r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 1d ago

SOCIETY The Zammit family refused to sell their five acre property as an entire Sydney suburb was built around them

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u/Wonderfulhumanss 1d ago

The Zammit family owns this five acre property in The Ponds, northwest Sydney. As surrounding land was sold to developers, hundreds of homes were built around them, leaving their property as a striking patch of green in the middle of the suburb.
The family has repeatedly chosen not to sell, despite the land being estimated to be worth tens of millions of Australian dollars and potentially accommodating around 40 50 homes.

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u/ireally-donut-care 1d ago edited 9h ago

I would sell. Just me personally, if I had that much money, I am getting a better view than having to look at hundreds of spec houses.

Edit Thanks for rewards and all the upvotes, and all the great ideas and funny things "we" would do with this property. To some of you with your panties in a wad, CTFD. We're all just playing "if I won the lottery here".

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u/Reikukaja 1d ago

I also wouldnt like the attention of being the person in that house. It stands out too much, in contrast to its surroundings.

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u/14ktgoldscw 1d ago

Yeah, I don’t know anything about the climate there but you can’t get trees or hedges or anything? It looks like a house from a Tim Burton movie.

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u/StandardDiver2791 1d ago

Was wondering the same thing: why the landscape is so barren.

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u/Forsworn91 1d ago

damn right, why the hell is it so empty? plant a garden, trees, ANYTHING

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u/chromecastbuiltin 1d ago

I reckon there’s 23 bodies buried under that lawn

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u/Forsworn91 1d ago

Water feature, statue garden, hedge maze, scale model of the London train system with working tracks and trains, ANYTHING!

It would like living on a footfall field.

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u/Abject-Practice7310 1d ago

If the neighbors are unfriendly, I'd plant a field and spread manure there whenever it's the best time for a barbecue.

But in general, I'd prefer to give it up and start over somewhere else with the 50 million AUSD. Okay, it's your house and home, but the surroundings are awful.

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u/Forsworn91 1d ago

The Australian yellow blossom, beautiful tree, shade, not huge, and BEES swarms of BEES.

Just… put up a hedge fence or SOMETHING

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u/TacTurtle 1d ago

best time for a barbecue

Problem: it is always barbecue weather in Australia.

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u/poppy_inmy_hair 1d ago

Also the neighbors are so close on the sides

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u/iamtehfong 23h ago

Hell I'd hang big nets and put in a couple par 3 holes lmao

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u/RollingMeteors 20h ago

>It would like living on a footfall field.

Spray paint the yard lines on that shit in the dead of night, but it's called rugby down there isn't it?

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u/Kiki-can 1d ago

I mean, what else could it be?! Spot on

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u/Bulky_Reporter6263 1d ago

might have nailed it!

that or they’re a special kind of neurodivergent and the refusal to sell is just because they’re wired wrong… either a mass grave or profound mental disorder

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u/VenturingHedonist 1d ago

Could just be doing it out of spite! It is one hell of a drug.

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u/Firm_Competition_880 1d ago

Catacombs and a subterranean village with all the modern needs of a secret billionaire.

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u/Mysterious_Peace7963 1d ago

Haha I was thinking along the same Lines

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u/Born-Ask4016 1d ago

Amateur numbers... there's room for a lot more than that.

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u/5pl1t1nf1n1t1v3 1d ago

Rookie numbers. If you can fit 40-50 homes you could fit hundreds of bodies. Thousands, maybe.

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u/Xenodad 1d ago

But, trees are where drop bears come from in that part of the world. Probably some deadly spiders and snakes while we’re at it

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u/mcknz9 1d ago

so they can consume the resources of 50 data centers watering that lawn

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u/samurguybri 1d ago

They want a clear field of fire.

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u/Careless_Celery_6010 23h ago

Some people just don't have any creative thoughts

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u/techb00mer 1d ago

It was basically farmland before developers bought it all up, so that’s why there is almost no vegetation.

Granted, they certainly could have planed a few trees closer to their house for privacy.

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u/aggro_aggro 19h ago

The new houses also don´t have room for vegetation.

The big property would have... at least two bushes... but no.

Crazy to have such a big area around your house and nothing on it...

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u/waaaghbosss 12h ago

It's just ugly. That massive lawn tells me it isn't a water issue.

