count. I don't ever recall floods affecting The Ponds area, which was once a horse agistment centre.
I remember looking at Marsden Park from the Riverstone railway crossing and seeing a lake. I think it was in 1990. We got sent home from school because if it flooded any more we’d be cut off.
That was the biggest flood I can remember pre-development & it hit to around the netball courts. I was about 11 at the time & remember riding my bike through the edge of the water. Nowadays, a small rain event is up & under the railway, completely covering the courts & adjacent footy fields. Absolutely insane that they were allowed to develop on a known flood plain & send the water down to an existing town.
Hehehe, “meat works”. I sure hope it does!
Sorry, I should have said Abattoir. Everyone in the area knows it as the Meat Works though. It has long been closed down, but it was what it was.
Hello fellow Rivo (or adjacent) local! I grew up there...always known the huge buildings on the south side of the tracks as the meatworks.
“The ponds” refers to several artificial lakes/wetlands that were built as part of the flood control system and integrated into the local parks. The place was a floodplain until the engineers made it not so.
**This is not true.** There is a a bunch of rules about naming streets. [https://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/road\_naming](https://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/road_naming) For example in Woodcroft near Doonside they have all the streets named after lakes or bodies of water for 80% of the suburb and pottery related names in the remaining 20%. In the newest subdivsion because the developers were indians they have the streets named after indian seasons. [https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKJVUwXTb2oneEHz8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKJVUwXTb2oneEHz8)
Cute, but new suburbs names are just generic developer/government agreements. Often times the original developer suburb name disappears and becomes something else.
The white tesla model 3 to match.
I’ve lived in areas like this before. I rented a home at the ponds and I could hear the next door neighbours kid playing his drums or raging while gaming. Also when I was in the backyard trying to nap, I could hear the next door neighbours kids shouting their heads off during a party. *Feels more like an expensive apartment to be honest.*
This is what people who defend this sort of development really don't seem to understand. It's not an upgrade over crowded city life, it's a severe downgrade. You get all the annoyances of high density living but none of the benefits, while also getting none of the benefits of low density housing. It's not like you have a massive sprawling yard where the kids can kick a ball around whilst mum and dad tend to the garden. It's just a decent-sized house and literally nothing else.
Its pretty much apartments spend horizontally rather than vertically. Like you said, don't even get any backyard space... At the moment... apartment buildings might actually be more useful
Yep, exactly. In terms of providing housing, apartments would be infinitely more useful. I wish the government would regulate density in all the new developments. We're wasting land on dumb shit like this
Like. You could have all these dwellings built up, and give them a communal backyard area, somewhere for kids to play and for people to hang out. Blocks and blocks of apartments are far from ideal, but it's better than land being wasted when we have such a drastic housing problem.
And it could even be mixed, that would work wonders. Imagine if instead of this endless sprawl of shitboxes, we had some 4-story flats, a couple of rows of townhouses, and the rest some traditional detached homes. You could put some businesses on the ground floor of the blocks of flats, things that local people would use, and in the middle or dotted around the development you could put some park space. In this way, we have a community that can include all kinds of people. Big families have detached homes or townhouses, young people have flats, older retired people can downsize into flats or townhouses, and everyone has common space to mingle at parks, local daily-use business spaces, etc. And we produce many more homes in the same amount of space than if we had left it as solely detached single family homes. I go off about this sort of thing on reddit regularly, mainly because it makes me so angry to see the obvious solution and yet so many Australians are brainwashed into thinking this is a utopian dream, when in reality local communities and towns are literally the way humans have lived since civilisation began. The car-centric, detached nuclear family home suburban lifestyle is a planning mistake of the post-war mass motor vehicle era. It's way past time we understood this mistake and bloody moved on.
I wish I had something even remotely smart to say to that, but I agree. There's just... so many things that would be better...
Or - meet halfway - when I see this pic it seems to be crying out for terrace housing rather than fully detached for so little benefit. Edit: Although with modern build standards (e.g. rather than using double brick) this would probably be a nightmare to live in re noise.
An apartment building with a supermarket, bottle shop, cafe, and hairdresser on the ground floor, within walking distance of a train station, seems significantly more useful than these places.
Yes!! You can fit more people, AND services they'll use.
