Evolution of Crace from bushland to suburb (and the devolution of the Garden city).

dungfungus said :

farq said :

JC said :

For sure these suburbs are not for all, that is for sure, but clearly people are buying and building so voting with their feet.

&

beebee said :

The suburb is fall intents and purposes a mass of apartment/unit living. Seriously, neighbour proximity is marginal and what backyard? But at the end of the day no one is holding a gun to people’s heads, they clearly are happy with such living.

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

It’s no wonder that people buy it when it’s the only option. Canberra suburban development has sunken to a point where people just have no option but to buy into bad developments. With the amount of money they are spending it’s no wonder they justify it and claim they like being on small blocks (seriously who prefers a block half the size of the minimum we grew up with?).

I agree with rubaiyat’s excellent post. I especially agree with the observation that in most cases the drive that makes people build such oversized houses is a craving for status. I’d like to add it’s also a lack of class and taste.

When friends who left Canberra 15 years ago come back to visit family and see old friends (me) their favorite topic of discussion is how Canberra seems to have given up on all the things that made it special. How we have dived to the lowest common denominator and justify it by saying you see it in other cities.

Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.

Crace and other new suburbs like it are symptomatic of us as a city on giving up on what makes us special.

“Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.”
Very true; and under-grounding as many power lines and other services that are carried by poles in other cities is part of that garden.
That will all end in 2018 when the ugly wire-scape that is necessary to support an unnecessary 100 year old technology starts up.

“under-grounding as many power lines and other services that are carried by poles in other cities”

Wherever I have lived in Canberra, all the lines have been above ground with poles.

farq said :

JC said :

For sure these suburbs are not for all, that is for sure, but clearly people are buying and building so voting with their feet.

&

beebee said :

The suburb is fall intents and purposes a mass of apartment/unit living. Seriously, neighbour proximity is marginal and what backyard? But at the end of the day no one is holding a gun to people’s heads, they clearly are happy with such living.

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

It’s no wonder that people buy it when it’s the only option. Canberra suburban development has sunken to a point where people just have no option but to buy into bad developments. With the amount of money they are spending it’s no wonder they justify it and claim they like being on small blocks (seriously who prefers a block half the size of the minimum we grew up with?).

I agree with rubaiyat’s excellent post. I especially agree with the observation that in most cases the drive that makes people build such oversized houses is a craving for status. I’d like to add it’s also a lack of class and taste.

When friends who left Canberra 15 years ago come back to visit family and see old friends (me) their favorite topic of discussion is how Canberra seems to have given up on all the things that made it special. How we have dived to the lowest common denominator and justify it by saying you see it in other cities.

Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.

Crace and other new suburbs like it are symptomatic of us as a city on giving up on what makes us special.

“Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.”
Very true; and under-grounding as many power lines and other services that are carried by poles in other cities is part of that garden.
That will all end in 2018 when the ugly wire-scape that is necessary to support an unnecessary 100 year old technology starts up.

farq said :

JC said :

For sure these suburbs are not for all, that is for sure, but clearly people are buying and building so voting with their feet.

&

beebee said :

The suburb is fall intents and purposes a mass of apartment/unit living. Seriously, neighbour proximity is marginal and what backyard? But at the end of the day no one is holding a gun to people’s heads, they clearly are happy with such living.

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

It’s no wonder that people buy it when it’s the only option. Canberra suburban development has sunken to a point where people just have no option but to buy into bad developments. With the amount of money they are spending it’s no wonder they justify it and claim they like being on small blocks (seriously who prefers a block half the size of the minimum we grew up with?).

I agree with rubaiyat’s excellent post. I especially agree with the observation that in most cases the drive that makes people build such oversized houses is a craving for status. I’d like to add it’s also a lack of class and taste.

When friends who left Canberra 15 years ago come back to visit family and see old friends (me) their favorite topic of discussion is how Canberra seems to have given up on all the things that made it special. How we have dived to the lowest common denominator and justify it by saying you see it in other cities.

Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.

Crace and other new suburbs like it are symptomatic of us as a city on giving up on what makes us special.

I’ve just spent the best part of $800k on a new place in Gungahlin. I had plenty of choice, but the choice that was made (mostly by the missus) was a new build in Gungahlin. (Springbank Rise estate in Casey).

For that money we could have brought an older place with a bigger yard, done it up a bit and lived happily, but the (right) decision for us and our family was Gungahlin.

As I mentioned earlier our new place we went double story so we did end up with some yard, about the same if not more than our current house in Dunlop, but only because we went double story. When I brought Dunlop as a single guy I thought it was small, especially having grown up in an 1100m2 block in Macgregor. But it, the yard turned out to be ample for our needs, and I am sure the bigger house with yard will be ample for our family, which includes two under 5’s.

The thing that makes me feel Canberra is doomed is that suburbs like this have come to pass under a Labor government. Who else can we vote for?

What alternative party is out there that will reverse the decline in the standard of suburban development?

If we vote Liberal, they will probably allow a free for all and existing suburbs will end up nothing but duel occupancy, which in turn will allow the existing parts of Canberra to drop to the same standards (or worse) as Gungahlin. Are there any parties/candidates that will stand up for what made Canberra unique?

Has the time passed in which we cared about making Canberra special? Are we just destined to be a smaller more isolated copy of the outer western fringes of Sydney?

