http://www.smh.com.au/national/empty-nests-too-high-for-the-empty-nesters-20091101-hrld.html
HUNDREDS of new high-rise apartments on the upper north shore have stood empty for months due to a lack of demand, casting doubt on the State Government's strategy of opening up the region for high-density development.
Developers have resorted to offering thousands of dollars worth of free furniture in an effort to sell apartments in the shiny new five-storey blocks that have sprung up from Wahroonga to Roseville.
But an analysis of local apartment advertisements, and the comments of real estate agents, suggest many of the buildings remain virtually empty.
One out of 10 real estate agents contacted by the Herald said: ''Unit sales are slow because there are so many of them and so few people in the market.
''I just don't think they've researched the market properly. The people who want to go into a unit are your 65-year-old retirees, but the units being built don't really cater to them. They don't want to live in high-rise.''
An analysis of local newspaper ads by the anti high-rise group Friends of Ku-ring-gai found that apartments in more than a dozen big developments had sat on the market for more than a year.
They include apartments in a multi-storey block in Ada Avenue, Wahroonga, which have been on the market since 2006, and some in Woniora Avenue, Wahroonga, and McIntyre Street, Gordon, which went on sale in August last year.
''Things seem to be picking up a little bit now, but it has been slow,'' said Daniel Cook, the principal agent at Richardson and Wrench, St Ives.
''The market has been flooded - it all came at once.''
But two of the big developers in the region, Meriton and Ralan, said sales were strong.
''Our latest release in Pymble … is now 45 per cent sold [since first release in April] - and more apartments would have been sold had we not decided to increase prices,'' a Meriton spokesman said.
''It is true that 70 apartments remain for sale out of 222 at Loralea Gardens in St Ives. However, we often raise prices in order to slow down sales when we cannot produce enough stock.''
But Friends of Ku-ring-gai and the local council are adamant there is no demand for high-rise apartments in the region and that the destruction of local heritage and ecosystems that is taking place to build them is unnecessary.
Preliminary results from a new council survey reveal that 90 per cent of ratepayers had little interest in moving out of their current home, contradicting the Government's claim that older locals wanted to downsize.
Seventy-five per cent of the 600 respondents said single-storey houses or villas were their preferred dwelling, and less than 8 per cent indicated a preference for multi-storey buildings.
The Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, said Sydney would need 636,000 more homes by 2031 and that there would be a need for both apartments and houses.
''At the moment, only 0.14 per cent of land in the Ku-ring-gai local government area is devoted to townhouses, and only 2 per cent is devoted to apartments,'' she said.
''Construction of new dwellings in the area will be driven by local demand. Put simply, if people won't buy the units, developers won't build them.''