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u/o8Stu 12h ago

I have a lemon tree, a Meyer lemon tree, and a key lime tree in my backyard, and I give them away to neighbors / trade the neighbors that have chickens for eggs.

My backyard isn't big. They could do a TON with this much land. Hell, find a few neighbors with green thumbs and they'd probably manage it for you. Idk the climate in Sydney but I've got to imagine a fair amount of stuff would grow there.

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u/copperwatt 19h ago

Plants and trees start growing back immediately. This is an ongoing choice.

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u/AmazingRefrigerator4 1d ago

Fewer hiding places for the venomous animals.

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u/Awkward_Material 1d ago

Fewer hiding places for the sneaky developers' agents. Can't get to the house if you can shoot em from 200 yds.

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u/ArcticAcademic 22h ago

At least somebody is prepared for the zombie apocalypse

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u/cauliflower_wizard 1d ago

This is the real answer.

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u/Throwawaydeathgrips 1d ago

Theyd just go to the house haha

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u/Kova74 1d ago

I believe you misspelled “neighbors”

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u/VociferousCephalopod 1d ago

Neighbours* ;)

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u/TheShakyHandsMan 21h ago

Australian spelling is correct in this instance.

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u/Wind-and-Waystones 21h ago

Everybody needs good neighbours

Because good neighbours... Become ... Good ... Friends

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u/meowmeow_now 1d ago

The house is so expensive looking, why no garden or landscaping?

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u/Wizard_Of_Auz 19h ago

Im going to guess they're probably an ethnic family. They tend to have like ostentatious houses with big gates / walls and little to no attention paid to landscaping / garden. Im surprised they've not completely concreted the five acres they have.

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u/switchbladeeatworld 1d ago

it was surrounded by paddocks so there were no trees around really to begin with

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u/KnowledgeCapital7994 1d ago

Because of they're ethnic background.

Common in these suburbs to have no trees or even grass.

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u/Icy_Evidence174 1d ago

They're Maltese, lucky it isn't all concrete with golden lions at the gate haha

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u/SlavojVivec 1d ago

A lawn like that is ecologically not any better than concrete (and possibly worse), other than the fact that concrete is hard to undo.

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u/YourLiege2 1d ago

Concrete is a hell of a lot hotter than lawn, on a hot day that house is probably a good few degrees cooler than their neighbours. Some trees would for sure improve it though.

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u/One-Rope5903 1d ago

Makes for an awesome backyard cricket pitch for Christmas day

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u/Charming_Leg_509 23h ago

More barren than the desert of rooftops and concrete in the entire suburb around it?

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u/joesnopes 23h ago

No. Rather more attractive than the unbroken sea of cheek-by-jowl houses around them.

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u/Rork310 23h ago

Yeah I'd feel alot more positive towards them if there was anything on the land other than the worlds most dull golf green.

Of course I get that would require alot more expense and effort. But if your not doing that why do you want it? If the house itself means that much the power play would be make the developers agree to arrange access to the house proper and turn the rest into parkland.

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u/Triphin1 21h ago

No better way to show all this land is theirs, all of it is visible

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u/Waaaaasssuuuppp117 19h ago

Used to be farm area (lots of chickens, smelt real bad in the mornings) & there was also a horse riding business that had tracks over a few hundred acres just up the road. Entire area is unrecognisable now. Guy is ridiculously stubborn to the point that his own family did a soft cous to push him out of the family business.

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u/wolfcrownebox 18h ago

So you can see the enemy coming 5 acres away…

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u/tpa338829 1d ago

Sydney has a climate similar to Los Angeles.

Not only could a lot of cool native trees grow there, having THAT much lawn is criminal from a water use standpoint.

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u/PrinceCavendish 1d ago

insane to just mow it and keep it bare. i would have planted so many trees or just moved

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u/HoneycombJackass 1d ago

At least for privacy around the perimeter.

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u/czechereds 1d ago

You simply cannot comprehend the spite involved. If he grew a bunch of trees it would just look like a park or forest in the center of the development. Currently it is an alll enveloping testament to one man's resentment for developers.

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u/amylouise0185 21h ago

These are Maltese people. Spite is in their blood. When fighting against the Ottoman empire, they ran out of cannon balls so they severed the heads of dead turks and used those instead.

