could help the affordable housing crisis
Yeah because private investors owning tons of homes totally isn’t how we got into this mess in the first place.
I absolutely would if it was suitable for me! I absolutely love the mixed zoning buildings they have through large parts of Europe where it’ll be a couple of houses on top of a small business. We have them around here, too, but they generally seem to just be for the people running the businesses and are rarely rented out to the public
I remember watching a video a while ago which I believe was either on Hong Kong or Singapore. Basically, they built train stations under or at ground level, then they built gigantic towers on top of them which had shops, houses, and offices all in the one building. I’m not sure about offices, but that seems like a dream to me. Certainly wouldn’t need to bother with a car, that’s for sure
(Though given it’s Westfield, I suspect that if this eventuates, it will probably just be a bunch of what start off as really nice (and expensive!) apartments, but end up devolving into glorified high rise slums through a lack of maintenance (e: oh and poor quality construction standards and materials). Also I’m willing to bet like most damn apartments in this country, they won’t bother with noise proofing and adequate insulation, and the bottom 4 or 5 floors will basically be unliveable from all the noise in the shops, including all the screaming Everytime some drunk person gets caught stealing by an overzealous security guard desperate to use their karate training on a real life person)
Insane they don’t do them here, the goddamn romans had insulae everywhere
TIL:
Frequently the entire structure centers on an open courtyard which also serves as a light well for the lower floors. The spaces fronting on the street itself were often used for mercantile functions.
Singapore has apartments above some of the MRT stations, which also usually have a mall attached. Presuming the noise dampening was sufficient, I’d move into one of those in a heartbeat. It’d make shopping and dining out much easier.
Like PeachTrees from the movie “Dredd”.
This is how they do it throughout East and south East Asia. High density living, retail and office spaces around transportation hubs with rings of declining density till you get to suburbs. If each of these Westfields could be serviced by a train or tram, it would be perfect.
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If the conditions were good, sure. Would just need to ensure adequate access control & noise proofing, otherwise I’d look at it like any other apartment
Living on top of a shopping centre wouldn’t bother me in itself, though it’d lose points in my book if the operator had a controlling interest in the strata.
What would really cause me to avoid such apartments is the same thing that goes for apartments in general - I need somewhere secure to store my motorbikes and tools, and somewhere to work on things. An underground car space and a small chook wire storage cage simply does not work for this - I wouldn’t be able to work on my vehicles or use many of my tools, and they’d all get five finger discounted by the end of the first week. I don’t care as much about my actual living space (I can get by with small or old places) but being able to easily do stuff like pull my van into the driveway, weld up a copy of VW’s special engine support tool, and change the timing belt is pretty important to me and a big reason why I would prefer to avoid apartment living.
How about we use on top of.Westfields to house the homeless?
What? Oh, you don’t really mean ‘help the housing crisis’ or even ‘affordable’?
Supply is at least part of the solution. Just we need way more of it. And way less of this short-sighted, inefficient, isolating, detached housing sprawl.
I’d put forward all new complexes be made x% public housing, that would put a dent in the problem, and also reduce stigma to public housing, because it’ll be everywhere, and people are integrated into the community, not shoved all in one, under-maintained spot.
I really like that idea.
But it’s way too egalitarian and giving everyone a fair go for Australia.
Ahhhh…dammit… 😭
Not now, the kids need space to run around outside and an apartment isn’t going to give them that. Before I had a family, quite probably. Assuming there was good public transport (Train station?) as well. We are a one-car family, and even when I lived alone I never quite managed to live car-free. The biggest hurdle to car free life was that I couldn’t carry a week’s worth of groceries on the bike.
In fairness, Uber and home delivery are good options these days - those weren’t a thing 15-20 years ago. It’d probably be easier to go car free these days.
Hekensvake on tje Hod Coast, oergect. Has a train and tram and a shopping sentre :)
Coomera Westfield on the Gokd Coast , has a train station as well, and a CostCo next door.
Awesome
Hekensvake
tje Hod Coast
oergect
Gokd coast
Mate I know it’s a Sunday, but I reckon you need to lay off the grog!
I think they should be able to build the apartments, having that self contained city vibe as a concept usually works very well. Whether it should qualify for affordable housing bonuses is questionable, generally Westfield would be purely profit focused. Mainly all these schemes should have minimum standards, rent control and audits, regardless of who takes part in them.
Would I live on top of a shopping centre on general? Sure would! Sounds like a great idea to increase housing to me.
But a Westfields? Hell no. If they rent dwellings like they rent commercial property they’ll demand your income goes through their services and they’ll make sure it’s always a high percentage of your income OR a minimum high dollar value, whatever is more.
Utter coxswains tbh.