Personally I’ve given up on Canberra learning from the mistakes of others… I’ve bought a huge block near Yass which I intend on building on in a few years.

If I can’t plan a nice quite suburban retirement in Canberra, I’m going to plan it out of town. I’ll leave Canberra to those who are happy to shit on the legacy of our bush capital. People who want to live in their McMansions 2m from their equally as clueless neighbors.

JC said :

For sure these suburbs are not for all, that is for sure, but clearly people are buying and building so voting with their feet.

&

beebee said :

The suburb is fall intents and purposes a mass of apartment/unit living. Seriously, neighbour proximity is marginal and what backyard? But at the end of the day no one is holding a gun to people’s heads, they clearly are happy with such living.

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

It’s no wonder that people buy it when it’s the only option. Canberra suburban development has sunken to a point where people just have no option but to buy into bad developments. With the amount of money they are spending it’s no wonder they justify it and claim they like being on small blocks (seriously who prefers a block half the size of the minimum we grew up with?).

I agree with rubaiyat’s excellent post. I especially agree with the observation that in most cases the drive that makes people build such oversized houses is a craving for status. I’d like to add it’s also a lack of class and taste.

When friends who left Canberra 15 years ago come back to visit family and see old friends (me) their favorite topic of discussion is how Canberra seems to have given up on all the things that made it special. How we have dived to the lowest common denominator and justify it by saying you see it in other cities.

Canberra was meant to be a special city. A garden city. A place that learned from the mistakes of other more crowded cities.

Crace and other new suburbs like it are symptomatic of us as a city on giving up on what makes us special.

Thanks ever so much re the advantages of double glazing ,,, and what all.
Now has anyone come across the over 55 joint built by Goodwin retirement people in Crace; possibly with/without double glazing.

Dame Canberra said :

beebee said :

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

Ha! Agreed. Though I think most newer suburbs, not just Crace, feel the same way.

Of all the newer suburbs Crace is actually one of the better ones. The estate requriements are a lot stricter than many of the estates developed by LDA. The Springbank Rise section of Casey is another where the developer has put a lot of thought and rules into their estate requirements.

For sure these suburbs are not for all, that is for sure, but clearly people are buying and building so voting with their feet.

rubaiyat said :

agent_clone said :

Actually, denser living in which the shops/schools etc are closer with better public transport, making the cities more walkable has been shown to improve fitness in people as people no longer need to have cars, or no longer need to use them as frequently and tend to walk more. Personally I don’t consider my house overly large (95m2) but it is on a small block. I did consider separate title terrace houses (I didn’t want to have to deal with a body corporate), however the ones in my price bracket that I saw when i was looking did not appeal to me (I was looking for specific rooms sizes for particular rooms, for example a lounge big enough such that you could have varying configurations for furniture, or a lounge/dining area big enough such that you can comfortably fit a 6 seater dining table, and a lounge).

I agree that a lot of new houses have terrible designs and should really have things like double glazing and better insulation, I don’t know that older houses necessarily have better ones though… The older houses also generally have little to no insulation so the newer ones are somewhat better in that regard.

We actually are on the same page. My point is that people are moving to far out developments in a fools’ pursuit of a past lifestyle. All they are doing is condemning themselves and their children to a life in cars.

Greed, materialism and a craving for status is inflating the house size that they are cramming onto the ever tinier remote blocks, which in turn is increasing their debt and the need to feed that debt with a more stressful lifestyle that robs them of the opportunity to enjoy the “freedom” they thought they had bought.

Best is the richer lifestyle of a compact city, giving more time for family and recreation instead of time wasted driving, providing communal space, both urban and parkland, rather than unused private space.

They can always escape to the surrounding countryside, which will actually be within reach because it won’t be buried under bitumen and suburbia to the far distant horizon.

What you said.

beebee said :

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

Ha! Agreed. Though I think most newer suburbs, not just Crace, feel the same way.

The suburb is fall intents and purposes a mass of apartment/unit living. Seriously, neighbour proximity is marginal and what backyard? But at the end of the day no one is holding a gun to people’s heads, they clearly are happy with such living.

As far as I’m concerned Crace lies somewhere between FOMO and District 9.

I’ve worked on houses in Gunners that haven’t had 20mm between the guttering and you can walk the whole street by rooftop.

Jammed between the back fence and house is the obligatory BBQ and green framed glass top table with cushioned chairs. If your lucky you can fit a love seat as well.

agent_clone said :

Actually, denser living in which the shops/schools etc are closer with better public transport, making the cities more walkable has been shown to improve fitness in people as people no longer need to have cars, or no longer need to use them as frequently and tend to walk more. Personally I don’t consider my house overly large (95m2) but it is on a small block. I did consider separate title terrace houses (I didn’t want to have to deal with a body corporate), however the ones in my price bracket that I saw when i was looking did not appeal to me (I was looking for specific rooms sizes for particular rooms, for example a lounge big enough such that you could have varying configurations for furniture, or a lounge/dining area big enough such that you can comfortably fit a 6 seater dining table, and a lounge).

I agree that a lot of new houses have terrible designs and should really have things like double glazing and better insulation, I don’t know that older houses necessarily have better ones though… The older houses also generally have little to no insulation so the newer ones are somewhat better in that regard.

We actually are on the same page. My point is that people are moving to far out developments in a fools’ pursuit of a past lifestyle. All they are doing is condemning themselves and their children to a life in cars.