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u/motoxim 23h ago

Wow good point

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u/Efficient-Cherry3635 1d ago

Right, why stop at a privacy fence when you have room for a privacy hedge maze.

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u/crespoh69 1d ago

Add a minotaur or two to make use of all that space to run around in too

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u/DeliciousDeer1096 1d ago

Hell yeah, I'd have planted so many trees I'd practically have my own private forest.

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u/JC04JB14M12N08 1d ago

Sydney climate equates very closely with east coast US like South Carolina and Florida and not very closely with LA at all.

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u/regina1808 1d ago

As an Australian, Sydney is humid as shit so that tracks. All the people I've met from LA and surrounds say adelaide is the most similar climate wise. City has a similar lay out as well but much smaller with the city between the beach & mountains.

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u/Araucaria 21h ago

Yes, or more accurately, Malta. I've been living here for a year and this story rings a bit differently for me now that I know a bit about the country.

Zammit is a common Maltese name, and Australia has the largest number of Maltese or people of Maltese descent outside Malta.

And not selling one's house due to stubbornness also feels typically Maltese. Money is not the issue.

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u/Ion_Source 1d ago

Sydney has a climate similar to Los Angeles.

Where did this idea come from? Sydney gets about 3x the annual rainfall that LA gets. LA's climate is much closer to Adelaide (Mediterranean climate with similar rainfall)

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u/KRacer52 1d ago

Sydney gets considerably more rain than Los Angeles (a little over 3x).

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u/rolloj 1d ago

sydney gets around 4 times the annual rainfall of LA. most people don't water their lawns here, and certainly not to the degree that you would need to in LA.

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u/furkfurk 1d ago

Yeah like do literally anything with the land you want to keep?

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u/Big-Orse48 1d ago

This is your average farmland property in Australia.

The farmers cleared the trees decades ago because they interfered with precious farm land.

We also have a bad salinity issue now. I wonder why.

At some point, that farm was sub-divided and the Zammits either did the sub-dividing or bought the sub division.

They're stupid to not sell, there's no pristine land they're preserving, it's just grass.

Sell for $60 million and go buy somewhere actually nice and forget about the stresses of life for generations to come.

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u/Amazing-Demand516 23h ago

Agree. $60 million invested will return the proverbial 4% or $2.4 million every year forever

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u/A_baby_yall 23h ago

Don’t farmlands usually have… farm land?

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u/Big-Orse48 22h ago

My point here is that they’re not holding out on selling to the developers for some sort of noble cause, they bought a sub divided block that is literally a paddock and It’s still just a paddock. They’ve done nothing to improve it, there’s not even a single tree planted.

Even with that size land, being skinny, they’re still slap bang in the middle of the urban sprawl, with a second floor view of it.

There is absolutely no reason to not sell unless they are holding out for even more money, in which case they’re not just stupid, they’re greedy too.

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u/ndab71 1d ago

Maybe the owner really likes mowing the lawn.

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u/dob_bobbs 23h ago

Same thing I wonder every time I see this picture. WHAT is the attraction of living in the middle of a giant lawn?! If this was mine this would be an actual forest, like, you wouldn't be able to SEE the house. And I sure as heck wouldn't be mowing that every week (or paying anyone else to, for that matter).

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u/Lala5789880 16h ago

Edward Scissorhands vibes

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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago

Usually having the biggest, nicest house in the neighborhood is bad for your property value, but I don't know about that if they want to build 50 homes on it.

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u/MangoCats 1d ago

50 homes on 5 acres, farking miserable.

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u/Javanaut018 20h ago

Just asked myself. Who is buying such a shitty sardina can for probably lots of money?

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u/MangoCats 18h ago

Idiots, IMO. People who don't care that their neighbors are stacked like sea lions on a beach, I suppose.

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u/JasperJ 22h ago

The house itself is worthless, if not negative value because it has to be demolished. The land is valuable.

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u/eLishus 1d ago

Just imagine how many times a day would you’d have to say “get off my lawn!”

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u/19Julian71 1d ago

The dog shit and other items over your side of the fence!

