Sydney buildings need to grow up

A LEADING property expert has called on Sydney to build towers up to 80 storeys tall - higher than the CBD's tallest office - to make housing prices affordable.

Retail Property Association of Canada former CEO Michael Brooks told more than 400 industry leaders at the UrbanGrowth NSW conference yesterday that Sydney had to embrace high density living so that young people could afford to buy a home.

"Your houses are too expensive because people do not have that choice, because you do not have that density," Mr Brooks said.

"You do not have enough medium or high rise. You need product in the $250,000 range. "You need to get that to market. I do not care if it takes 80-storey buildings, do it.

"People want to own their own home, they want to paint their bedrooms purple and hang pictures on the wall, they want to choose their own counter tops and have their own appliances."

Mr Brooks said Toronto was similar to Sydney, with a population of six million and bracing for 11.5 million by 2031.

But it had addressed affordability issues through building high-rise. Toronto was three times the density of Sydney in a bid to stop the surrounding farmlands being eaten up by urban sprawl, Mr Brooks said.

"It's sold on lifestyle. There is a pool and a restaurant downstairs, so you can order room service to your suite if you want it," he said.

"The high-rises are dating machines. It's full of young twenty-somethings riding the elevator with each other - it's sold on lifestyle by people who do not put value on the grass out their back door."

In a major boost to urban housing in Sydney, Chinese developers Greenland Group will build the city's tallest apartment tower after spending $600 million on a prime CBD site. The Sydney Water Board site takes up half a city block in Bathurst St and is set to become a 240m-high tower.

It has approval for 400 apartments over 60 levels.

Further west, Planning Minister Brad Hazzard said the state government would deliver smaller land lots for Paddington-style terraces to drive affordability.

"We have one million people coming to live in Sydney, and 70 per cent of those are our sons and daughters establishing new families," Mr Hazzard said. "(The terrace plan) is so people who want to buy a home can afford to buy a home at an affordable price.

"Some people would say, we do not want Sydney to grow. Well, Sydney is not full. It's a world city, and world cities do not die, they grow."

Committee for Sydney chief executive Tim Williams said Sydney had to be rebalanced to go "upwards".

"The ask is that we get the quality as well as the quantity we want. The campaign is for more and better homes. This is a city where 70 per cent of 30-year-olds cannot afford home ownership," he said.

"The average age to buy a home is 38 to 40 years old (and) 22 per cent of Australians own 55 per cent of homes. Fewer people own more homes."

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