Greed, materialism and a craving for status is inflating the house size that they are cramming onto the ever tinier remote blocks, which in turn is increasing their debt and the need to feed that debt with a more stressful lifestyle that robs them of the opportunity to enjoy the “freedom” they thought they had bought.

Best is the richer lifestyle of a compact city, giving more time for family and recreation instead of time wasted driving, providing communal space, both urban and parkland, rather than unused private space.

They can always escape to the surrounding countryside, which will actually be within reach because it won’t be buried under bitumen and suburbia to the far distant horizon.

rubaiyat said :

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

That is just another patch on bad design.

I find it oddly curious that many of the responses here seem to be in denial.

Yes houses ARE much bigger than they used to be, Australia officially has the largest houses in the world, due to our tax incentives to borrow insane amounts of money and plough virtually everything into the family home.

That married with the tiny plots which made more money for the government and developers but ended up costing the same for buyers means houses may as well be terraces. In fact they could save some energy if there was no gaps between the houses for heat to escape.

So we have ridiculously oversized, badly (not “cleverly”) designed houses, badly oriented on tiny blocks which end up with virtually no gardens, which were why you wanted to “have your own home out in the suburbs”, miles from anywhere making the drive to work, school, everywhere, dominate your life.

No surprise to a designer to see people do exactly the opposite of their stated intention. When are consumers ever rational, or coherent on any subject especially when “buying the dream” and getting a substitute instead.

Obesity now rules our lives. As we are stressed out and time poor, our thoughts turn to buying “stuff” (encouraged by insistent marketing), in the hope of fixing everything with retail therapy. So we live in the fat city, sprawling its love handles out far and wide across the countryside, with the fat house, the fat kitchen, with the fat TV, the fat airconditioning, the fat cars, the fat kids, the fat pet all consuming the fat food and fat endlessly disposable ‘lifestyle choices” that you never made but were made for you by some corporation somewhere far away, all to create the fat debt that floats it all.

Your single greatest achievement in life will be to stand in queues to buy the latest possession, it doesn’t matter what it is, just pay what they are asking. You are assured this will change your life forever. But doesn’t. So get another.

The worse it gets and the more obviously it starts to affect your life, the more you persuade yourself that you “need” to ride this hamster wheel to nowhere, ignoring middle aged spread is no longer middle, it is your kids sitting inside the house playing computer games allergic to, or afraid of, the great outdoors that we used to enjoy when we were kids, because that backyard is no yard, it is just a setback from the fence and certainly not fit for backyard cricket.

Nailing this on the Mall Door generally leads to cries for burning at the stake on most forums I attend. Here it usually gets my posts held up for days, if not forever.

We are mostly over old style religion, now that we have The One True Marketing.

Actually, denser living in which the shops/schools etc are closer with better public transport, making the cities more walkable has been shown to improve fitness in people as people no longer need to have cars, or no longer need to use them as frequently and tend to walk more. Personally I don’t consider my house overly large (95m2) but it is on a small block. I did consider separate title terrace houses (I didn’t want to have to deal with a body corporate), however the ones in my price bracket that I saw when i was looking did not appeal to me (I was looking for specific rooms sizes for particular rooms, for example a lounge big enough such that you could have varying configurations for furniture, or a lounge/dining area big enough such that you can comfortably fit a 6 seater dining table, and a lounge).

I agree that a lot of new houses have terrible designs and should really have things like double glazing and better insulation, I don’t know that older houses necessarily have better ones though… The older houses also generally have little to no insulation so the newer ones are somewhat better in that regard.

Evilomlap said :

Great turns of phrase in this. I especially like ‘buying the dream, getting the substitute’, and your Fat City comments read like something out of a Hunter S Thompson article. Nice work! And as for the sentiment, I agree. I reckon you and I would get along quite well 🙂

Helps when I am not trying to type this in pillbox view on my iPhone screen. 😀

rubaiyat said :

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

That is just another patch on bad design.

I find it oddly curious that many of the responses here seem to be in denial.

Yes houses ARE much bigger than they used to be, Australia officially has the largest houses in the world, due to our tax incentives to borrow insane amounts of money and plough virtually everything into the family home.

That married with the tiny plots which made more money for the government and developers but ended up costing the same for buyers means houses may as well be terraces. In fact they could save some energy if there was no gaps between the houses for heat to escape.

So we have ridiculously oversized, badly (not “cleverly”) designed houses, badly oriented on tiny blocks which end up with virtually no gardens, which were why you wanted to “have your own home out in the suburbs”, miles from anywhere making the drive to work, school, everywhere, dominate your life.

No surprise to a designer to see people do exactly the opposite of their stated intention. When are consumers ever rational, or coherent on any subject especially when “buying the dream” and getting a substitute instead.

Obesity now rules our lives. As we are stressed out and time poor, our thoughts turn to buying “stuff” (encouraged by insistent marketing), in the hope of fixing everything with retail therapy. So we live in the fat city, sprawling its love handles out far and wide across the countryside, with the fat house, the fat kitchen, with the fat TV, the fat airconditioning, the fat cars, the fat kids, the fat pet all consuming the fat food and fat endlessly disposable ‘lifestyle choices” that you never made but were made for you by some corporation somewhere far away, all to create the fat debt that floats it all.

Your single greatest achievement in life will be to stand in queues to buy the latest possession, it doesn’t matter what it is, just pay what they are asking. You are assured this will change your life forever. But doesn’t. So get another.

