Australian urban planning, public transport, politics, retrocomputing, and tech nerd. Recovering journo. Cat parent. Part-time miserable grump.
Cities for people, not cars! Tech for people, not investors!
@JamesAshburnerCBR @urbanism And, as anyone in the property game will tell you, what Sydneysiders want is a waterfront property with great views.
Well, thanks to Anthony, you can experience those water views without even leaving your living room or bedroom.
After all, your property can’t get any closer to the water than being underneath it…
@JamesAshburnerCBR @urbanism Anthony managed to get himself featured on Four Corners over planning reforms that basically made it easier for developers to build new housing estates in flood plains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHRH8j3qufg
He also appeared before ICAC:
"ENERGY minister Anthony Roberts’ “euphoria” about a Whitsundays holiday on board a developer’s luxury yacht led him to request it be an annual event, according to documents tendered to ICAC.
“Mr Roberts joined former energy minister Chris Hartcher and former MP Andrew Humpherson on a yacht owned by the Gazal family in 2007.”
He’s also a man who allegedly appreciates a good shiraz:
"Disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire said “having a glass of red” was code for an off the record meeting with a property developer and the former chief of staff to then-planning minister Anthony Roberts.
…
"Mr Maguire appeared as a witness in the public inquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption for the first time on Wednesday, where he admitted he used his position in Parliament to make money.
“His second day of testimony on Thursday could decide the leadership of Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who faced a third day of pressure in Parliament on Wednesday about her five-year relationship with the former MP.”
@JamesAshburnerCBR @urbanism A previous NSW Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, wanted to ban dark coloured roofs.
He was rolled in a Cabinet reshuffle in favour of one of Perrottet’s factional allies, Anthony Roberts, who dumped the policy.
(What job did Anthony Roberts hold before entering politics? He was the PR guy for a property developer: https://www.9news.com.au/national/news-nsw-planning-minister-anthony-roberts-conflict-of-interest/27d93a02-e1cc-45f6-8058-9054032250d4 You can’t make this stuff up!)
@ClintonAnderson @urbanism @fuck_cars @trains@lemmy.ml @ukpublictransport @trains@midwest.social @melbournetrains @sydneytrains @brisbanetrains @bicycling@lemmy.ml @bicycling@lemmy.world @utilitycycling @feditips @FediFollows
They do indeed have posts, as you can see here: https://lemmy.ml/c/fuck_cars https://slrpnk.net/c/urbanism
If you’re the first person to follow them from your Mastodon server, then the feed will initially look empty from Mastodon because the posts haven’t pulled across yet. (I’m sure @maegul can give a better explanation?)
Anyway, click follow and the new posts will begin appearing in your Mastodon feed.
@ohlaph @maegul@lemmy.ml I watched it, so you don’t have to.
Okay, so he’s mostly talking here about older, 1980s or 1990s suburban office park buildings, rather than CBD office towers.
Think large floor plates, large open air car parks, one set of toilets and kitchens per floor.
They were basically designed for one purpose, as @maegul@hachyderm.io pointed out, and that’s to cram in as many desks as possible. People were, of course, expected to drive to work.
From a property investor’s standpoint, it would cost more to buy these buildings and then retrofit them then you would get back by selling or leasing them as apartments.
And even if you did spend the money to renovate (including completely redoing the plumbing and HVAC systems), you’d still be left with crummy apartments with windows that don’t open and bedrooms with no windows.
He argues the best option is to tear it down and start over.
To be fair, he does raise some good points. I can see how a large floorplate would be difficult to subdivide into apartments where every living room and bedroom has a window.
And I don’t think anyone would argue that suburban office parks aren’t hideous places.
My thoughts as follows:
I mean, I can’t imagine too many commercial property owners and banks would complain too much right now about a government stepping in and buying up older office buildings.
And even if it doesn’t make commercial sense to retrofit them, it might make social and public policy sense to convert them into public housing, while at the same time avoiding having disused or abandoned office blocks laying around.
That means, in many cases, having buildings that support different uses on different floors (so shops or restaurants on the ground floor, offices or community spaces on the lower floors, apartments above).
More importantly, we need buildings that are designed from the outset to be able to be used for different purposes over time.