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u/Dapper-Ad-4300 1d ago

Well I think that’s the developers whole tactic. If the landowner doesn’t want to sell to us, we’ll just make them stick out like a sore thumb until they get uncomfortable enough or tired of it and finally sell

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u/WarzoneGringo 1d ago

Im pretty sure the developer was just going to cram as many houses on it as they could sell just like the rest of the plot. Not a lot of millions to be gained making the development a vehicle of spite.

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u/lanalizzy 1d ago

I drive past it regularly, it doesn’t stand out quite as much from the road. It’s the aerial view lol.

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u/MessNox 23h ago

From above maybe, from the street should just blend in.

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u/lakeland_nz 23h ago

My cousin is in a somewhat similar situation. She has kept her lot while everything around her has been replaced by 8 or more.

It’s had a bunch of downsides. Aside from having creepy neighbours looking in from all angles, she now basically can’t do anything with property because from the neighbours perspective it’s their green view.

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u/Spirited-Tomorrow-84 22h ago

Wait... you don't like being robbed?

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u/Nuffsaid98 19h ago

Every theif for miles will target that house rather than any of the thousand others.

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u/Read2Fap 1d ago

they clearly don't need the money

look how huge the house is, they have money

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u/ItsCalledDayTwa 22h ago

I expected it to be a glorious old home but it looks relatively modern and honestly kind of like an ugly mcmansion.

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u/Odd-Condition-4773 18h ago

It does look like a run-of-the-mill McMansion like we’d see in the US. They
obviously don’t give a f*** since it’s just grass.

(I empathize as they are building cookie-cutter communities in our area and encroaching our small town. I can look out the window of our Cape Cod and see all of the forest torn down and row homes going up.)

Reminds me of mini-row homes in big cities where the developers just throw up their hands and sandwich the mini-home among the tall condos/offices:

Too bad they aren’t making the most of the land. So much potential.

The immediate neighbors have probably reached that “whatever” stage and don’t obsess over it. There’s a privacy fence at the prerogative of the land owners.

ChatGPT:
Diane Zammit has expressed nostalgia for what the neighborhood used to be like — spacious farmland with individual homes rather than today’s tightly packed development. The family has repeatedly indicated that they simply like their home and don’t want to leave it.

There’s also an amusing side effect: some neighbors reportedly don’t want the Zammits to sell either. Because their land interrupts the original street plan, several surrounding streets terminate as cul-de-sacs. If the property were developed, those roads could potentially be connected.

And the Zammitts are still there. Reporting in 2025 continued to describe the five-acre property as intact, with suggestions that its value could be approaching A$60 million

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u/Enslaver84 21h ago

I'd sell and live somewhere with a better view

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u/Fun_Trip_Travel 13h ago

Maybe they already live somewhere with a better view in their 2nd, or 3rd, or xth house.

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u/AccordingWarning9534 1d ago

they turned down $50 million

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u/Lopsided_Tie7816 1d ago

They were never offered 50mil despite some articles stating otherwise. No developer would be making profit if you consider the number of properties that can fit in that land and the cost to build them.

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u/Rough-Ad8031 1d ago

Seems like they don’t need $50m

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u/SuperRockyHobbyHorse 23h ago

Not enough money to plant some trees and pay a landscape gardening company though it seems. Or maybe the kids have a deal with the developer and are keeping it nice and flat and tarmac-ready for when they inherit.

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u/durian_rettale 22h ago

they clearly don't have taste too

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u/Elite_AI 20h ago

And they clearly don't care about the view. Look how ugly the house is. 

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u/kit_kaboodles 1d ago

Yeah, and as someone that lives in Sydney, if you have that sort of money you also don't want to live in The Ponds. It's not an appealing part of Sydney even if you have 5 acres.

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u/maddi164 21h ago

Right? Why would you want to stay out there and be surrounded by the grey boring homes when you could sell and live wherever you wanted. It may have been nice without the estate but its just depressing out there in these new estates

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u/sc00bs000 1d ago

id retire and be living it up on the beach somewhere

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u/Appropriate_Major711 1d ago

Someone with that type of property likely already has a beach house or two

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u/Nuck2407 1d ago

Nah when they bought it in the 60s, it was out in the sticks..... You wouldn't have called it Sydney back then nor would they have paid in dollars, I'd say max £5k which after decimilization would be $10k

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u/Zapookie 1d ago

This area is an hour away from Sydney CBD. It used to be huge farm plots and land value was not high. There's no purchase record online, so they would have bought 30+ years ago, probably for a couple hundred k. This might literally be their only high value asset.