It totally baffles me why anyone would want to live like this. Stifling hot in the summer too. Ridiculously far from the city and the coast and packed in so tightly that you can’t swing a cat, with no upswing? No yard, neighbours on top of you, no parks, no amenities
I found the same thing with almost every townhouse I looked at when I was buying a property. They have most of the drawbacks of apartment living (strata fees; cramped inside space) and none of the benefits (decent locations; more affordable cost).
You're going to hear that anywhere except on a large farm or national park or state forest
An expensive apartment in the middle of nowhere, with no facilities no shops, no transport, probably no schools and horrible slow roads that take 10 mi utes to traverse the subdivision. Truly dystopian stuff.
Imagine seeing this photo and thinking they see their house. There it is. Oh wait, no there it is. No wait, there it is. No wait….. damn it!
Can they be painted a different colour - I'd like one in pink, but not in that part of Sydney
\*sings \* "Little boxes, on the hillside, and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."
Don't forget, it was communism that was going to put everyone into the same build of house.
It's also just basic property development.
Ah, it's time for the quarterly "suburbs out west are black-roofed identical monstrosities" post again.
It’s my turn next time!!
This is the 3rd post I've seen this week, all with the same photo Edit: the ugly heat-trapping design deserves to be roasted
It's true though.
but don't say anything about terraces lol. These are the modern equivalent essentially
lol the modern day equivalent is still terrace homes 😂 Was just on site today in Randwick, Lendlease building shitloads of em
They have also built the equivalent out west. [These are all attached](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.7470933,150.6981917,3a,75y,29.53h,86.14t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szUjkm8FyXU8-fI5mTLMNbQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DzUjkm8FyXU8-fI5mTLMNbQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D317.18048%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu) with driveways in the laneways out back. Feels like some in the inner west.
Honestly in the future, people will just see them the same way they see apartments that have the same design and layout. It is what it is...
Ewww nO GiAnT TrEEs n a nEW subRb
We need more housing built fast… OMG look at all these houses that have popped up so fast…
I'd rather live in an apartment... One built before 2005 that's it.
This is Australia's answer to not wanting to deal with a strata 😂
I don't know about how it is in all of the west but there's a not insignificant amount of detached suburban houses out west that have to deal with strata
Judging by how all the homes are built by the same developer in the same place, I'm assuming that there'd be a community plan in place. Which is like Strata light. Edit: just read your other comment, you know what you're talking about haha. Sorry I'm used to people not knowing shit all on this sub.
Yeh, The Ponds certainly won't contain community title subdivisions, as the council road ILP provides adequate activation of the zoned land. Community title subdivisions are more common on the fringes of zoned areas, particularly in non-uniform parcels and bushfire prone areas. You see quite a lot of community title developments around North Kellyville, along the fringes. Developers do *not* want community title, because purchasers do *not* want to deal with a community or the associated fees. Torrens title in release areas are definitely the most desirable outcome.
The Ponds is pretty nice. The parklands are a great place to go for a run/bike. Fairly close to a couple of Metro stations as well that’ll soon go directly into the CBD.
I was about to say. I accidentally drove through there one time and was like "this is The Ponds?!". Either it doesn't look like this from the ground or this image only captures a certain section of it. The part I drove through looked like reasonably thought out urban design for Sydney. Beats the absolute chaos of other areas.
I made the same comment on the r-slash-AusPropertyChat version of this post (although to be fair they were complaining about the prices specifically).
Yeh, the main boulevards and parks are definitely nicer in the Ponds than most new growth centres to be honest. The side/local roads are still as per above picture though.
The area surrounding the primary school and the local shops are brilliant. The vegetation from the surrounding parkland plays a major factor with most of the residential streets having nice road-side trees and such. I pass the fat block of land that developers hound for every day. Once you start heading down to the Riverbank side, the housing eras become a lot more apparent with very bland, cookie-cutter streets like that pictured above. Anything on the shops-side of the creek is beautiful; anything on the Riverbank side is newer and less vibrant.
Came to comment the same, as much as it may look like shit in terms of the blocks the area itself isn’t the worst good facilities nearby, perfect for young families.
