Airy Scandinavian interiors, shaded balconies, light-filled courtyards – could these be Sydney's next art deco apartment blocks or red brick walk-ups?
The New South Wales government has launched nine new mid-rise housing model books that it hopes will support the construction of 112,000 homes in the “missing middle” over the next five years through its controversial low and mid-rise housing (LMR) reforms.
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The designs, which are among the winners of the government's pattern book design competition, come from the publication of eight low-rise house drawings in July.
The mid-sized apartment designs unveiled Monday range from three to six stories, including four designs for small lots, three designs for large lots and two designs for corner lots.
The cross-ventilated and energy efficient sample designs from leading Australian and New Zealand architectural firms can be purchased for $1,500 for smaller properties and $2,500 for large properties for the first six months. That's about 1% of the typical cost of an architect's plan. After six months the cost will increase to around 10%.
Sydney has a long tradition of using exemplars to speed up construction, starting with the Georgian terraces built by early colonial settlers. On Monday, New South Wales Planning Minister Paul Scully acknowledged the city's history of mid-rise homes, including the “popular” Art Deco and red-brick walk-up blocks.
The Sydney redevelopment will see some of these older designs deleted, including in the inner west.
Scully said there was “a given of development and change in our cities” but pattern designs allowed more homes to be built “in keeping with the size and scale that people like to see.”
Mid-rise designs require submission of a development application to local councils. However, the government says it has provided local authorities with guidance that will help them halve the average assessment time.
The Government says new planning reforms passed by Parliament this month will enable “an even quicker and simpler” route into the new year.
Scully said the low-rises were “highly sought after” and 17,000 examples were purchased for $1.
It was unclear how much of that was genuine interest, but Scully said suggestions were starting to come in through the planning system. He said the larger, mid-rise sample designs would take longer to deliver.
New South Wales government architect Abbie Galvin said the patterns were designed to fit permitted sites, 85% of which are 20 meters wide or less.
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“It also means there are no major developments that take a long time to implement,” she said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said the designs would help respond to a recent NSW Productivity Commission report which found young people were leaving the city in large numbers.
“Last year we lost 45,000 young people on the highway,” he said Monday.
“A lot of people in Sydney said, 'Well, we're open to the idea of apartments and units in our suburb, but I don't want it to look like some of the examples we've already seen.'
“The responsibility lies with us, builders and architects, to design buildings that stand the test of time, are beautiful to look at, wonderful to live in and obviously meet the most pressing needs.”