Dear Editor,
I enjoyed hearing on the ABC, people recalling how Darwin was before the cyclone.
Even though I lived at Daly River, I often visited Darwin to pick up supplies, watch the movies at the drive-in at Nightcliff, watch or play footy at Gardens, buy a real milk shake at Rockey’s, pop into Woolworths because it had a cafeteria and was air-conditioned, have a short break and then return home.
I saw houses that although we found out later were not designed for cyclones, were at least designed for the tropics.
They were designed to catch the breezes for cooling, and there was plenty of space for a garden and backyard.
Even after the cyclone, although some of the new houses built were concrete bunkers, the government planners made sure houses were built on blocks of land where you had some private space, a place for a garden and somewhere for the kids to play.
But then things changed where instead of the government designing the subdivisions, the government sold off land to the highest bidder which was the beginning of smaller blocks and higher land prices.
Now this has gone to the extreme with silly sardine suburbs sprouting up everywhere, where the blocks are tiny, the houses take up the whole block, there are no trees or garden, there is little, or no backyard or privacy, and cars have to park on the road or on nature strips.
As for blocks big enough to take advantage of breezes – not when houses are built so close together.
So, it seems that planners don’t care because in their eyes, dense development is good development.
It’s all about achieving population projections and growth, using planning formulas copied from southern suburban designs.
The heating caused by roofs nearly touching, and no shade trees is irrelevant and dismissed, after all, the houses are air-conditioned. The developers don’t care, as the denser the subdivisions the more blocks they sell, the more profit.
And it seems local government councils aren’t concerned, the more blocks, the more rates, the bigger the empire.
I had hoped that the new suburb of Holtze in Litchfield Council would not copy the sardine suburb syndrome of Zuccoli and Norcrest, but unfortunately the new proposed plan does, with the majority of blocks in the 300 to 400sq m range with building footprints that cover nearly the entire block.
I am hoping my local member Gerard Maley, and the Lands Minister, will put a hold on this development until it can be redesigned so the outcome will be to require all single dwelling blocks to be 600sqm and larger. So that a quarter of that is left for a backyard, and so that numbers, profits and rates are secondary to protecting families who spend their hard earned wages on a place to raise their family.
The suburb of Coolalinga shows how you can have dense development and still achieve larger size blocks, and that model should be used as a guide for Holtze.
Litchfield has a chance to lead the way in sensible tropical planning and development; if only the government will listen.
This is not just a planning issue, it is a social justice issue.
With so much land available surely Territory families are entitled to a reasonable piece of that land, not a sardine block.
As a mother said on TV the other day, “Kids need to see the sky”.
That’s a bit difficult if you don’t have a backyard.
Gerry Wood, Howard Springs
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Children need some space outdoors. If they don’t have backyards they need park spaces and community playgrounds. Leave space for community gardens as well.