The worse it gets and the more obviously it starts to affect your life, the more you persuade yourself that you “need” to ride this hamster wheel to nowhere, ignoring middle aged spread is no longer middle, it is your kids sitting inside the house playing computer games allergic to, or afraid of, the great outdoors that we used to enjoy when we were kids, because that backyard is no yard, it is just a setback from the fence and certainly not fit for backyard cricket.

Nailing this on the Mall Door generally leads to cries for burning at the stake on most forums I attend. Here it usually gets my posts held up for days, if not forever.

We are mostly over old style religion, now that we have The One True Marketing.

Great turns of phrase in this. I especially like ‘buying the dream, getting the substitute’, and your Fat City comments read like something out of a Hunter S Thompson article. Nice work! And as for the sentiment, I agree. I reckon you and I would get along quite well 🙂

rubaiyat said :

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

That is just another patch on bad design.

I find it oddly curious that many of the responses here seem to be in denial.

Yes houses ARE much bigger than they used to be, Australia officially has the largest houses in the world, due to our tax incentives to borrow insane amounts of money and plough virtually everything into the family home.

That married with the tiny plots which made more money for the government and developers but ended up costing the same for buyers means houses may as well be terraces. In fact they could save some energy if there was no gaps between the houses for heat to escape.

So we have ridiculously oversized, badly (not “cleverly”) designed houses, badly oriented on tiny blocks which end up with virtually no gardens, which were why you wanted to “have your own home out in the suburbs”, miles from anywhere making the drive to work, school, everywhere, dominate your life.

No surprise to a designer to see people do exactly the opposite of their stated intention. When are consumers ever rational, or coherent on any subject especially when “buying the dream” and getting a substitute instead.

Obesity now rules our lives. As we are stressed out and time poor, our thoughts turn to buying “stuff” (encouraged by insistent marketing), in the hope of fixing everything with retail therapy. So we live in the fat city, sprawling its love handles out far and wide across the countryside, with the fat house, the fat kitchen, with the fat TV, the fat airconditioning, the fat cars, the fat kids, the fat pet all consuming the fat food and fat endlessly disposable ‘lifestyle choices” that you never made but were made for you by some corporation somewhere far away, all to create the fat debt that floats it all.

Your single greatest achievement in life will be to stand in queues to buy the latest possession, it doesn’t matter what it is, just pay what they are asking. You are assured this will change your life forever. But doesn’t. So get another.

The worse it gets and the more obviously it starts to affect your life, the more you persuade yourself that you “need” to ride this hamster wheel to nowhere, ignoring middle aged spread is no longer middle, it is your kids sitting inside the house playing computer games allergic to, or afraid of, the great outdoors that we used to enjoy when we were kids, because that backyard is no yard, it is just a setback from the fence and certainly not fit for backyard cricket.

Nailing this on the Mall Door generally leads to cries for burning at the stake on most forums I attend. Here it usually gets my posts held up for days, if not forever.

We are mostly over old style religion, now that we have The One True Marketing.

Very good social comments, especially about obesity now flowing from generation to generation and the disincentives that non-existent backyards are.

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

That is just another patch on bad design.

I find it oddly curious that many of the responses here seem to be in denial.

Yes houses ARE much bigger than they used to be, Australia officially has the largest houses in the world, due to our tax incentives to borrow insane amounts of money and plough virtually everything into the family home.

That married with the tiny plots which made more money for the government and developers but ended up costing the same for buyers means houses may as well be terraces. In fact they could save some energy if there was no gaps between the houses for heat to escape.

So we have ridiculously oversized, badly (not “cleverly”) designed houses, badly oriented on tiny blocks which end up with virtually no gardens, which were why you wanted to “have your own home out in the suburbs”, miles from anywhere making the drive to work, school, everywhere, dominate your life.

No surprise to a designer to see people do exactly the opposite of their stated intention. When are consumers ever rational, or coherent on any subject especially when “buying the dream” and getting a substitute instead.

Obesity now rules our lives. As we are stressed out and time poor, our thoughts turn to buying “stuff” (encouraged by insistent marketing), in the hope of fixing everything with retail therapy. So we live in the fat city, sprawling its love handles out far and wide across the countryside, with the fat house, the fat kitchen, with the fat TV, the fat airconditioning, the fat cars, the fat kids, the fat pet all consuming the fat food and fat endlessly disposable ‘lifestyle choices” that you never made but were made for you by some corporation somewhere far away, all to create the fat debt that floats it all.

Your single greatest achievement in life will be to stand in queues to buy the latest possession, it doesn’t matter what it is, just pay what they are asking. You are assured this will change your life forever. But doesn’t. So get another.

The worse it gets and the more obviously it starts to affect your life, the more you persuade yourself that you “need” to ride this hamster wheel to nowhere, ignoring middle aged spread is no longer middle, it is your kids sitting inside the house playing computer games allergic to, or afraid of, the great outdoors that we used to enjoy when we were kids, because that backyard is no yard, it is just a setback from the fence and certainly not fit for backyard cricket.

Nailing this on the Mall Door generally leads to cries for burning at the stake on most forums I attend. Here it usually gets my posts held up for days, if not forever.

We are mostly over old style religion, now that we have The One True Marketing.

JC said :

farq said :

Paul Costigan said :

This is a big one. I have studied documentation and photographed this new suburb as the government development agency lauded it as something very wonderful. There’s so much to discuss about this very controlled suburb environment.

