Families fear they'll be left out of Sydney's high-density future unless there's a shift toward building bigger apartments

ABC NEWS (Australia)

With the price of a house rising out of reach, and the State Government pushing for high density living, more families are looking to apartment living. But experts are worried that unless developers are forced to build family-sized apartments, parents and children will continue be squeezed into unsuitably small spaces.

Transcript

00:00 The Carrigans never thought it would be so hard to find a three bedroom unit in Sydney.

00:07 I mean it makes it easier in one sense right, there are so few three bedroom apartments

00:11 that you don't get a chance to look at very many of them.

00:13 Whereas if you're looking at two bedroom apartments there are just heaps and heaps of them.

00:15 Not only are larger apartments scarce, they're expensive.

00:19 You won't find a three bedroom unit under $2 million I don't think in this area.

00:26 The median price of a two bedroom unit in NSW is around $780,000.

00:32 That jumps to $1.3 million for three bedroom units.

00:37 If we didn't have a house to sell to do the trade, I don't think you could do it.

00:44 The state government's pushing for more density as a solution to the housing shortage.

00:49 But experts want developers to be forced to include family sized apartments.

00:54 We could say 20% of any apartments in a new development have to be for families with children

01:00 and have to be designed in a family friendly manner.

01:03 60% of apartments in NSW are units like this one.

01:07 For families there's a main bedroom, one other bedroom for the kids and one common space.

01:12 With the dream of a quarter acre block becoming just a fantasy for most,

01:17 more families are squeezing into these smaller spaces.

01:21 This shift in demographic of more families with children living in apartments,

01:24 we want to see the standards come into line to this.

01:28 Things such as better laundry spaces, bigger bathrooms, bigger bedrooms.

01:34 Hopes of more room for families in a high density future.

01:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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