Aerial map of housing estate sparks debate about the types of communities we’re building

A photo of the Sunshine Coast suburb of Nirimba, once bushland but now a bustling estate developed by Stockland, has gone viral on the website Reddit.

It appears to show hundreds of homes practically touching each other, with tiny backyards and very few trees.

But news.com.au understands the aerial shot is at least 18 months old, taken before trees became established and landscaping was advanced.

“Connecting people to the place they call home is an important aspect when designing a masterplanned community,” Stockland Queensland project director John Sondergeld said.

“We want our homeowners to be proud of where they live. From the outset, Stockland’s vision for Aura was to create a community that is sustainable, connected and liveable for its residents.”

Nirimba is one of five suburbs within the whole Aura community, which at completion will be home to 20,000 dwellings.

“Residents have easy access to schools, parks and retail, making it a convenient and relaxing lifestyle from families to downsizers,” Mr Sondergeld said.

The post on Reddit posed the question: “Why do new suburbs look like this? Endless sprawl destroying bushland/ farmland and you don’t even get a back yard out of it.”

More than 900 comments were made about urban sprawl in Australia creating “dormitory suburbs”, “horizontal high-rises” and a “boring dystopia”.

One user noted a tendency for many fringe suburb estates producing “essentially ground level apartments … with the bonus of not being near anything” while another said these “storage boxes for workers” show “nice lives are now only for the wealthy”.

Stockland stressed its Aura community in Nirimba offers a range of housing catering to a range of buyers, as well as a high level of amenity.

When complete, it will boast more than 200 kilometres of walking paths and cycle veloways, some 60 hectares of regional scale parklands, 10 sporting grounds, and many neighbourhood parks and playgrounds.

And one-third of the site – some 700 hectares in total – has been dedicated to conservation, including a 400 hectare park and a seven hectare remnant blackbutt forrest.

Professor Andrew Butt, an expert in urban planning and part of the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT, said growing public concern about the quality of life in major cities “points to a crisis in our urban planning and housing policies”.

“In the past, there was a pay-off from buying a home out in the suburbs, which was a lower density lifestyle with access to lots of green spaces,” Professor Butt said.

“Now, in many cases, we have created some of the least well-located places with no benefits. And the trade-off isn’t higher density but accessible locations – they’re higher density, less accessible and less green. That’s a real problem.”

Not all masterplanned communities fall into this category, he pointed out, and outer suburban suburbs shouldn’t be “automatically dismissed”.

“They’re places people come to make homes and lives. What we need to do better is provide the infrastructure – transport, jobs and amenities – to give them characteristics that make them liveable.”

Australia needs ‘better alternatives’

There are countless examples of sprawl done poorly, with swathes of Melbourne and Sydney’s outer suburbs crammed with huge homes on tiny blocks with little outdoor space, minimal or zero tree coverage, dark roofs, and lots of concrete and bitumen.

A number of those higher density housing developments “are not very resilient” when it comes to the effects of urban heat islands, Professor Butt said.

But creating these types of suburbs is a “reasonably reliable and affordable way of delivering housing – and the only approach governments seem to consider to tackle supply and affordability”.

“Australian cities, particularly Melbourne, Sydney and to some extent southeast Queensland, are some of the fastest-growing locations in the developed world,” he said.

Booming populations require more and more new dwellings, and while in-fill and high-density housing close to CBDs has become more common in recent decades, the fringes of cities still “does the bulk of the heavy lifting”.

According to the National Grown Areas Alliance, outer urban communities are now home to some 5.3 million people – about one-fifth of Australia’s population.

“Outer urban growth areas are characterised by sustained and rapid population growth and record levels of building approvals in greenfield sites on the outskirts of our capital cities,” NGAA chief executive Bronwen Clark said.

“In the last decade, growth area populations have grown by 34 per cent, while Australia’s population grew by just 15 per cent.”

Booming but less liveable

Famed for its pristine beaches, laid-back attitude and being home to the late Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, the Sunshine Coast on the whole offers a pretty unbeatable lifestyle.

But it’s welcomed a huge number of new residents over the past decade, now home to 317,000 people and counting, sparking a housing supply shortage and a building boom.

The Australian Urban Observatory at the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University analysed various aspects of life to produce a Liveability Report for the region.

Seven years of research of six areas of liveability found to be associated with health and wellbeing outcomes. They are walkability and access to social infrastructure, public transport, larger public open space, affordable housing and local employment.

Its Liveability Index clearly shows many new housing subdivisions inland and on the outskirts of the Sunshine Coast have very low scores.

Across the Coast, just 22 per cent of all residents live within 400 metres of regular public transport, placing a high reliance on vehicles.

And a little more than half are within 400 metres of a public open space of at least 1.5 hectares.