Crace changes everything… About what you expect from a suburb in Canberra.

West Belconnen is going to more of the same, but on a larger scale. Micro sized blocks filled with poorly built mcmansions. No gardens, no tall trees, no thought given to having houses face the northern sun.

Canberra seems to have given up on good planning. It’s like the developers are running the show and people just lap it up, pay big money to be confined in doors in front of their TV.

Firstly it isn’t a unique thing to Canberra.

Secondly I am in the process of planning a new build of one of these McMansion thingies and I will tell you the planning restrictions and consideration to gardens, north facing etc is quite restrictive. The place must meet better EER standards than most of the houses in any established area can hope to achieve. Plot ratio is also closly controlled to ensure there is at least some land for landscaping and gardens.

My new house for example is double story on a 450m2 block and the ground floor, including garage is 137m2, so still have 313 not taken up by the house. That is about the same as I currently have in my 3 bedder.

Would I prefer to have the good old quarter acre block, you betya, but the sad reality is land is not in endless supply nor can the city sustain the car driven urban sprawl of the 60’s-80’s. Look at these boards about the complaints about public transport and the like, and the reason it is so poor is because buses take for ever driving around the urban sprawl trying to find passengers.

Also take a good look at Canberra on google maps. As it is now we are at the borders. Imagine if everything developed in the past 20-25 years was to the ‘old’ quarter acre standard and you would find Gungahlin stretching almost out towards Sutton or maybe even Gundaroo. Not sustainable.

But yeah easy to blame the Government and Developers isn’t it?

I both disagree and agree with you.
There’s loads of spare land here, more than almost anywhere in the world…go to the borders in any direction and you can see for 100kms. It has no financial value and you should be able to pick it up for peanuts.
Gunning or Sutton is nothing really, the Canberra 25 minute commute just doesn’t compare to the 1.5 hours of other major cities.

The issue is that Governments need a controlled market of a certain value to make sustainable living environments. No business will setup if the clientele are too spread out to give them enough custom to stay in business. No Government will lay services if they can’t get their investment value back these days.
Squeeze them in, control land prices and give them no other option, that’s how it becomes the “norm”.
I do think Planning and building standards are weak though. Some of these new houses are dreadful, the builders should be ashamed at the lack of innovation and quality but they’re not, because they know that the “norm” allows them to do what they like. There doesn’t seem to be any pride in developing or even just copying some of these European models and ideas. They’re happy with drudge because they get paid very well not to have to come up with anything new or develop anything differently.
Having learned a little bit about how unionised construction in Canberra has been running it’s not surprising that there seems to have been mysterious hands at work behind the scenes to keep low quality and skill at high prices and actually preventing builders from being able to compete.
Mention a thermal break in a cheap aluminium window frame and the $ signs light up in their eyes as if you’ve asked them to build you a space rocket.
Get ’em in, chuck ’em up, get paid, move on.

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

The same mindset prevails with our civic leaders who want to ignore the fact that we have the best and most accessible road system in the world and replace it with a hundred year old mass transit network that simply is not needed nor applicable for a large provincial town like Canberra.
I guess that means it is “not sustainable” as well. Buzz words are important in Canberra.

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

At least double glazing would suppress the noise of your neighbour snoring which would be hard to avoid in places like Crace.

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

My house has double glazing. It was a no brainer. Quality rather than quantity.

HenryBG said :

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

Why not triple glazing?

I see in Goodwin Home adds they have built a apartment block at Crace for over 55’s.
Wondering please if any Rioters know a little about this place. Have been told its one block of apartments amongst a number of others.

Maya123 said :

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

Double-glazing should be compulsory in Canberra. To me, that is probably the biggest sign of the failure of our bureaucracy to develop sensible planning policy.

farq said :

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

“Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.”

That’s because they didn’t build McMansions on small blocks. (And they needed somewhere for the outside toilet.) Smaller houses can still be built today (I did). Look at Crace with Googgle maps and although most house fill the block, every now and then there is a smaller house that doesn’t, showing that houses can be built smaller. It’s only people’s silliness and lack of regulations that fills blocks.

farq said :

Paul Costigan said :

This is a big one. I have studied documentation and photographed this new suburb as the government development agency lauded it as something very wonderful. There’s so much to discuss about this very controlled suburb environment.

Crace changes everything… About what you expect from a suburb in Canberra.

West Belconnen is going to more of the same, but on a larger scale. Micro sized blocks filled with poorly built mcmansions. No gardens, no tall trees, no thought given to having houses face the northern sun.

Canberra seems to have given up on good planning. It’s like the developers are running the show and people just lap it up, pay big money to be confined in doors in front of their TV.

Firstly it isn’t a unique thing to Canberra.

Secondly I am in the process of planning a new build of one of these McMansion thingies and I will tell you the planning restrictions and consideration to gardens, north facing etc is quite restrictive. The place must meet better EER standards than most of the houses in any established area can hope to achieve. Plot ratio is also closly controlled to ensure there is at least some land for landscaping and gardens.

My new house for example is double story on a 450m2 block and the ground floor, including garage is 137m2, so still have 313 not taken up by the house. That is about the same as I currently have in my 3 bedder.