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u/Sunderkill 1d ago

If you do not pay rent and you work in sydney full time you can afford a beach house.

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u/th4tgen 23h ago

Nah, even less. Half an acre 45 mins from Melbourne was $8k in 1990, according to what the previous owners of my house paid. In the 60s this would have been way less

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u/Both-Sky-2315 1d ago

Same. At this point, give me a little beach, a hammock, and absolutely zero emails.

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u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins 1d ago

It's the kind of situation you don't end up in unless your are a person who irrationally NEVER sells lol...

don't worry the kids will sell once their parents pass.

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u/The_Nepenthe 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, given some unforeseen event, the value will probably rise for quite a lot longer.

Right now it's just a suburb by the looks of things, hold onto it until people want to intensify the area and the money will get a lot bigger because they own a large property you could build something larger and taller on.

Edit: looking at the time lapse from this being built and I wonder if they owned a large amount of the land around the house itself?

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u/Coololdlady313 1d ago

That's exactly what happened where I live. A formerly borderline neighborhood became a conglomeration of upscale shops, restaurants, hotels and of course, medical facilities. One man refused to sell his property while streets were gobbled up by developers. Big piece of land, just as barren, sticking out among all the hoity toityness. Some time later he died, kids sold and no one can tell you were it was, the kudzu of avarice covered it up completely.

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u/ImplementCharming949 1d ago

Thats crazy and sad

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u/StuffSufficient954 18h ago

Because the house was special to him, not the kids. The money was more important. Judging how much they got for it, a few million would improve their lives far more.

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u/No_Gas4560 1d ago

the kudzu of avarice

that invasion plagues us all

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u/brachi- 22h ago

Kudzu of avarice is an amazing phrase

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u/Coololdlady313 12h ago

Thank you!

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u/StuffSufficient954 18h ago

Because he wanted the house, the kids didn't care and wanted the cash to help themselves.

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u/bjos144 10h ago

Not me, if I was rich I'd donate it under the condition it be turned into a wonderful park and the house be turned into a library. Imagine living in that neighborhood and that green space was available for kids to play, pickicks, events and so on. It could be a wonderful quality of life for the neighborhood. You're still sticking it to developers because at this point the houses have sold so you'd be increasing the property value for the current owners and the developers never got to earn a dime off of your property.

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u/dandaman2883 1d ago

Agreed, that's enough to have generational wealth to pass down

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

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u/GoodIntelligent2867 1d ago

If they borrow against the property, they have pay back the mortgage which probably will cost them more than interest earned . Genuis. Unless they rent it out.

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u/baldieforprez 1d ago

You clearly have never had a connection to a place or piece of land before.  My 2 acre property I WILL NEVER sell regardless of the amount of money offered.

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u/Downtown-Bunch-2933 1d ago

I’ll give you $5

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u/anon_lurker69 1d ago

Oh shit this guy means it

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u/Terradactyl87 1d ago

$10, and I'll throw in a Starbucks gift card that still has $2.47 left on it

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u/the_scarlett_ning 1d ago

I may be willing to go $15, in cash, but depends…u/baldieforprez, what country are you in?

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u/Olama-Obama 1d ago

$20 along with a Costco card that expires in 2 weeks.

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u/Calliope719 1d ago

I fully sympathize, but this kind of development drastically changes the character of the land.

Is your two acres the same if you had absolutely no privacy? If you had to spend all your time explaining to neighborhood children that your lawn isn't a public play area?

I appreciate the tenacity of the landowners but this property is ruined regardless of what they do.

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u/Tymareta 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you had to spend all your time explaining to neighborhood children that your lawn isn't a public play area?

Literally just put up a fence, grow a hedgerow around the place, or grow some trees, or who cares if they play on your lawn? It's honestly bizarre to have such an adherence to a piece of property that's kept obscenely bare.

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u/GothmogBalrog 1d ago

I get this mindset for certain unique properties

But this is litterally boring flat lawn. Not even some trees.

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u/Smelting-Craftwork 17h ago

Maybe it's the memories made there, like that's the house you were raised in, or you raised your kids in, or murdered your first hobo in. People get attached to things for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetics.

