Is it time for the Inner West to stop the destruction of existing housing?

While Sydney’s focus in recent times has been on increasing housing supply, there is another issue to consider – the destruction of existing housing.

The problem has been most prevalent in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. 

It has involved merging existing apartments into one, or even redeveloping apartment buildings previously containing cheaper bedsit-style apartments into detached homes or a smaller number of larger, luxury pads.

There’s evidence the problem is now reaching the Inner West.

An application has been lodged with Inner West Council seeking to turn a Middleton St, Petersham terrace containing four apartments into a new renovated single-family home. The home was purchased for $2.6m in April.

The applicants argue the work will reinstate the home to its former glory. 

“The current state of the existing structure does not promote heritage significance,” the application states. 

“Its current exposure is in poor condition with the first-floor balcony being illegally enclosed. 

“The proposed alterations seek council approval to re-instate the front façade and promote heritage significance.”  

The two-bedroom apartments in this terrace were not cheap to rent, with one leased for $650 a week in March. But they were at least providing housing options. If this application is approved, there will be less of these options available.

The City of Sydney and Waverley Councils are currently trying to deal with this issue through strengthened planning controls.

Waverley Council is currently exhibiting, until 8 August, a change to planning controls which would not allow applicants to reduce dwelling numbers by more than 15% in medium and high density zones.

This follows the council, in 2022, introducing a new objective in these zones to ‘increase or preserve residential dwelling density’. The council says this objective sought to ‘help tackle the problematic trend of residential flat building’s being converted to luxury dual occupancies and single dwellings in areas that are suitable for greater densities.’

Separately, the City of Sydney Council is, until 28 August, exhibiting planning control changes which seek to achieve a similar objective.

The changes would not allow applications which reduce dwelling numbers by more than one dwelling, or 15 per cent of dwellings, whichever is greater. 

The council says that, over six years since the start of 2018, 25 development applications have been approved resulting in the loss of 65 dwellings.

These applications, the council says, include merging two or three apartments into one, consolidating residential flat buildings into dwelling houses and redeveloping residential flat buildings by reducing the number of dwellings.

The council says the effect of these applications is to reduce the “diversity of housing in parts of the local government area”.

However, to date, there has been no similar measure undertaken by Inner West Council.

And while the council’s at it, it could also address the issue of housing being demolished before a development application has been lodged or approved to redevelop the site.

This may be more difficult to achieve, it would probably involve a change to the NSW Government complying development scheme, whereby homes can be approved for demolition by a private certifier.

In September last year, an 1880s four-bedroom cottage called Harcourt at 16-18 Albert St, Petersham was demolished, around the same time an application was lodged to redevelop the site into four new dwellings.

The real estate advertisement stated, and photos showed, that Harcourt was in a perfectly habitable and comfortable condition.

The development application predictably took about a year to resolve, but during this time a potential large family home was taken off the market.

In an example out of the Inner West LGA, 11 homes were demolished this year at a site bounded by Canterbury Rd, Tincombe St and Minter Sts, Canterbury. There are no approved rezoning or development application plans for the site, although it is likely to be rezoned in the future as it is close to Canterbury station.

In this instance, the demolitions were approved by Canterbury Bankstown Council.