Having just one boarding house in a residential street is controversial enough as it is.
What would be the reaction from local residents if council approved several applications for boarding houses in the same street.
One Campbelltown councillor is concerned enough that such a possibility exists to call for action.
Cr Warren Morrison wants Campbelltown Council to develop a policy that would effectively stop something like that happening in its tracks.
“It just worries me that potentially this could happen in one of our streets and it would not be a good outcome to have several boarding houses in one street in Campbelltown,’’ Cr Morrison said after last week’s council meeting.
“At the moment, I can’t see what would stop others building boarding houses once one goes up and it’s approved by the council.
“I think we need to develop a policy that somehow stops the chance that several boarding houses are approved in the one street.’’
Last week’s council meeting approved two new boarding houses in the Campbelltown area.
One was for a nine bedroom boarding house in Bocking Avenue, Bradbury and the other a 15 room boarding house in 60 Moore Street, Campbelltown.
In a motion successfully moved by Cr Morrison and seconded by Cr Paul Lake the development application for the construction of a boarding house at Bocking Avenue, Bradbury was approved.
A majority of councillors also supported the second part of the motion – that a briefing be held on how the expected and desired character of the street can be protected from multiple boarding houses developed in the one street.
The application for a 15 room boarding house at Moore Street, Campbelltown was also approved in a close vote and with the mayor, George Brticevic, using his casting vote.
It is a sign of the times that because of the exclusion of the young from the housing market that we are going back to the prewar days of building boarding houses to enable young people to get off the street. To think that when I first went to Campbelltown I was selling three bedrooms homes for $6000 on $20 deposit. Times have changed for the worse.