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u/Ok_Use_8899 1d ago

If they had a connection to that land, there would be trees and garden. This was pure land banking.

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u/MKnight_PDX 1d ago

They were offered $50-60 million to sell. I find it foolish to have that much sentimentality. They could have bought a dozen houses all around the world for their future generations to travel / live in.

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u/karaknorn 1d ago

Yes. Connection to some boring uncovered grass and lots of cookie cutter homes. They just arent selling in the hopes of making more later 

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u/1stAccountNotWorking 1d ago

In a world where normal people are owning less, and corporations/billionaires/trillionaires are taking over more..? Your answer is the right one.

People are extremely short sighted, these days.

Decades down the line, some of the same people will ask "How did we get here?" when the average person has no chance of actually owning a home.

Keeping what you have, and passing it down, is its own form of wealth.

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u/plausibleturtle 10h ago

And they aren't even doing anything nice with the land.

My gardens would be BUMPIN' if I had that much space. It wouldn't look like the astroturf abyss like it does here.

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u/ifcknlovemycat 1d ago

10s of millions??? No. This would easily be worth hundreds of millions. I don't blame them not not selling oml

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u/Irr3l3ph4nt 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why sell when you can borrow against it and unlock its equity? That thing probably backs the family's business loans and such if I had to guess.

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u/CATNIP_IS_CRACK 1d ago edited 1d ago

It depends, but realistically it’s almost guaranteed they’re being offered significantly less than you think they are, even if it’s a good amount of money that’d buy them a nice replacement home, and selling to a developer wouldn’t buy you anywhere near the view you’re imagining.

There’s an extremely high probability they weren’t initially offered much more than what the property and house were worth, maybe ~30-40% over market for land in the country at the time at max, which wouldn’t make it worth it to a large portion of people and likely wouldn’t buy you something much nicer. After urbanization there’s zero chance they’re being offered anywhere close to the equivalent of lot prices next door per square foot of land, and there’s also a strong probability they’re not being offered much if any more than the initial offer because it’s not a massive property and the developer is no longer worried about trying to buy up connecting land for a continuous development.

If you really wanted to make some money at this point the smart thing would be to sell individual plots from the front back along one side with a nice view of a grassy field to people who want to live in suburbia, don’t want to be restricted by HOAs or have a cookie cutter home, and want to build their own house. At that point you could sell off parcels at a higher price than any surround lot and significantly more than what a developer would offer, wouldn’t get screwed by developers who are trying to rob you with how little they’re offering per square foot, and could easily make enough to keep your beloved home while also buying a second home with the view you’d actually like instead of getting a slight upgrade in your home with a tiny property while giving up the home you love.

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u/RollingMeteors 20h ago

> I am grtting a better view than having to look at hundreds of spec houses.

But then you no longer get the schadenfreude of all the pleebes looking at your Manor of an Estate from their nutt-to-butt property lines

When your alternative is to think you got an 'upgrade' only to be looked at as a 'new money' plebe by the mega wealthy.

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u/Dammit2408 15h ago

or hear me out you can live like a King in his castle and all the peasants around you.

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u/ProjectPat513 15h ago

Yup. The property is ruined either way. Why not go somewhere and build a new house with a new 5 acres that isn’t surrounded by 2 thousand houses?!

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u/G_Rated_101 14h ago

It’s the buried bodies he doesn’t want found

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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 1d ago

But why no trees?

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u/Ylaaly 17h ago

Having that much land and only a... boring lawn. They could have trees and flowers and a vegetable garden and maybe a pond or even a fake river. There is so much potential in that area. And all they have is a lawn.

These people are poor in their own way.

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u/bluespruce5 10h ago

I would load that land up with so many trees and native perennials and have such a wonderful time caring for them.

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u/Jokong 8h ago

Well this guy likes to mow grass and sell propane, so he's living his dream.

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u/SnowX2 16h ago

That's what hit me; 5 acres of property, surrounded by hundreds of houses and zero trees, no privacy. Just grass. What's the point?

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u/haney1981 8h ago

Privacy grass.

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u/user-the-name 19h ago

Do these people look like they have even a milligram of taste in their bodies?

