@andyb23 – Hold Ctrl (or command if you’re on a mac) when opening a link and it’ll open in a new window/tab every time. Webstandards are attempting to phase out links that automatically open in a new tab automatically because they’re considered by many as intrusive. I tend to agree, I can decide perfectly fine if I want to open a new window.

If there was a greater effort to market the benefits of such a development, in addition to designing it to be better suited and more sympathetic to the surrounding area things might have been different. NIMBYism is a typical reaction that people show when they feel threatened and that they don’t have representation of their interests – make these people stakeholders, not opposition.

Although I also suspect the development size condemns it to VCAT hell before they even start, so it is probably in the developers interest to get there as fast as possible, and keep the plans flexible – lopping storeys is much easier than reconfiguration and redesign.

On residents, the cynic in me wonders if residents know that restricting entry to their suburb will increase house prices much more than any amenity improvements? More likely they just respond to perceptions of change and its consequences. Planners do very badly at educating residents about likely change. Partly because their mixed roles as facilitator, decision maker and expert pits them against everyone at some point. Partly because the (Victorian) system of notice and objection is naturally adversarial, rather than inclusive. Partly because the arguments planners can put forward aren’t backed up by much in the way of empirical evidence.

And partly because planners have never been able to hold to a strategic vision people might accept. Notwithstanding that this is a reasonably good site for intense development (decent transport, few neighbours), it isn’t anywhere near an activity centre that developments of this type were supposed to go. If the primary rationale for activity centres was “protecting the suburbs” and the primary rationale for expanding/ignoring them a decade later is “they don’t permit enough developments” then resident trust in planning decisions is inevitably going to be very weak.

I’m guessing, yes, because this has been done in various places that we all know of. I went to school in the ‘old’ Subiaco in the 1950s and 1960s – very different from the renewed Subi of today. There’s lots I like about the new Subi, but all in all, there are things I would rather not do without. For example, I still have a private backyard, which gives me huge pleasure. The 10 storey development in your picture would probably mean many people living around there would lose their privacy in their gardens. It’s legitimate grounds for not wanting that sort of development near you. Apart from the fact that it’s typically modern Australian: cheap and ugly.

boscombe: In the case of this particular development, there are virtually no backyards to overlook. It’s mostly park and highway. (I actually can’t see anything that looks like contiguous housing but the Town Planning Report implies there’re a few) AD

Can you please set up your links so they open in another page/tab…it’s infuriating when I have to keep clicking back so I can continue reading your post after clicking though to one of the links.

andy: Thanks. Sorry about that. Have fixed up. Was in a hurry this time and forgot (unfortunately they have to be done one-by-one). AD