Sydney's housing challenge: balancing density with identity
Words — Tract
Images — Tract
Category — Insights
Sydney, much like every capital city in Australia, is in the grips of a housing conundrum.
Karmi Palafox, Principal Planner in Tract’s Sydney team, sat down with Nic Fildes from the Financial Times as part of their global Future of Cities Report to discuss the complexities of increasing housing supply and affordability in the picturesque Harbour City.
The recent TOD (Transit Oriented Development) reforms announced by the Minns Government are a step in the right direction, building on decades of planning principles driven by clustering housing, transport, employment and amenities to improve both affordability and liveability.
This presents an opportunity to unlock underutilised spaces within existing urban areas.
A mixture of housing typologies – including dual occupancies, townhouses and a diversity of apartment blocks – all have a role to play in helping the city ‘optimise — rather than maximise — its urban space without impinging on the “green and blue grid” that gives the city its character’.
“We have to increase housing density but not lose Sydney’s identity.”
— Karmi Palafox, Principal Town Planner
Read the full Financial Times article Low-rise Sydney plans on density to tackle housing squeeze, by Nic Fildes below.
