source : the age
Every other day, a skirmish erupts in Sydney’s never-ending fight between housing and heritage. It is often cast in binary terms, as if it is simply a clash between the old and the new, or the ageing against the young.
The truth is not as simple as NIMBY baby boomers clinging on to their vast gardens as entire generations are doomed to confinement in sky-high dystopian boxes and as housing becomes less affordable.
Sydney does have a “missing middle” the state government has been trying to address by adding hundreds of thousands of new dwellings in the coming years under the National Housing Accord.
International House on City Road.Credit: Steven Siewert
With all this in mind, it is tempting to dismiss space for 200 students as a drop in the ocean, but the sad state of disrepair at Sydney University’s International House is both instructive and symbolic.
As higher education reporter Christopher Harris details today, International House has gone from a cheery site with “compact, comfortable and bright” student rooms when it opened in 1967 to a derelict place where water pools on the floor and mould crawls through the walls. It is a dispiriting sight. While not heritage-listed, it is a place with history and character that could enrich the life of the city if looked after.
Student accommodation is an important piece of the housing affordability puzzle.
International students have been blamed for driving up rents, but this is unfair since, as the Herald has reported, they are facing skyrocketing accommodation costs themselves. Weekly rent at some buildings has passed $700 for a room in a small shared apartment, students have told of spending more than half their income on rent, and the situation can fairly be described as a crisis.
UNSW and Sydney University have said they are attempting to keep prices at 75 per cent of the market rate. University accommodation, as Harris reports, is not officially considered affordable housing under state planning rules. This is something the University of Sydney is keen to change.
“We’ve appealed for a change to this categorisation, to make it easier for all NSW universities to fast-track student accommodation developments, providing planning control relief, density bonuses and exemptions from development contributions that would allow us to increase affordable local accommodation by at least 20 per cent,” a university spokeswoman said.
Developers have been keen to pounce on these rules. From the Balmain Leagues Club adding four storeys in the inner west, to the north shore, Parramatta and beyond, the appetite to leverage these planning controls has been significant. The question, however, of whether they are doing anything to keep a lid on prices remains to be answered. With Sydney property, the prices never really go down.
In International House, there is an opportunity beyond the binary of clinging to the past or tearing everything down to start again. As Gregory Houseman, chairman of the Sydney University International House Council, said: “We haven’t given up on it.”
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