Only developers benefit as Hong Kong is built here
For those who have not been to Hong Kong, let me briefly describe it for you.
It's a small city, on a harbour, packed with tiny one and two room apartments in high rise buildings deprived of natural sun light, sea breezes and views of the hills and mountains are obscured by dense smog.
It is a buzzing city of retails shops and markets and most people travel by foot or, if they can afford it, trams and buses.
During the evenings, after most work has ended, every park is jam-packed with people of all ages escaping the oppression of a crowded room to exercise and socialise.
It's an amazing place to visit, but you'd need a very good reason to live there.
As a resident of Umina Beach for over 50 years, I've seen lots of change and accept it is inevitable.
I've seen single family homes converted to dual occupancy, three or four units built on a single block and now we are witnessing those same blocks doubling and tripling that capacity.
Yet we have the same three roads connecting us to the outside world (once two, but someone had foresight to build the Rip Bridge).
Our rail line is at maximum capacity and, in peak and school times, it can take 30 or 40 minutes to travel 10 kilometres.
I'm predicting that within 20 years we will replicate Hong Kong.
The only beneficiaries in all this are the money-hungry developers.
People may say that 50 years ago I probably bought my home for $20,000 dollars, and that's true.
But my income was $3000 a year and I paid for it by spending three hours daily standing on trains to get to do my eight hours work.
I don't mind sharing what has been a wonderful lifestyle with holiday makers and other residents, but by quadrupling the full-time capacity we are destroying that which we love.
People are moving in, only to have a multi-storey building approved on their door step, blocking the sun, negating any investment made to install solar power, robbing the area of street parking for visitors and adding to noise and traffic congestion.
Get involved, join the Peninsula Residents Association, and vote out the current State Government who have created this situation.
The previous council would not bow to pressure from the State and had funds cut.
We now have an administrator hell-bent on doing maximum damage before we get a chance to vote in a council we want.
I don't know what a change in State government will do, but this one certainly isn't listening to the people.
SOURCE:
Email, 4 Feb 2023
Michael Emmett, Umina