Many locals are more likely to find a place to buy booze than a decent park. People are on average just 1.2 kilometres from a bottle shop.

We’re building concrete jungles

Urban planning expert Linley Lutton from the University of Western Australia said the traditional suburban backyard has become an endangered species in many cities.

Using Perth as a case study, Ms Lutton explains how land subdivisions in the WA capital in the 1970s were about 600 square metres with a frontage of 20 metres and a minimum rear setback of six metres.

“A Perth family usually had a backyard of 120 square metres at the very least. These areas provided space for large trees, cubby houses, climbing frames, swings, gardens and area to throw a ball,” she explained in an article for The Conversation.

These days, planning regulations only require a yard space that’s about the size of a two-car garage – and a loophole in the law means ‘yard’ can be counted as patios, roof eaves and even paved parking areas.

Houses also tend to stretch right from boundary to boundary, Ms Lutton said, so in all there’s very little grass and yard space surrounding modern homes.

“The result is little useful recreational outdoor space. Far from being child-friendly, these family homes without backyards are restricting our children from enjoying a normal active life in the safety of their homes.

“Reducing open green space is also increasing urban temperatures, with major physical health consequences. All capitals will increase significantly in average temperature by 2050.

“Perth will become Australia’s hottest capital with estimated heat-related deaths increasing from 294 a year to 1419, many more than the city’s annual road toll.”

The mad scramble for space

Across the country, the urgent need for housing is seeing authorities rush out land releases and ease zoning restrictions to help build new neighbourhoods, and in some cases new suburbs.

The New South Wales Government on Thursday announced a major rezoning of a 68 hectare space for at least 3000 news homes, sandwiched between two Metro stations in Macquarie Park.

Apartment towers between 14-storeys and 60-storeys in a patch stretching some 800 metres between Metro Park and Macquarie University stations will help deliver the bulk of the new dwellings.

But examples like this, making use of well-located land in the inner-city, close to major transport nodes, are still rare. Urban sprawl prevails as the preferred option.

In February, the South Australian Government facilitated the single largest release of land in the state’s history, equating to at least 23,700 new dwellings on the outskirts of Adelaide.

“We know our state’s population is going to continue to grow and we need to ensure we are making the right decisions now for the long term,” Premier Peter Malinauskas said.

The announcement came a few months after Mr Malinauskas launched a review of planning provisions by declaring urban sprawl is “not a dirty word”.

But it should be, according to Dr Hulya Gilbert, a lecturer in planning and human geography at La Trobe University.

“Support for the creation of fringe suburbs, while still business as usual in Australia, reflects outdated views,” Dr Gilbert said.

“Evidence of the need to halt urban sprawl is now overwhelming. The spruiking of these greenfield developments as affordable and good for young families with children is at odds with their experiences of these developments.”

Massive developments on the outskirts of cities can lack public transport, key services, a choice of schooling and family friendly outdoor environments, at least in their early days.

The lengthy time taken to build major infrastructure means those who buy early can go without for a long while, as was the case in Tarneit in Melbourne’s outer west.

Prior to the mid-1990s, the area comprised mostly agricultural land until the Victorian capital’s booming population pushed development further and further outwards. Now, Tarneit is home to some 56,000 residences – a population expected to hit 131,000 by 2041.

A fifth of residents commute to work in Melbourne’s CBD, which can take up to two hours during peak, whether travelling by car or train.

The local train station opened less than a decade ago and is already the city’s second-busiest and its car park is usually packed by dawn.

Some locals feel their dreams of suburban bliss have turned into nightmares, with poor connectivity and overly dense neighbourhoods taking the shine off the sense of community.

The Victorian Government disagrees, describing Tarneit as a suburb “cherished by locals for its active public spaces, vibrant civic heart and expanding business ecosystem”.

But in December 2021, it launched its Revitalising Tarneit plan, outlining a long-term vision to enhance public spaces, increase family amenities and harness social connections.

Profits over people?

The smaller the backyard, the shallower the verge, the narrower the gap between dwellings and the less dirt required for the tree coverage, the more land lots a developer can pump out.

But a report from the Office of the Victorian Government Architect in 2019 showed investment in good design has a “lasting legacy” on places and the people who live in or visit them.

“Yet design is often considered a superficial afterthought,” the report read.

“Good design may cost more in the short term, but this investment is generally paid off over the lifetime of the building or place. Construction costs are typically two to three per cent of the whole-life costs, while operating costs are estimated to be 85 per cent.

“In comparison, design costs are small, between 0.3 to 0.5 per cent, yet they can significantly affect the function of a project across its lifespan.”

In addition, evidence show the good design of public places and neighbourhoods has many benefits, including improved physical and mental health, physical activity, improved biodiversity, cooler urban areas, improved air quality and increased social connectedness.