Monday 9 September 2019

Sydney Planning for Population Growth - a house built on sand.

A read a feature article in the SMH about how Sydney's population is expected to grow by 1.3 million over the next decade. The article is full of pretty computer generated 3-D views of 'projections' of where this increased population will be housed (mostly west of Paramatta), but, having looked at the data for my suburb, I have to question whether this whole planning exercise is built on pretty dodgy data foundations.

When I selected my suburb the 'model' responded that the 2016 population was 2,656 and that by 2031 it would increase to 2,677. Really? An increase of only 21 people?

Given that the brand new Northern Beaches hospital was recently opened in this suburb, resulting in rezoning from single dwelling to medium for quite a few blocks (one house nearby was already replaced with a block of six or so units just this year), and that the nearby High School is slated to be moved to another location and replaced with a new 'town centre' featuring three apartment blocks of around 10-15 floors each, I have to wonder at the accuracy of all the 'data' being used for these projections and modelling.

God help us if they are actually planning infrastructure developments based on these models.

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