Would You Support More Housing in Your Street? | Fraser Coast

So let's start with the person who says no.

Is that the person always wrong? Why, if people say no, imagine you've lived in the same house for 20 years, you know your neighbours, you enjoy your garden, your privacy, fairly quiet street, then a sign goes up next door proposing several houses...

were there, used to be one.

Your first thought is, hang on, what does this mean to me? I can practically attest to this because I live on a property that they actually put three houses right next to me, which was on a single block for years.

So I had the initial reaction to actually looked into it deeper and saw the plan.

Well, people overlooked my backyard and Where will the cars go? Will there be sunlight? What happens to the trees? Can the drains cope with it when it's heavy rain? All these questions come to mind.

They're reasonable questions.

Calling somebody a NIMBY doesn't fix the drainage problem or stop a bedroom overlooking your yard.

So developers need to explain, rather than just complaining that, oh, people are whinging about what we're about to do, they need to explain the impacts, show how it can be managed.

Council needs to explain why a proposal is appropriate and what the infrastructure is needed.

You know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, we're running out of water or the sewage can't handle it or, you know, it's too dense.

But in fact, a lot of the infrastructure is already underground and we're underdeveloping a lot of time.

So there needs to be an explanation from all sides.

Sometimes a proposal needs to be changed.

Sometimes the site simply isn't suitable.

Saying yes to housing doesn't mean development deserves approval.

I've seen a lot of bad development over my years and I still see it.

I still see plans, people trying to maximise properties or just trying to put a development application in to sell on.

They're not necessarily good developments, you know, and I can spot it pretty well these days.

And I sometimes give feedback to clients saying, this is not really good.

This is not suitable.

Harvey Bay, not a good outcome and not a good place to live.

So sometimes maximizing a site is always not the best outcome.

You know, there is a compromise somewhere in between.

But the other side is, what if the answer says no, even after those concerns have been addressed? What if we support more housing in principle, but we can never identify anywhere that is acceptable to people? So if every neighbourhood says somewhere else, we need to ask where somewhere else actually is without getting urban sprawl.