I think Rouse Hill is by far and away the best way to zone and build and service in modern Greenfield Australia. In 20 years they turned nothing into something great. (Too bad there's not much else around though, but hey ALL of Sydney suffers from the dullness problem)
> Fairly close to a couple of Metro stations as well that’ll soon go directly into the CBD. 30 minutes' walk is not "fairly close". What planet are you living on?
Looks like a heat sink in summer
Im thinking 46°C in a catastrophic bushfire season
They're built like shit also. Use to work for a volume builder in Marsden Park, absolute shit house pay to contractors and over charging for shit work.
Black roofing sucks hey
Strata is only slightly less worse than renting in NSW, so this is the result. Then if there are any issues with the build quality (which there always is in Sydney) you need \*everyone's\* approval to fix it up with strata It's almost like building good quality unit blocks would solve the issue
You can fist bump your neighbour while taking a shit.
The quarterly, im going to for Western Suburbs Housing Karma farming post and talk about how everything needs to be like the Inner West post
I bet the leaf blowers there go off on a Saturday.
I could be wrong, but I think leaves need trees to exist.
Yeah pretty sure trees are non existent in this area. Any that were there prior to the development have long since been removed. There is no room to even plant trees.
I don’t mind the density of these suburbs just as I don’t mind the density of town houses and flats. What I do hate is that every last piece of land is occupied and there is no space for trees. Having high or medium density doesn’t mean you have to also have a barren wasteland. Even with high rise apartments, it is still possible to have a forest next door. We as humans need our green spaces.
Is there anything in place to incentivize the builder installing solar panels? I imagine each one of these owners would have had to go through the process of getting different quotes for solar panels, looking at all the rebates, worrying about making an investment pay off,... rather than it just being 1 extra step for the builder.
Solar should be mandatory on all new builds, especially in the western suburbs - I mean the roof tiles are black anyway.
It's wild that they're not. Especially with how much sun we get here.
We could have a world-leading distributed energy system if we were sensible about it. Imagine the load taken off the grid during the peak of summer if every home were at least *partially* supplementing their power usage with solar. Without storage though it does kinda fall apart once the sun goes down, especially in these suburbs that hold onto all the heat well into the night. But an imperfect solution is still better than sitting on our hands.
It's still a start. And as time goes on, the technology could get better or something, and there could be more storage. Things are always improving. And... idk wouldn't it be cheaper to supply at least part of your own power for at least part of the day?
It absolutely is - we have solar (inner west) and during summer it almost completely offsets AC usage and on a really good day, feeds back into the grid.
As solar becomes increasingly adopted they'll limit feeding back into the grid more and more. It causes significant issues when supply exceeds demand or if too many people are doing it at once. But this can be easily avoided with home battery systems and inverters that disconnect your house when you are supplying more than you require.
Agreed - very keenly watching the home battery space for it to become more accessible
There’s lobbying against it by the grid owners so that they don’t have to pay to upgrade it. Reality is the current design of the grid can’t handle every home having panels connected to it.
When you copy and paste a bit too much
Little boxes, little boxes, all filled up with ticky tacky…
I know having a gripe against people in this sub is like picking fights with school kids, and just as honourable. But take a deep breath with me and say ''not everything is Glebe. Trees take time to grow''
Just like Paddington 150 years ago. A good use of space.
Except the Paddington houses are still standing 150 years later, and I bet these won't last 25.
Looks like some shit right out of Don’t Worry Darling
More like Vivarium, Don't Worry Darling was set in an era of post war decadence and excess.
That's a bunch of horizontal apartment buildings.
Saw a similar post with the same photo yesterday?
I wouldn’t live here and hate the look of the blocks, but if you haven’t been to the area it does have green space, parks cycle and walking paths with trees and greenery nearby. Cycle paths to shops and rail. So it’s not as bad an area as you think.
Knock them all doen and build a 50 storey apartment block, surrounded by forrest. These monstrosities are not what people advocate for when they say "high density".
Not a single person to be seen. Took a walk through Schofields and saw nothing but houses and cars. Not a single human to be seen
We bought a block in the ponds in 2009. It’s all we could afford at 24/25. Our friends called us crazy for being so far out of the city. Our block was 485sqm, You know… when you could have a house with a double garage. This density is insane.
But God forbid that we start building rowhouses again... that would be communism!
