We’ve got cracks’: Rose Bay residents fear Mascot Towers repeat
The Sydney suburb faces a development surge which, according to residents, poses too many risks for the low-lying area. The planning minister has dismissed their concerns as just another example of NIMBYism.
Lucy SladeProperty reporter
Rose Bay residents fear another uninhabitable residential building – like Sydney’s Mascot Towers – will be built on their soft, low-lying land, at a time when cracks are appearing in homes next to developments and more than a dozen more projects in the pipeline are awaiting approval.
Locals have said the over-development, combined with the suburb’s shallow water table, could ultimately imperil new housing projects. Their homes are cracking already and it could be new developments that are next.
Those concerns are serious, are based on hydrogeological analysis and should not be simply dismissed as NIMBYism, the residents said.
But, with the state government under pressure to increase density and meet housing targets, NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully has dismissed their claims as “new and creative ways to say no to housing”.
In one dramatic example, residents on either side of a $4 million four-storey building in the affluent harbourside suburb obtained a stop-work order from the NSW building commissioner two years ago after they noticed cracks appearing in their unit walls. That was after digging for the development’s one-storey basement car park had begun on Richmond Road.
A renter in the building next door to the development, who wished to remain anonymous, said the damage to his home happened quickly one weekend.
“I walked into the kids’ room and I was just like, ‘oh my god, this is new’. And then we spoke to the neighbours and said, ‘we’ve got cracks’. Before we knew it, everyone was saying they had cracks.”
He described the ground being dug up as “muddy sludge” and said it would be a recurring issue for others living next door to developments.
While the stop-work order remains in place, the developer, Positive Invest, claimed it would be permitted to recommence works once the protective measures were implemented. “The site is being prepared for construction commencement. All available avenues of assistance were provided to the neighbour.”
The Save Rose Bay resident action group has reports of at least 10 other homes near new developments sustaining damage such as cracks in walls, basement garages flooding and plumbing dislodgement.
The front rooms of a house next to a development site on Wilberforce Avenue in Rose Bay caved after the excavation of a single storey. Ray White
One case that has also sparked concern is a home on Wilberforce Avenue in Rose Bay, whose front walls collapsed after a single-storey basement car park began being built next door. The residents moved out as it was deemed unsafe to live in.
The property, which was sold for $6 million in 2023, has since been demolished and is being replaced by duplexes. The developer has been contacted for comment.
“It’s an uninsurable risk, and people have basically kept quiet because they don’t want their property devalued,” Save Rose Bay committee member Carmen McLoughlin said.
“We’ve got one spot – 14,000 square meters all in one strip – in the settlement area that has been targeted for these developments … What about the buildings themselves? It’ll be the next Mascot Towers.”
The Mascot Towers became uninhabitable after dangerous cracks appeared in the 10-storey building’s basement car park in 2019. The sorry saga was only resolved last year under a government rescue plan that allowed the majority of owners to sell their properties and free themselves of debt related to apartments in the tower.
The Rose Bay residents, and some Woollahra councillors, believe their low-lying suburb’s water table cannot cope with the amount of proposed developments that require deep excavation to build multi-storey underground car parks.
Their fears are growing, with 13 apartment development applications currently in the planning process.
“It’s really going to be trying to plant Hong Kong in an area that can’t accommodate it,” McLoughlin said.
“Our big concern is not the fact that we’re trying to increase housing, but that there is an area of Rose Bay that is mapped out as a settlement area, and that area has complex hydrogeological aspects to it,” he added.
“It’s considered vulnerable in a number of reports in that it’s got a very shallow water table. It makes it very hard to do deep level excavation without having some repercussions.”
The Rose Bay residents are among a growing cohort of activists – including Mosman residents who made 90 submissions against one development – pushing back against state government housing policy that permits higher-density developments within 800 metres of 171 town centres across the state.
But in Rose Bay, the residents have said their concerns are substantial and shouldn’t simply be dismissed as the NIMBY-style rejection of much-needed development.
Planning minister Paul Scully disagrees. He has put the onus back on the council to prove the developments are risky, arguing it has the responsibility to assess what constitutes a suitable and safe project.
“I have confidence that if sites have constraints, professionals such as engineers and designers – whose job it is to make sure developments are structurally sound – will get it right [because] they have been doing so for years,” Scully said.
“But seriously, this sounds like NIMBY-ism by another name from a council whose population has been falling over the last 30 years, while most other council areas have grown exponentially.
“I am growing tired of this approach to housing where some people think that the best thing they can do is look for new and creative ways to say no to housing, instead of embracing new and creative ways for their suburb to help tackle our housing challenge.”
Woollahra councillor Merrill Witt says her concern is not over individual assessments of the development applications. She believes they need to be looked at as a group.
“I think my biggest fear is the impact they [the developments] will have on the water table and the impact that the excavation will have on the neighbouring buildings,” Witt said.
“At the moment, it seems like it’s left up to the poor residents to sort it out in court, but it shouldn’t be.”
In 2024, a hydrogeological and geotechnical report commissioned by Woollahra Council to assess Rose Bay’s suitability for increased development found the excavation and dewatering of land for multi-level underground car parks “may have adverse impact on the landform stability”.
“The magnitude of these implications can be significant when the developments are considered from a cumulative perspective,” it said.
Woollahra councillors have put forward a motion to commission another study to specifically assess the impacts of excavation for underground carparks in the Rose Bay and Double Bay rezoned areas, as well as a coastal vulnerability area map.
The councillors are pushing for Craig Swift-McNair, general manager of the council, to seek legal advice on whether the development approvals can be delayed and the potential liability if “developments are prematurely approved”.
The time-sensitive concerns have ended in a blame game.
The council is blaming the state government for not adequately assessing the risks of the development area, the Save Rose Bay group is blaming the council for not applying to the state for various development exclusions sooner, and the Minns government is blaming councils for not approving developments fast enough to meet the state’s housing targets.
Rose Bay housing target
Meanwhile, the potential for more development sites to emerge is increasing as residents band together to amalgamate their properties to sell to developers.
A major example is a site at Rose Bay’s Wilberforce Avenue and Dover Road, where 12 properties covering 5978 square metres sold for $165 million. The suburb’s median house price is $5.2 million.
The NSW government’s aim is to deliver 112,000 new homes over a five-year period from the low and medium rise policy, and 376,000 new homes overall, to meet the federal government’s National Housing Supply and Affordability target by the 2028-29 financial year. Woollahra Council’s housing target is to add 1900 new homes by that time.
Sydney YIMBY group chairman Justin Simon says podium parking structures, fewer parking spots or eliminating parking from apartment buildings are solutions to the residents’ concerns.
“Rose Bay has spent decades failing to build enough and as a result, it has some of the most expensive housing on the planet. We’ve been putting homes in Sydney’s west instead because fewer locals complain, but that’s not fair and it’s not strategic. The east is up to 10 degrees cooler than the west in summer. For the sake of climate resilience, we must rebalance where housing growth happens.”
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Lucy Slade covers real estate for The Australian Financial Review, based in the Sydney newsroom. She was previously the breaking news reporter. Email Lucy at lslade@afr.com
