Social housing recycled into boomer elitist apartments
LONDON: The unacceptable face of boomer capitalism is the dispossession of the poor when their social housing suddenly occupies key sites.
Five years after the NSW government made the controversial decision to sell Sydney Harbour’s brutalist-designed Sirius building in The Rocks, relocating its public housing tenants to the city’s suburbs in the process, its new owner has revealed its plans for an ultra-luxury revamp at the hands of world-acclaimed designers.
Developer JDH Capital said all 76 apartments would have some form of outdoor living space, whether a pop-out juliette balcony for one-bedders or open-air terraces with private pools and barbecues for the penthouses.
All up, JDH Capital plans 15 one-bedroom, 42 two-bedders, 14 three-bedders and five four-bedders in the Sydney tower under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but is yet to reveal asking prices.
Nine of the apartments will have private lap pools in a front row position overlooking the Opera House or the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “You feel like you are in a hotel resort,” said selling agent Ben Stewart, of CBRE.
Mr Stewart, who will market the apartments with CBRE chairman Justin Brown, said the target buyers would be elite executives.
“We are already fielding lots of inquiries from captains of industry and we have a lot of inquiry for people wanting to come to the display suite in March.”
Mr Stewart said buyers would be people who wanted to be in a more boutique building instead of a large high-rise tower.
“It’s going to be north shore and eastern suburbs buyers. People can see the iconic position and I believe will buy an apartment as a family generational home.”
JDH Capital executive chairman Jean-Dominique Huynh said there would be a range of pricing depending on the different elements of the apartments.
“Given the unique nature of the building I think it is going to be a local buyer market who appreciates the significance of the history and the building; it will have an element of offshore buyers and expats,” Mr Huynh said.
“We have a development application in with the Department of Planning, all going well we plan to launch the apartments in March or April,” Mr Huynh said in an interview with The Weekend Australian this week.
The reconstruction of the nine-storey building is expected to take 18 months and the hope is to start the works by mid next year for completion in time for the New Year’s Eve fireworks display the following year.
Most of the apartments, which will be reduced from the original 79 to 76, will be reconfigured or amalgamated to better capture the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge views. Redundant rooms such as drying rooms and garbage rooms are to be integrated to increase the size of the apartments.
“As we go higher we reconfigure some apartments which will have 360-degree views,” said JDH Capital development director John Green.
Five lift cores would allow access to the apartments from the building’s basement car park, Mr Green said.
Interiors were designed by architecture firm BVN and leading British interior designer Kelly Hoppen.
The multi-award-winning Ms Hoppen is well known for her East meets West style, with the sought-after designer working on an eclectic mix of projects around the world, including five-star hotels, superyachts, private homes and exclusive commercial properties.
Mr Huynh said the finishes in the building, which was designed in 1978-79 by Tao Gofers for the NSW housing commission and was used for social housing until 2018, will be high level with marble tiles and Sub Zero appliances.
All apartments except for the 15 one-bedders will have their own car parks with a total of 70 car parking spaces for residents. Rooftop gardens will be established given the building’s location viewed from above the bridge and the neighbouring buildings. Bicycle parking is allocated at the basement level while storage is available in all apartments and in dedicated storage zones within the basement. Larger apartments will be located on higher levels and at prominent ends of the existing building while all ground level units will have direct courtyard access from either Cumberland Street or Gloucester Walk.
According to the architectural design report, new active street frontages, new glazed lifts and street entries to apartments will improve the pedestrian character of the area. The new work will be in copper-coloured metal and glass referencing the bronze and black colour of the existing metal framing with two-bedroom apartments to have a minimum internal area of 70sq m and three-bedroom apartments to have a minimum internal area of 90sq m.
The Sirius launch comes as federal government research reveals the number of apartments being built is slowing.
The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation estimates reveal that 188,900 apartments were added to the housing market in 2019, followed by 170,000 this year. According to NHFIC’s estimates the number of apartments coming on the market will slump to just 120,500 units by 2023. But numbers of apartments will lift to 148,300 by 2025.
NHFIC says the lower rates of population growth that underpin the demand forecasts feed into the longer term outlook and have severe consequences for the apartment market.
“We expect net additions to the apartment market to be 58 per cent lower than pre-COVID recession levels in 2023 before a very modest recovery that still leaves them 51 per cent below this benchmark in 2025,” NHFIC said.
“The outlook over the next five years should also be put into a longer term context. We estimate that, at the peak of the apartment boom in 2017, a net 65,700 apartments were added to the housing stock compared with 55,600 in 2019 before the COVID recession.
“In other words, net additions to the apartment market were already 15 per cent below their peak before the COVID recession.”
