New housing is OK, but let’s not forget the environment

I’ve looked into my crystal ball to see what our wonderful region will look like in 25 years and with 35,000 more homes than we have now, and the news ain’t crash hot, folks.

We all know what a drive south on the Hume Highway between the university on Narellan Road and the Picton exit looks like.

Beautiful rolling hills on the east, gently sloping land on the west side, bucolic scene after bucolic scene and every now and again a cute homestead dotting the landscape.

But in 25 years and Mt Gilead and Menangle South, as well as Wilton, fully developed, it will be wall to wall housing from Narellan Road to Picton Road.

Oh, there will be the odd green buffer zone here and there, but the vista currently enjoyed by south bound motorists will no doubt be replaced by noise barriers, those ugly walls erected to keep the traffic noise from upsetting the people who live adjacent to highways and freeways.

Most of the readers of this column know I am all in favour of progress.

In this case, I am most certainly not going to oppose release of land which will give first homebuyers a chance to get their toes into the property market.

It worries me a great deal to hear a newly married nephew with a baby already in the family had to fork out almost $400,000 for a block of land at Wilton.

Do the maths: add around $300,000 to put a house on this block of land and my nephew and his wife will not get much change from $700,000 – all for the privilege of living 80 kilometres from the Sydney GPO.

But it is this burgeoning price pressure the government is trying to ease a little by releasing land for housing.

But it must all be done properly and everything taken into account.

Some people, developers mostly, will make a lot of money out of this, and good luck to them.

But the authorities that will approve the various stages of development have a responsibility to ensure things like amenities and the environment are not forgotten jusdt because it could mean a poor developer will make $90 million instead of $100 million.

Our new PM wants the country to be innovative and agile and this should apply to a large land release.

So our three new large releases should include large tracts of wildlife corridors as well community halls and parks.

A great, big artificial lake, anyone?

But we should indeed be innovative and look at developing a large natural park like the Western Sydney Parklands that can run from Menangle to Wilton.

It would have decent sites for community groups to hold outdoor activities, walking and cycling tracts.

The owners and developers stand to make a lot of money out of these releases and they should be made to give back to the community which will be impacted by such massive change.

If this does not happen, Macarthur, which now has a well earned reputation as a great place for families and their children, will once again hit the decline button.

Just today I met a man who moved here with his young family because he’d heard it was a great place to bring up a family,

And while I am confident that the authorities will do the right thing, the media and the community must remain vigilant throughout the approval process.

Eternal vigilance is a small price to pay to keep the bastards honest.

♦ Talking about change, a quick word about my former Fairfax colleague and fellow editor Jeff McGill.

He announced this week that he is to leave Fairfax after 27 years of service, some of them as editor of the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser, as part of the company’s restructuring in the face of declining fortunes in the print world.

During my 10 year tenure as editor of the Advertiser between 1994 and 2004, Jeff used to remind me that another long term Advertiser editor had died on the job, so I should take it easy now and again.

It was good advice, and if I may return the compliment, I want to wish Jeff all the best in the next stage of his life and to remember that there’s life after Fairfax.