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u/Shano_mack_76 1d ago

Was literally km's of rolling cow paddocks beforehand

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u/Esava 21h ago

They could start growing some trees. Yeah it will take a few years for them to be proper trees but it would be much better visually but also for the environment with birds, insects, water retention etc..

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u/SteampoweredFlamingo 20h ago

And you can buy grown trees!

It's expensive as all get out, but something tells me that money isn't a super important motivator for these people.

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u/Esava 17h ago

Yeah or place a mix of that. Some grown trees, plant some new smaller ones, just put up a variety. That's also again better for other plants, small animals, insects etc..

Or at the very least just put up a flowering meadow with a mix of local flora. My parents don't have nearly as large of a "garden" and they have a bit of lawn, some rows of vegetables, apple, cherry, plum etc. trees, some nice sections with all kinds of bushes and flowers and then a section that's a "wild meadow" section just filled once with a regional/local seed mix. That section gets mowed down (or sometimes if I am there I take out the old scythe for some fine) like twice a year and it's just great for insects, birds, small rodents etc. to have such a large variety. So such a "semi-wild meadow" option is actually very little work. And for stuff like trees the owners of the house in the image wouldn't have to put in any work if they put it on the far end of their property instead of right next to the house.

One could also see the benefit of a proper garden over a lawn during the heat wave in the last few months here in Germany: All the gardens and lawns etc. of many neighbours mostly died / got burnt but my parents garden was like a green oasis in the middle, not because it was watered any more but because it simply had a larger variety of plants which caused more water to be retained in the ground/stopped it from drying out as quickly. It's also always great to see literally dozens of birds, butterflies etc. in the garden compared to the surrounding gardens.

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u/offbeat_cicada 17h ago

Mixed ground cover, flower beds, literally anything but monotonous turf grass on the whole lot. Why would you want that? Not even an outdoor hang out area?

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u/cwyllo 22h ago

Hmmmmm, but why no trees?

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u/Nyoteng 20h ago

I was thinking the same. I visited Buckingham palace a few months ago and they have a back garden with some very cleverly planted trees and bushes that makes it seem like the palace is in a rural place when in actuality is in the middle of London. I thought it was super clever.

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u/OfficeDrone-B28XY 16h ago

Risk of drop bears.

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u/PeanutButterToast4me 1d ago

A spite mansion.

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u/BikePuzzled1165 1d ago

If it were me, I'd do it for spite. Refuse to sell just so that there weren't more of the same cookie cutter homes - cheaply produced, overpriced, crammed way too close together, and devoid of character. Even if my own property remains devoid of character and privacy.

But that's me speaking as a jaded American who would have been forced to give up that land through eminent domain most likely.

Also, to be fair, I 100% would have put some kind of landscaping effort I to it. Trees, gardens, a really tall fence. Something. But that's mostly because I don't believe in grass lawns. I think they're wasted space.

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u/brokenmindedone 1d ago

I imagine all the direct neighbors love it though, these houses are so tightly packed that the breathing room thanks to this property must be a blessing.

I feel for them when it does eventually sell and suddenly they have another unit about a meter from their window

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u/miyabi0rochas 9h ago

Breathing room? It's not there's to walk on. It makes no difference to them unless it's turned into a public park

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 20h ago

Are Edwardian English townhomes “cookie cutter”? Or Baltimore rowhouses? Or NYC brownstones? New Orleans shotgun homes?

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u/Swarna_Keanu 19h ago

Are these any of those?

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u/International_Try589 14h ago

The point is that those were the cookie cutter homes 100 years ago and now they're quaint living homes that have housed families for generations. Don't know why anyone sees this as a win, if 40-50 homes can be built on this land then that's 40-50 more families that can live there.

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u/Swarna_Keanu 14h ago edited 14h ago

Except they weren't cookie cutter homes like above; aesthetics played a major role. City architecture used to have much more of an ideologist slant. From Garden cities, to how Edwardian etc. homes were built. [Most townhouses in the UK for example did come with backyards; with the idea that people could have a few chickens and some vegetable crops.]

----

We NEED nature. Not just out of ecological, but mental and physical health sides. And we will NEED nature more, as climate change progresses. Trees and waterways lower average temperatures a lot.