Would I prefer to have the good old quarter acre block, you betya, but the sad reality is land is not in endless supply nor can the city sustain the car driven urban sprawl of the 60’s-80’s. Look at these boards about the complaints about public transport and the like, and the reason it is so poor is because buses take for ever driving around the urban sprawl trying to find passengers.

Also take a good look at Canberra on google maps. As it is now we are at the borders. Imagine if everything developed in the past 20-25 years was to the ‘old’ quarter acre standard and you would find Gungahlin stretching almost out towards Sutton or maybe even Gundaroo. Not sustainable.

But yeah easy to blame the Government and Developers isn’t it?

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

Unfortunately, unlike stockholme syndrome, it is affecting more than 8% of the “captures”. It’s more likened to ONSLO SYNDROME whereby it is afflicting entire people. But if you ask the government or the developers they will tell you it’s definitely the LIMA SYNDROME, and that they are trying to help their captures and sympathise with them.

In regards to your reference to Minsk, well if only canberra had the depth of history and experience and had evolved to a mere spec of that of Minsk. In analogy, If Minsk was the ninety mile beach, Canberra would be a tiny mere speck of sand.

Southmouth said :

I agree that there is a hungry market for new homes. The issue of block size though is one of market conditioning. Families must compete with investors who don’t give a toss about the quality of life these tiny blocks offer. Therefore you either become conditioned to accepting tiny blocks or no block for you.

This is the issue, The government has decided that what makes money is what is important, not how canberra turns out and the future quality of life for residents.

Paul Costigan said :

This is a big one. I have studied documentation and photographed this new suburb as the government development agency lauded it as something very wonderful. There’s so much to discuss about this very controlled suburb environment.

Crace changes everything… About what you expect from a suburb in Canberra.

West Belconnen is going to more of the same, but on a larger scale. Micro sized blocks filled with poorly built mcmansions. No gardens, no tall trees, no thought given to having houses face the northern sun.

Canberra seems to have given up on good planning. It’s like the developers are running the show and people just lap it up, pay big money to be confined in doors in front of their TV.

agent_clone said :

For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Those places at least had some measure of privacy and backyards.

You may not not want a back yard, but to build an entire suburb without them to my mind is crazy and produces a truly ugly suburb.

If people don’t want gardens then the government should be providing sites to build large townhouses/apartments (hopefully not on the edge of town).

You can imagine how bad the new riverview west belconnen development is going to be.

agent_clone said :

I don’t live in Crace but do live in a suburb with smaller blocks and I would make the following comments:
Personally I don’t want a large backyard that I have to spend significant amounts of time maintaining. I enjoy a smaller yard. Quite a few people I know feel the same way.
For the backyard cricket, I have seen a couple of kids playing cricket with the wicket being their front garage door, so it is will possible… (though while walking past I did wonder how long it will take the for the car parked near by to have a broken window…)
If there are parks near by then there are larger areas, with better play equipment for the kids to play on.
Also, it should be noted that any city that was developed pre public transport has smaller blocks in the older areas. For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.
I also don’t think that 500m2 blocks used to be that uncommon, its just that those 500m2 blocks had a house 100m2-120m2 on it rather than 2-300m2, so it is perceived to be bigger.

I agrees on this. We have a 4 bedroom house with a small backyard. Yes we’re one of “those” couples with a big house that everyone on here whinges about. Is our yard big enough to fit a bunch of kids and pets? Probably not (however the previous owners seemed to have 3 kids and a large dog so…), but that isn’t our intent and we don’t care about having a large backyard that is high maintenance.. in fact we barely go out into the backyard unless we’re hanging out the washing. If we do want to go out into ‘the wilderness’ we have ovals and ponds and parks all around the place and it more than makes up for our small backyard.

I’ve never really understood Canberran (or Australian as it may be) obsession with having a big back yard to raise the kids.. kids don’t care about backyards either, they’ll play in whatever they have.

We considered living in Crace but our big issue with it was less about the houses and their ‘tiny’ back yards and more about the difficulties getting in and out of Crace as well as poor public transport options.

I don’t really know how living close to neighbours in houses is any different to living in apartments that might have balconies.. why is it fine to live in places where your neighbours are just on the other side of the wall (and you can hear them flushing the toilet) but becomes a massive deal to people when people’s fence lines are close to the walls of their houses?

If you don’t want to live in a suburb like that, then don’t. Just like how we didn’t want to live in a 70 year old house in Ainslie (for example) so we didn’t look there. Easy.

Beats the **** out of me why anyone would buy a shoebox in a suburb like this when for similar money you could have a property in an older suburb that was better located and had a larger block.

Renovations don’t improve location.

Maya123 said :

vintage123 said :

Rollersk8r said :

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin – and all the new development in Molonglo etc – is all based on halving the normal block size, while doubling the normal house size. It’s all 400 to 500k for a block, if you’re lucky, with a house for 350 to 500 – which averages out to thousands of $800,000 houses…

People seem to have the money…

And I can certainly see the appeal of the vast living spaces in brand new houses these days, although missing out on a backyard is not for me.

Not too sure on your 300m2 to 500m2 houses mate, they are definitely not that large. At $1900 to $2200 a m2 to build you won’t fit a 500m2 house plus land into a $800k budget, that’s for sure, especially with land going for $400k+. Most two story places are around 220m2 + garage 45m2 on 500m2 blocks for high $800s. They feel bigger because they use higher ceilings and clever layout as compared to the traditional 100m2 canberra three bed govie.

