11 June 2012
Most Sydneysiders see Parramatta Road as an eyesore with a hotchpotch of car yards, run-down buildings and decaying infrastructure defining its character. But there are many opportunities with existing sites to create an exciting new vision, says the Urban Taskforce.
The Urban Taskforce has co-ordinated proposals by a number of our members with large sites to demonstrate the potential of the Parramatta Road corridor, says Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson. These are real sites with real potential to contribute to solving Sydneys housing shortage.
Many of our members however find that it is difficult dealing with nine different councils all with different planning rules. We need state leadership via a strong urban renewal authority that can co-ordinate the nine councils and also work with the private sector site owners to achieve renewal.
We believe the corridor can be transformed into a mixed use ˜liveability corridor with 100,000 new apartments and 100,000 new jobs over the next 25 years. This would transform the area into an exciting precinct with high and medium density development that would leave the surrounding low density suburban areas untouched.
The completion of the M4 East is essential to take traffic off Parramatta Road thus allowing an extension of the light rail to unify the corridor. We will need significant densities to justify the light rail.
We believe the best use of major infrastructure expenditure is when it also generates vast numbers of new housing units and new jobs.
With the extent of developments proposed comes the potential for levies that can contribute back to an infrastructure fund.
An important part of the Urban Taskforce concept is to have genuine mixed use zoning with as many jobs as apartments. These may well be jobs related to the creative and new technology industries.
To develop the overall concept for the ˜liveability corridor the Urban Taskforce harnessed the design ideas of nine of Sydneys top architects and urban designers. Some of these designers have worked on real live projects while others have developed concepts for the whole corridor, for narrow blocks or for greening the corridor.
The Urban Taskforce proposal is contained in a 20 page magazine titled Urban Ideas available as a flipbook here: https://www.urbantaskforce.com.au/https://www.urbantaskforce.com.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/urbanideas/june2012/
For contact details of any of the developers or to request copies of the cover image and/or the image on page 5 of the flipbook simply call or text your requirement to mobile 0412 258 283.
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
View the article and video from the Sydney Morning Herald’s online DOMAIN from Monday 11 June here
