Build-to-rent apartments and rooftop gardens: how the City of Sydney is facing the future

Developers could be given between 20 percent and 75 percent more floor space under plans by City of Sydney Council to encourage build-to-rent residences.

The allowance will be available to applications made within the five-year time frame from when changes to planning and development rules are approved.

City of Sydney has announced its endorsement of changes to the rules to make building family friendly and build-to-rent apartments easier. Lord mayor of Sydney Clover Moore said the proposed changes to the planning controls balanced the need for more housing with sustainability concerns and the desire to maintain the character of the city.

“Exciting changes include new incentives for build-to-rent housing in the CBD, embedded Net Zero building controls, the promotion of increased tree canopy and green roofs and a streamlined processes for design excellence and major development applications,” she said.

“We are also supporting housing diversity and addressing the loss of smaller and more affordable dwellings as a result of redevelopment.”

The concept of ‘built to rent’ properties has gained traction in recent months as a way of addressing the housing affordability crisis in major centres. The concept is one where developers and their financiers build multi-residential dwellings but, rather than selling them, retain ownership of all properties and rent them out.

Built-to-rent properties are more commonly seen in Europe and the UK, where they have been used to supply housing to those struggling with housing affordability.

Ms Moore said moving to this model would ensure higher occupational rates in inner city residences.

“That is great for inner-city vibrancy and avoids situations where international investors leave newly built flats empty for capital gain,” she said.

The Federal Government announced incentives to encourage built-to-rent development in its budget earlier this year.

The proposed changes would also encourage developers to install green roofs through height incentives, as well as allowing developers 20 percent more floor space for co-living accommodation for students and low income workers.

“We know that students are one of the groups that have been hit hardest by the rental crisis in Sydney, with lack of appropriate accommodation and affordability both major issues,” Ms Moore said.

“By offering these additional floor space incentives we hope landowners and developers will create more co-living accommodation in areas like Haymarket, which has proved popular with students in Sydney.”

Draft changes will be presented to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

Many luxury hotels only build on their gilded reputations with each passing decade. But others are less fortunate. Here are five long-gone grandes dames that fell from grace—and one that persists, but in a significantly diminished form.

The Proto-Marmont |

The Garden of Allah, Los Angeles

A magnet for celebrities, the Garden of Allah was once the scene-making equivalent of today’s Chateau Marmont. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner’s affair allegedly started there and Humphrey Bogart lived in one of its bungalows for a time.

Crimean expat Alla Nazimova leased a grand home in Hollywood after World War I, but soon turned it into a hotel, where she prioritised glamorous clientele. Others risked being ejected by guards and a fearsome dog dubbed the Hound of the Baskervilles. Demolished in the 1950s, the site’s now a parking lot.

The Failed Follow-Up |

Hotel Astor, New York City

The Astor family hoped to repeat their success when they opened this sequel to their megahit Waldorf Astoria hotel in 1904. It became an anchor of the nascent Theater District, buzzy (and naughty) enough to inspire Cole Porter to write in “High Society”: “Have you heard that Mimsie Starr…got pinched in the Astor Bar?”

That bar soon gained another reputation. “Gentlemen who preferred the company of other gentlemen would meet in a certain section of the bar,” said travel expert Henry Harteveldt of consulting firm Atmosphere Research. By the 1960s, the hotel had lost its lustre and was demolished; the 54-storey One Astor Plaza skyscraper was built in its place.

The Island Playground |

Santa Carolina Hotel, Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique

In the 1950s, colonial officers around Africa treated Mozambique as an off-duty playground. They flocked, in particular, to the Santa Carolina, a five-star hotel on a gorgeous archipelago off the country’s southern coast.

Run by a Portuguese businessman and his wife, the resort included an airstrip that ferried visitors in and out. Ask locals why the place was eventually reduced to rubble, and some whisper that the couple were cursed—and that’s why no one wanted to take over when the business collapsed in the ’70s. Today, seeing the abandoned, crumbled ruins and murals bleached by the sun, it’s hard to dismiss their superstitions entirely.

The Tourism Gimmick |

Bali Hai Raiatea, French Polynesia

The overwater bungalow, a shorthand for barefoot luxury around the world, began in French Polynesia—but not with the locals. Instead, it was a marketing gimmick cooked up by a trio of rascally Americans. They moved to French Polynesia in the late 1950s, and soon tried to capitalise on the newly built international airport and a looming tourism boom.

That proved difficult because their five-room hotel on the island of Raiatea lacked a beach. They devised a fix: building rooms on pontoons above the water. They were an instant phenomenon, spreading around the islands and the world—per fan site OverwaterBungalows.net , there are now more than 9,000 worldwide, from the Maldives to Mexico. That first property, though, is no more.

The New England Holdout |

Poland Springs Resort, Poland, Maine

The Ricker family started out as innkeepers, running a stagecoach stop in Maine in the 1790s. When Hiram Ricker took over the operation, the family expanded into the business by which it would make its fortune: water. Thanks to savvy marketing, by the 1870s, doctors were prescribing Poland Spring mineral water and die-hards were making pilgrimages to the source.

The Rickers opened the Poland Spring House in 1876, and eventually expanded it to include one of the earliest resort-based golf courses in the country, a barber shop, dance studio and music hall. By the turn of the century, it was among the most glamorous resort complexes in New England.

Mismanagement eventually forced its sale in 1962, and both the water operation and hospitality holdings went through several owners and operators. While the water venture retains its prominence, the hotel has weathered less well, becoming a pleasant—but far from luxurious—mid-market resort. Former NYU hospitality professor Bjorn Hanson says attempts at upgrading over the decades have been futile. “I was a consultant to a developer in the 1970s to return the resort to its ‘former glory,’ but it never happened.”