Backyards: a rant (and more than one photo)

A while back some research claimed that "oldies" (ie baby boomers) are responsible for vanishing backyards, and lack of a suburban backyard play experience for modern children.

In essence, it said that baby boomers should sell their family homes on big blocks to the next generation with young kids, and the oldies should move on to smaller premises. Read article here.

Well, that really got my ire (being as seeing as how I'm one of those boomers....without a large backyard, I might add).

I grew up in a suburb about 12 kms from the centre of Sydney. It was mainly developed post WW2. The "Depression-era" parents raised their baby-boomer children there. We had a modest, 2 bedroom fibro house on a large block.

Well, 10 years ago, Mum and Dad sold that house and moved to a smaller, multi-unit dwelling (in Sydney parlance a 'villa' - in some places called 'cluster housing'....7 single-storey houses on a double block....the medium density developments of the 1970s).

And here's what is being built on that block and next door TODAY at 36 and 38 St Georges Rd, Bexley.

When "the oldies" move out, the current generation of kids don't get backyards to play in. The backyard disappears under acres of brick and concrete.

So these photos are from my childhood, and that of my son in the 1990s, and the bricks today.

1. Dad working in his veggie garden in the early 1970s. This part of the yard was a chook run when we bought the house in 1968. Over the back fence are early villa homes.

2. My sister tending backyard lemon tree, about 1971

3 & 4 My son also enjoyed "grandma's backyard" 

Here's what's being built today on that suburban backyard that is supposed to be sold to Generations X & Y for their kids to play on. Tell that to the developers!

Tempe House and development

The best aspect of the apartment development at Wolli Creek is that the Council insisted (after lots of local resident activity) that the developers restore Tempe House and keep the gardens as open space.

Development behind the screen

Development proposal

Some, but unfortunately not all local councils require anyone lodging a development proposal to display the notice of development at the front of the property, including what it is intended to happen, and details about how to find more information and lodge objections. This is in King St, Newtown. 

Wolli Creek apartments

Out of former light industrial and warehouse land at Wolli Creek, a whole new city of apartments is arising.

Previously blogged here 

Apartments Wolli Creek

Two days ago I showed Tempe House at Wolli Creek, built in 1834-6. Behind it sits these modern apartments.

From Balmain to Pyrmont

This view from the Balmain Peninsula looks across Johnstons Bay towards the Anzac Bridge and redeveloped Pyrmont Point. Pyrmont was once an industrial and port area. Pyrmont quarries provided sandstone for many of Sydney's 19th century buildings.

The view from Illura Reserve :

View Larger Map

Old Childrens Hospital

This modern apartment complex is very attractive - I like it a lot. It is on the site of the old Children's Hospital at Camperdown / Forest Lodge.

Fire!

When I saw this burned out house, I was entranced by the burned curtains flapping in the breeze, wondering how they survived when all else seemed to be gone. That was two years ago when I was last in Terrigal.

My next thought was less charitable. Surely, it wouldn't be an insurance job prior to redevelopment. Such thoughts were prompted by the types of development taking place alongside.

The amazing thing is all is exactly the same as it was two years ago!

Local repair shop

This local repair shop was around the corner from me for decades. You could take in toasters, vaccuum cleaners, heaters, radios, TVs.....and they would be repaired.

The shop, and repairer have now gone, subsumed by another apartment development and slick looking shops (still being constructed).

When was the last time you had an appliance repaired rather than thrown it out and bought a replacement? No wonder the world is sinking under a sea of crap, and choking in its own chemicals.

Monorail, Light rail and freeways

A transport spaghetti at the Convention Centre at Darling Harbour. The elevated freeway, elevated monorail and ground level light rail. In the background is the old Goldsborough Mort woolstore building, built in 1883, now redeveloped as apartments.

The monorail is much criticised. It has no real functional use other than being a tourist attraction, and is INCREDIBLY ugly, especially in the centre of the city. I hate dit then, and hate it now, and have never been on it! I say "maintain the rage!"

South Bank Parklands, Brisbane

To me, South Bank is a symbol of the determination and occasional success of people in stopping rapacious developers getting their hands on public space.

This part of Brisbane's riverbank was originally a meeting place for the traditional landowners, the Turrbal and Yuggera people and, in the early 1840s it became the central focus point of early European settlement. From the 1850s, South Bank Precinct was established as the business centre of Brisbane, until 1893, when floods forced the central business district to higher ground on the northern side of the river. The southern area became home to vaudeville theatres, derelict boarding houses, and light and heavy industry.

In the 1970s parkland was reclaimed along the river bank, and the Queensland Cultural Centre was built, including the Queensland Art Gallery, the Queensland Museum, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and State Library of Queensland.

In 1988, Brisbane held World Expo 88, following which government, under corrupt and autocratic Premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson, intended to develop the site for commercial interests. However, a public campaign successfully lobbied for the site to be redeveloped as parkland for the enjoyment of people in Brisbane. In 1989 the South Bank Corporation, a Queensland Government statutory body, was established to oversee the development and management of the South Bank Parklands.

However, the struggle continues as proposals by the Corporation emerged in 2003 to sell large portions of South Bank Parkland to developers. That was overcome. The group Save Our South Bank Parkland continues its vigilance.

Already apartments exceed height limits.




Below:Part of South Bank from Rydge's Hotel, looking downstream. In the foreground is the artificial beach.

Breakfast Point housing

For information about Breakfast Point, see post three days ago.