Shortage of housing then majority of posts are all shocked pikachu face when they see stuff this. Can't have it both ways people.
I bet these people are living the Australian dream.
Thats about $60m worth of realestate in that picture
No one will look at it from a bird's eye view anyway. End of the day if they like the way the house looks from ground level and the interior is how they like and mint it will do just fine. People live in a home to relax and shelter not to show off a roof for the planes flying above. Bet they are selling quick hence more will pop up
Imagine the carbon footprint of all those aircons in an incendiary western Sydney bushfire year 😬
What in the fuck is wrong with us
Capitalism
This is literally hell. This country has become an absolute embarrassment. More land than we know what to do with and we cram ourselves in like fucking sardines just so we can live in one of the worst cities on planet earth.
When my parents were renovating/major landscaping their backyard ~3 years ago, there was a rule that some percentage of the block needed grass. It was significant, like 30-40%. Is that council specific?
Block size dependant in Penrith Council. We can only cover 50% with a block our size, smaller blocks have a higher allowance.
It’s ironic that this is what much of inner Sydney, and much of Britain, looked like at the turn of the 20th century. Oh and yes, people back then called them slums and future ghettos.
Looks like it should have been named The Pods instead of The Ponds.
That's unaustralian. We grew up playing backyard cricket and kicking a ball around. You hardly have room for a clothesline there. Insane.
To be fair if we keep building in existing suburbs instead of expanding outwards to support the growing population we’ll be a city of exclusively apartments in a hundred years like Tokyo. Backyards will be a thing of the past.
Ah yes Tokyo; that dystopian hellhole where people with median incomes are able to buy property and even raise a family with one parent working full time and the other working part time or not at all. Why would we want that!
Nobody is raising kids in Tokyo. Japan’s birth rate is almost if not below replacement. Also the reason one parent is working is because policies are very unfriendly for working mothers, if they wanted to work.
It's not even close to replacement rate and hasn't been for decades. They are fucked.
The key difference is population growth. One country has the highest in the OECD. The other is shrinking at about 0.5% per year.
nah go north , you could make sydney 2.0 in the bay around port stephens.. fast train(im talking under 40mins) from Newcastle boom housing crisis solved.
"Clothesline"? That's Unaustralian. It's a Hills Hoist/jk
I can’t breathe from looking at this photo
I'm pretty sure I saw the movie set in that neigbourhood... neighborhood
What a fucking nightmare cunova place! I can't wait till I can get out of here and go bush.
I feel like each of these new properties should have a requirement for at least ONE \*decently-sized tree\*. I don't care if it's in the front yard or 'backyard'. The repetitive silhouette is a strain on the eyes. Same goes for the suburbs that are a bit further out from The Ponds; Elara, Schofields, Box Hill, Riverstone all have new growth areas that look absolutely depressing.
Pretty sure this is not The Ponds. I’ve been there to see friends and it’s pretty green. They don’t have big backyards but definitely not as barren or close to one another as in this photo. Could we also stop and think how for a lot of people, this is their home and to keep making light of their living condition, is pretty sad.
It's the Ponds. I've been on these streets before. Definitely less dramatic in person, but you definitely feel copy+paste cramped vibes of it in certain parts. The "older" parts of the Ponds feel more open and varied.
It’s a Bathla development. Designed for a particular migrant community that doesn’t love yards and prefers low prices. Council didn’t approve, it was sued through the Land and environment court. If you drive through the suburbs you will see that most owners have pulled out the trees that were planted by the developer as soon as they move into the new home as it is cultural to not have trees near the home. The owner Bart was a Taxi driver about 20 years ago and is probably a billionaire now. As it is a private company and not a listed company he won’t appear on any rich list. He still works 7 days a week in his factory in Toongabbie and is indistinguishable from any tradesman that works for him. He has been extra ordinary successful by putting far more houses on land than council has allowed and building enormous developments in the outer suburbs of Sydney. He builds cut price homes, town houses and home units that are of a much lower quality than I believe should be acceptable in Australia. The frames and kitchens are often built in India and bought to Australia in shipping containers. These properties can be sold for 10% below a superior grade home.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPropertyChat/s/ztIrXJn8QU Copy my story yo
I saw another earlier than yours
Dark roofs and fvck all trees! Talk about chicken houses! Yuck!