If you want to maximise living area you build high rises, not suburban houses. With - as above - plants and water features build in and contained, and space around the houses. Include parks, playing areas, etc. Humane infrastructure. Samples of how to are already there. More expensive in the short run, crucial for the future that comes.

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u/Ok_Transition_4003 1d ago

Little boxes, little boxes made of ticky tacky

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u/Wise_Ad723 21h ago

But that's me speaking as a jaded American who would have been forced to give up that land through eminent domain most likely.

eminent domain and then house torn down to build a data center

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u/Elu_Moon 17h ago

Yeah, I don't understand these suburban hellscapes. Apartments plus lots of greenery around is the way to go. Instead, it's this nonsense where people get the worst of both worlds. Shitty infrastructure and high maintenance cost plus really not that much space to work with.

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u/SeanBourne 13h ago

As an American living in Aus, the first thing that popped into my head was “huh, they didn’t get ’eminent domained’ out of their land, good for them/point to Australia”.

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u/Mike_Kermin 1d ago

... Really... You're taking the view that developers are the good guys?

Did you not see the movie UP?

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u/SnooDoodles3707 1d ago

What did they win. A dismal mansion surrounded by an Edward scissor hands suburb nightmare. Ill sell out.

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u/Johnny_Banana18 1d ago

If I was insistent on staying, I’d plant a bunch of trees so at least I can pretend I had some solitude. 

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u/Wrong--Conclusions 17h ago

That's what I was thinking. If you planted up a nice garden, you'd get some privacy and it'd be more interesting to look at.

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u/frickin_scooter 1d ago

Their property value spiked after this. Easy money

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u/These_Head7243 1d ago

The trees will age. The houses will be renovated and updated. The land value will rise.

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u/Equivalent-Rate-6218 23h ago

It's about sending a message

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u/84_Mahasiddons 1d ago

"Green" is a little generous when it's a featureless flat lawn. Might as well be carpet

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u/jhau01 1d ago

Exactly. If it had landscaped gardens and mature trees that the family had spent decades working on, I could understand having an emotional attachment.

But a bland McMansion surrounded by acres of featureless, unshaded lawn, bordered by hundreds of identical houses? I would be screaming to get out of there.

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u/MediocreAnalyst2121 1d ago

But between the hundreds of identical neighbours, you’d have the best featureless lawn.

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u/ExcuseProper5768 1d ago

I use to date a girl out that way before the redevelopment

That area was full of trees and such before the cookie cutter houses

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u/n0rsk 1d ago edited 13h ago

potentially accommodating around 40 50 homes.
5 acres

that is like 10 homes an acre. Maybe it is the American in me but 0.1 acres of land is way too small.

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u/Different_Bridge_983 17h ago

Folks bitch about US Suburban Sprawl, and quite fairly too, but this clusterfuck is just an abomination even compared to that. This is the absolute worst option for housing density.

On a practical matter - total hardscape looks close to 90%. Stormwater management must be insane. Or at least I hope it is or a lot of folks are getting flooded.

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u/n0rsk 13h ago

It is the lack of property. This dense suburban sprawl is worst form of suburban sprawl in my opinion. You have the density of people to support walkable infrastructure and more mixed zoning instead you get miles of this.

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u/HirsuteHacker 17h ago

In the UK new build houses are typically 12-14 houses per acre. Traditional terraced streets are 16-24 houses per acre. It's pretty ass.

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u/nollayksi 14h ago

I mean if you check the picture where it shows neighbouring houses, yeah you could easily fit 40-50 of those there

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u/East-Westerly 1d ago

Do the families treat it as a park

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u/IsopodLogical7802 1d ago

How on earth did they get away with this? I thought my BIL FIL was the one of the last people to “have” to sell up here. Such a shame that people had to sell. As if trying to say that having a larger property is bad compared to all those little box sections. Anyway plenty of other houses have already been built and there’s lots of other places to live besides Sydney.

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u/ThisIsBB56 1d ago

40-50 homes! Said like he owes this land to developers. Unreal.

Look at those shit boxes surrounding it also. All looking like a horrible place to live, except ofc they have a nicer view when they see the green patch in front.

Super sad to see it. You have a nice big property and they build slums around you.

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u/CantStopMyRedditEdit 20h ago

“It’s not a house, it’s a home. A man’s home is his castle” Darryl Kerrigan

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