“220m2” is a big house, especially when considering that modern households are smaller than fifty years ago and many people buying these houses would be young and getting their first home. My (new) house is much smaller than 220m2. My previous three bedroom house on a 450sq metre block was about 99 sq metres, which meant I had lots of garden for vegetables and fruit trees, even on a 450sq metre block. I bought that house from a family of five, which is a demonstration of how much expectations have changed. Three of us lived in that house for many years. I wouldn’t want it now, but when I bought it I was a first home buyer, young and I didn’t have many belongings to fill it. As would be the case with many buying these block filling 220m2 houses.

Most of the double story places in crace are around the 200m2 to 250m2. That’s what I was specifying. Is that big or small, well I guess it’s up to who you ask. If your asking the property constant growth generation, so that’s those who were in the market for houses from 1995 to now, or those a bit younger who teenaged through the nineties, you will find most of them were exposed to that transition point where everything went BIG for around ten years. That’s around 1998 through 2008 when the common build was 40 or 50 square homes on 800m2 blocks. These were whopping great places of over 400m2 with triple bathrooms, four or five bedrooms and rumpus rooms etc. The 200k build budget back then was great. You had a bunch of companies, like masterton, av Jennings, clarendon etc all throwing together these McMansions.

So point is, if you missed grabbing one, and you remember them or lived in them, or your parents did, then you expectations take you to a point somewhere between the 1 bed flat you can get now versus what you actually thought your 600k was going to get.

Anyway makes no difference to me. But I do understand how others feel.

I don’t live in Crace but do live in a suburb with smaller blocks and I would make the following comments:
Personally I don’t want a large backyard that I have to spend significant amounts of time maintaining. I enjoy a smaller yard. Quite a few people I know feel the same way.
For the backyard cricket, I have seen a couple of kids playing cricket with the wicket being their front garage door, so it is will possible… (though while walking past I did wonder how long it will take the for the car parked near by to have a broken window…)
If there are parks near by then there are larger areas, with better play equipment for the kids to play on.
Also, it should be noted that any city that was developed pre public transport has smaller blocks in the older areas. For example there are quite a few older terrace houses in both Sydney and Melbourne.
I also don’t think that 500m2 blocks used to be that uncommon, its just that those 500m2 blocks had a house 100m2-120m2 on it rather than 2-300m2, so it is perceived to be bigger.

vintage123 said :

Rollersk8r said :

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin – and all the new development in Molonglo etc – is all based on halving the normal block size, while doubling the normal house size. It’s all 400 to 500k for a block, if you’re lucky, with a house for 350 to 500 – which averages out to thousands of $800,000 houses…

People seem to have the money…

And I can certainly see the appeal of the vast living spaces in brand new houses these days, although missing out on a backyard is not for me.

Not too sure on your 300m2 to 500m2 houses mate, they are definitely not that large. At $1900 to $2200 a m2 to build you won’t fit a 500m2 house plus land into a $800k budget, that’s for sure, especially with land going for $400k+. Most two story places are around 220m2 + garage 45m2 on 500m2 blocks for high $800s. They feel bigger because they use higher ceilings and clever layout as compared to the traditional 100m2 canberra three bed govie.

“220m2” is a big house, especially when considering that modern households are smaller than fifty years ago and many people buying these houses would be young and getting their first home. My (new) house is much smaller than 220m2. My previous three bedroom house on a 450sq metre block was about 99 sq metres, which meant I had lots of garden for vegetables and fruit trees, even on a 450sq metre block. I bought that house from a family of five, which is a demonstration of how much expectations have changed. Three of us lived in that house for many years. I wouldn’t want it now, but when I bought it I was a first home buyer, young and I didn’t have many belongings to fill it. As would be the case with many buying these block filling 220m2 houses.

JC said :

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

So what is your solution?

Get rid of negative gearing and capital gains tax discount so that family owner occupiers will be the primary market for new homes

These houses are not empty. So that says to me that the demand is there and these houses are very much needed. Might change the cost, but that is a different issue again.

I agree that there is a hungry market for new homes. The issue of block size though is one of market conditioning. Families must compete with investors who don’t give a toss about the quality of life these tiny blocks offer. Therefore you either become conditioned to accepting tiny blocks or no block for you. That is why the areas around the ACT have a lot of the more prestigeous homes in the region. Not everyone will accept being shoehorned in.
I feel sorry for the children who will never know the joys of backyard cricket.

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

So what is your solution?

Get rid of negative gearing and capital gains tax discount so that family owner occupiers will be the primary market for new homes

These houses are not empty. So that says to me that the demand is there and these houses are very much needed. Might change the cost, but that is a different issue again.

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

So what is your solution?

Get rid of negative gearing and capital gains tax discount so that family owner occupiers will be the primary market for new homes

They definitely won’t get rid of negative gearing, and IF they are brave enough to modify it, all that will happens is that it will only apply to new homes. So not good if owner occupiers want to buy new homes.
There is a miniscle chance they may alter a tiny percentage of tax deduction inclusions, but that doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction. Things like modifying the 100% income tax write off, application to alternate income etc, travel to investment properties etc and hypothetical depreciation schedules etc.

They may look at capital gains tax concessions, but I doubt they will apply CGT to PPOR, and as for modifying the 50% concession of CGT on investment properties, they may alter the percentage, but they won’t scrap it. Problem is if they change anything all it will do is increase the prices initially whilst the market adjusts, but things won’t get any cheaper, as we now live in an international climate, whereby international investors are more wealthy than australians.