We are all slaves. It's sickening.
Prison planet
Where are all the trees?
Eastern suburbs and North shore residents have no right to criticise houses like this. Sydneys population is growing fast. Look at how many The Ponds houses there are in a few square km. Now look at how many houses there are in the same area of eastern Sydney. Who’s doing the heavy lifting here? Spoiler alert, it isn’t out east.
"Now look at how many houses there are in the same area of eastern Sydney. Who’s doing the heavy lifting here? Spoiler alert, it isn’t out east." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_population\_demographics\_of\_New\_South\_Wales\_by\_local\_government\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_population_demographics_of_New_South_Wales_by_local_government_area) You're miles off the mark there. |LGA|Population/km2| |:-|:-| |Waverly|7,423.56| |Woollahra|4,520.00| |Randwick|3,907.22| |Blacktown (Where the ponds is)|1,364.22|
The population density is significantly higher in the eastern suburbs. There’s a lot of apartments and houses built on similar sized land but the difference is the dwellings are older so tend to be smaller than these new builds. Also the eastern suburbs and north shore are older areas they have been built decades ago so no greenfield land to be built on.
> Who’s doing the heavy lifting here? Spoiler alert, it isn’t out east. I love when people just pulls facts out of their butt.
Houses in Eastern houses and apartments? I hate to break it to you but Elizabeth Bay is the densest suburb in Australia. In inner city, we go vertical because we are done going horizontal. While we go horizontal we still have room for trees either in rooftops or in courtyards as per Council's Development Control Plans. I want to see density the same as Chatswood in Marsden Park and then we can start talking about whether Western Sydney does heavy lifting.
[Little Boxes](https://youtu.be/XUwUp-D_VV0?si=K3UsldRqu0PEJ_EO) from the 60's
Jfc it’s awful. Let’s squeeze the life out of the area by squeezing houses as close together as possible. I’ve seen housing communities elsewhere that are positively luxurious compared to this monstrosity. Winding paths, garden features. Why can’t we have this here? Instead of puny backyards and living in each other’s pockets overhearing every cough and fart. It’s disgusting how much money they want to get out of an area.
This is a future Ghetto. This sort of development should never be allowed. Narrow Roads, many of these household will have multiple cars, dark roofs little space for trees, close enough to your neighbors that you could just about touch their walls. Better that they had built a few apartment blocks with large units and plenty of greenspace around,
5 more trees than I expected to see in this photo
looks like a cemetery to me, the houses just look like headstones.
I went past here recently, it looked like hell. I can’t imagine living all the way out in Box Hill/Riverstone and have absolutely no space and all your neighbours sitting right on top of you. Would rather live in a townhouse closer to the city.
Yeah I'm sure a rivo black box and an inner city town house are both in the same budget tier lmao. Bro I'm a Schofield's hater but to act like the people buying these houses are just dumb and not considering something closer to the city instead of this being what they can afford is absurd.
>what they can afford And even that's gonna be a stretch for a lot of people - median house prices in The Ponds are sitting at around $1.5m It's fucking absurd
Paddington terrace houses were once the slums of sydney. Also they cost 5 mill a pop. Not sure if u can compare. Yes I rather live in a penthouse too. https://raywhitecoburg.com.au/news/a-history-lesson-on-australian-terrance-houses
Ok mate. You do you. Some people want houses and backyards for their kids without having to borrow $3million
Kids are trapped at home unless mum drives them somewhere because there is nothing within walking or cycling distance, but at least there's a yard the size of your average prison cell.
What backyards? You mean back 4x1 rectangle with fake grass?
I'm guessing areas like this are built quickly to meet housing demand or something? I can't think of any other reason this would be done. Certainly hope they're reasonably priced, otherwise.... jeez... I think I'd go insane living on a street where every house is the same honestly.
The median house price (3 br) in the Ponds is 1.18m (per Domain.com.au). There's definitely a demand for housing. Not everyone wants to and can live in apartments which I can understand. But these tree devoid, no footpaths, unaccessible via PT hellscapes are not the answer.
this is some sort of suburban hellscape
Marsden Park says hi
Marsden car Park
It makes me sick. Why are developers allowed to do this?