Breakfast Point Village Green

For information about Breakfast Creek, see the post from two days ago. Cricket is a summer game, but there are those fanatics, my son amongst them who play in a "winter cricket" competition on Sundays. The private Breakfast Point wicket is not amongst the venues.

Breakfast Point Country Club

For information about the American-style Breakfast Point development, see yesterday's post. Even the term "country club" is borrowed from our friends across the Pacific. It is not a term in use in Australia (and it's certainly not in the country!). It, along with things like the (unstaffed) security gate lend an air of exclusivity to the suburb. The Country Club.

This is not a church - so what is it? (Skywatch Friday)

Breakfast Point is a brand new, still-in-progress housing development between Mortlake and Cabarita, on the Parramatta River. The site used to be a gas works. Environmentalists and some residents say that the formerly heavily industrialised site still contains toxins, and that clean up plans are inadequate. See here.

It's an interesting development, on a huge site. Lots of people would love it, but when we drove around my son just kept saying "It's so clean! It's TOO clean..." In the end he said "OK, enough - let's leave - it's just too., tooooo....American looking."

It does have that manicured-edge look of a Pleasantville or Stepford or Wisteria Lane of the Desperate Housewives. The houses and apartments are cookie-cutter perfect, every blade of grass manicured. But we know what sorts of dark secrets those places hide!

And I think the fake-New England church, which is a community hall is just too "cutesy" for words, and makes me laugh. The Country Club lends that air of exclusivity, and I think is meant to evoke the "romance" of Connecticut in the 1950's, when only "the right sort of people" were allowed to join, and housing covenants ensured none of the "wrong sort" appeared - Blacks, Jews and the like.

Of course, none of that would apply here, and the few people I saw getting in and out of cars (I was the only person walking anywhere) were very diverse. But it all just looks far too twee for me to be happy there.

I think one of the most interesting aspects is that many of the residents have turned NIMBY and oppose the proposition of a marina for luxury boats in the bay upon which this development is located. There are "No Marina" signs adorning various balconies. But in keeping with the overall "look" they are uniform, neatly blue and white - no hand-painted individualistic placards and protest at Brekky Point!

I'm going to poke around Brekky Point a bit more in the next few days if you want to come with me.


Other places, other skies.

Mosaic food

The Westfield shopping empire's "flagship", the Centrepoint complex, has been closed for re-development. You can still wander through because it houses the entrance to Sydney Tower. In the food court on the bottom level, I noticed, for the first time, these colourful food tile mosaics decorating pillars and walls. I guess they'll all be gone soon, smashed to smithereens. I love mosaic art, and have sought out classic examples in various parts of the world (Ravenna, Monreale, Istanbul for example), and seeing these in Central Sydney, I thought they deserved documenting before they disappear. It's also amazing what you notice when the crowds have gone and you're not intent on getting a belly-full. When the lunchtime workers and shoppers are milling around, they are merely part of the overall ambience.

Things Past Part 1: Glassons Foundry

I love this fading sign from a former era, and the patchwork of bricks forming the wall. This is in the Wolli Creek / Tempe House development area. The contrast is stark. Geographers call this kind of development "brownfields" (as opposed to "greenfields", where there has been nothing previously.)

I have mixed feelings about it. High rise development brings more traffic, and light industrial areas are forced to move further afield, meaning working class jobs are kept "out of sight" and further and further from the centre of the city. Affordable housing in the immediate area is replaced by apartments for white-collar workers (average prices for these boxes are $400 000 and upwards for 2 bedrooms). Still, more homes are needed for an expanding population, and there must be limits to the sprawl of big cities, surely? This area is close to established public transport as well. Maybe I'm just fuelled by a misplaced sense of nostalgia?

Tempe House - then and now (Tempe House Tour Part 8)

To finish this series about Tempe House I was keen to take some photos from similar vantage points from which 19th century artists depicted it. These were taken from Kendrick Park in Tempe, across the Cooks River.

Many people and heritage organisations argue that the Wolli Creek development has ruined the context and setting of Tempe House, and I agree. Others say that, sadly, it was the only way the house could be preserved at all. That is probably true too. In the 1990s the state government was lobbied to buy the site and restore the house, as the only one of its architect, Verge, still in its original setting, with no bulk behind. They declined.

I think it is such a shame that a development of this size and bulk was presented as the only option. Sadly, in Sydney, developers are allowed to extract every cent they can. Promises were also made that there would be public access, including the parkland sweeping down to the river, but it has never been open as far as I know, and the house, while beautifully restored by renowned heritage architectures is sitting unused and inaccessible (other than to curious bloggers who scramble up rock faces, scale walls and straddle fences...and to the owners of the apartments who have private access through electronic codes on gates.)

Postscript: This afternoon I went into the city to see an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney called Lost Gardens of Sydney. The garden of Tempe House is one of those featured.

Below: Taken 18 Sep 2008

Below: Cooks River Tempe House by Conrad Martens, 1838

Below: 18 September 2008

Below: Tempe House by Samuel Elyard, 1836
Below: Cooks River with Tempe House by James Clarke. I couldn't get a similar vantage point because the railway bridge now runs at the right, and the river is obscured by trees in the park

From Tempe House to Cook's River (Tempe House Tour Part 7)

One of the positives of the development at Wolli Creek is the rehabilitation of the parkland sweeping down to the Cook's River. Alexander Brodie Spark once had a bathing pavilion on the river.

Unfortunately we have heard nothing about this space being publicly available, as was promised to the communtiy.

The suburb across the river is Tempe, named after the house.

Tomorrow: looking across the river from the other side.