I guess you can’t win all battles, so my advice to people of late, has been, if you want a house to live in and you can’t afford to buy it to live in now, maybe structure it as an investment property and lever the negative gearing rules to your advantage, possibly moving into the property later in life. It’s been working great for those on salary.

JC said :

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

So what is your solution?

Get rid of negative gearing and capital gains tax discount so that family owner occupiers will be the primary market for new homes

vintage123 said :

Rollersk8r said :

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin – and all the new development in Molonglo etc – is all based on halving the normal block size, while doubling the normal house size. It’s all 400 to 500k for a block, if you’re lucky, with a house for 350 to 500 – which averages out to thousands of $800,000 houses…

People seem to have the money…

And I can certainly see the appeal of the vast living spaces in brand new houses these days, although missing out on a backyard is not for me.

Not too sure on your 300m2 to 500m2 houses mate, they are definitely not that large. At $1900 to $2200 a m2 to build you won’t fit a 500m2 house plus land into a $800k budget, that’s for sure, especially with land going for $400k+. Most two story places are around 220m2 + garage 45m2 on 500m2 blocks for high $800s. They feel bigger because they use higher ceilings and clever layout as compared to the traditional 100m2 canberra three bed govie.

Apologies on this one rollersk8r, I misread your post. V123

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

It’s not so much greed, it’s just that housing in Australia is a huge priority for people. When you consider its been such a gravy train for the last twenty years then it shouldn’t surprise people that so many industries have built their business around the housing and construction industry. On average ( and you have to remember that averages include the whole of Australia, and their are a lot of cheap remote houses), but on average australian wide housing has increased 457% between 1995 and 2015. So that suggests to a whole 20 year working generation that housing is assure bet for both investing and career opportunities. Some people have worked twenty years during time of ever increasing home prices and still struggle to enter a booming market. They don’t really see the small block, close windows, high density issues, all they see is the FOMO syndrome and are happy to pay as much as it takes to enter the market.

So in short I think the new generation are blinkered into buying anything that’s new, irrespective of its value. And if they don’t buy it someone else (investors) or (middle class chinese) will.

Rollersk8r said :

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin – and all the new development in Molonglo etc – is all based on halving the normal block size, while doubling the normal house size. It’s all 400 to 500k for a block, if you’re lucky, with a house for 350 to 500 – which averages out to thousands of $800,000 houses…

People seem to have the money…

And I can certainly see the appeal of the vast living spaces in brand new houses these days, although missing out on a backyard is not for me.

Not too sure on your 300m2 to 500m2 houses mate, they are definitely not that large. At $1900 to $2200 a m2 to build you won’t fit a 500m2 house plus land into a $800k budget, that’s for sure, especially with land going for $400k+. Most two story places are around 220m2 + garage 45m2 on 500m2 blocks for high $800s. They feel bigger because they use higher ceilings and clever layout as compared to the traditional 100m2 canberra three bed govie.

Southmouth said :

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

So what is your solution?

JC said :

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Yep greed is now the only motivation eveeywhere

Southmouth said :

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

A ‘town’ that is already building on it’s borders, and with people complaining about urban infill in their leafy 1960’s suburbs.

So what’s the solution?

And as mentioned above it is not a unique Canberra thing either.

Rollersk8r said :

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin –

It is not unique to Gungahlin or the ACT either. This is the way it is the country over, well in the mainland Capital cities at least.

There is some weird Stockholm Syndrome type effect happening in Canberra where developers have successfully convinced large sections of the community that tiny blocks are conducive to a great lifestyle. This is a country town, it’s not Minsk

“Can the people living in Crace open a window without hearing what the neighbours are watching on TV? Can they hear each other when they flush a toilet?”

People were experiencing these same issues in some sections of Ngunnawal in the late 90s. Is Crace really that different compared with other areas in Gungahlin?

Well Crace is hardly unique. Gungahlin – and all the new development in Molonglo etc – is all based on halving the normal block size, while doubling the normal house size. It’s all 400 to 500k for a block, if you’re lucky, with a house for 350 to 500 – which averages out to thousands of $800,000 houses…

People seem to have the money…

And I can certainly see the appeal of the vast living spaces in brand new houses these days, although missing out on a backyard is not for me.

By modern standards, crace is quite good.

The land sizes are reasonable. The homes are generous. Set backs and side access are standard.

The majority of homes have alfresco areas under the roofline. They are adequate garden and backyards under the revised living culture.

It was a case of supply and demand. Prices are strong in crace. High 800s, some million plus is not uncommon.

Crace is designed and much more spacious than the next releases of Moncrief and Throsby.

This is a big one. I have studied documentation and photographed this new suburb as the government development agency lauded it as something very wonderful. There’s so much to discuss about this very controlled suburb environment.

It is likewise a bit of a shock to someone who likes diversity and trees and so many other things about good urban design.

Yet they sold it all and people came. So people were happy to buy in. And there’s still quite a bit of building going on. That’s the way the world works.

The marketing was pure spin. Academics have studied this suburb but from what I have read they have taken a soft approach in order not to upset anyone in the bureaucracies with whom they have close relationships.

I hope to do a much longer piece one day on Crace and the thinking behind it and how it represents such a different style to the more established areas of Canberra.