Sydney property developer Harry Triguboff (he owns a company called Meriton) says Sydney has too much green and not enough grey, and if you want to look at trees - well go and visit Katoomba.In an interview (read here), Triguboff is quoted as saying that Sydney has too many Reserves and National Parks. "You go north and we have all these reserves and you go south and you have all the reserves, and they are the best part of the coast. That is crazy. We should be building on this area," he said. "If they want to see trees, they can go to Katoomba, there are plenty of trees there."
I can't help thinking he wasn't serious - it is just too mad to be real.
That's amazing! I wonder if he gets away with it. I don't hope so and that the people fight it. The mayor of Paris actually proposed building more high-rises in Paris and said, "Paris is not a museum city...people have to have somewhere to live." Needless to say, it wasn't well accepted.
ReplyDeletemichael - he won't get away with the national parks nonsense...that is what we call an "ambit claim" - ramping up the claim to ridiculous proportions so what you DO get seems "reasonable".
ReplyDeleteIt was also his claim that Sydney should have 20 million people by 2050 (currently 4 million) - in a city with a severe water crisis, and where the most productive market gardening land for our fresh produce is already being gobbled up for housing estates...
I hope the government in Canberra don't take him up on his offer. It would be a tragedy for NSW to lose anymore green spaces. The thought of Hyde Park or the Botanic Gardens suddenly becoming housing estates doesn't bear thinking about.
ReplyDeleteI liked reading about this and your explanation of an ambit claim. It makes a lot of sense, but what trouble people have to go through to solve the problems afterwards.
ReplyDeleteFrightening. Shocking. Outrageous. Shows you what success does to that sort of people. They always wants more.
ReplyDeleteThe problem, Nathalie, is that almost everyone tends to want more. What "we" want more of is seen as being reasonable; but whatever "they" want is clearly outrageous?
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point of complaining about the inevitable consequences on Sydney of Australia's proposed population increases, if most of those who complain bitterly about the former, remain strangely muted about the latter?
You will be surprised! Developers are a bunch of loonies.
ReplyDeletehey guys. noticed that the link to Triguboff's article is dead.
ReplyDeleteI dug it up in the SMH archives:
http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=triguboff&pb=smh&dt=selectRange&dr=10years&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=SMH061011N17N270FRQS
Cheers