SYDNEY’S FLAT DWELLERS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1929, Page 6

SYDNEY’S FLAT DWELLERS

BUI GDING lUSBTR TCTIONS

SYDNEY, June 12

An enormous proportion of Sydney’s population are flat dwellers. Some of tlie municipalities have decided to ban the erection of any more flats, while the overwhelming vote against them at a recent poll of ratepayers in a section ol the municipality of Woollalira is also significant. Woollahru is not unlike Darlinghurst

in of Sydney’s aristocracy condescend to rib shoulders there, so to sneak, with humbler and poorer tm tab.

Th-t erection of flats in the metropolis of Sydney will he subject in future tq big restrictions, even where they are „not banned, is beyond question. There is likely to be a domain.!, for example, for more ground space suiTounclijig them. Many of them are more boxes, level with the street, and without any yard space. There is no necessity for a lift where Sydney’s flats run up to three storeys. AYlien, however, a flat shops higher, and a lift has to lie installed, the builder or speculator regards tin* sky as the limit. He flunks ho might as well go the whole. hog, and runs up a place six or seven storeys or more. It is this type of flat, especially when it is without any of tho architectural graces, that local authorities and ratepayers ar e making fuss, about, Tho builder of the tall, narrow, and often ugly flat is certainly fortunate. On the space on which lie could ordinarily, erect merely two semi-detached cottages, lie can, under the 'existing law, run up flats that will give him a dozen or more tenants. One suggestion bv local government authorities is that the ground space should be increased in proportion to each additional stotey above the first.