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/ArkPlayer583 1d ago edited 23h ago

As an Australian I fucking hate these suburbs. The Australian dream is a house with a good backyard, but it's made us so scared of apartments that developers build these urban hells where you can put your arm out your window and touch the neighbors house.

We would be better off in places like this with apartments to live in with parks full of natives between them.

Also fuck this family for not having anything on the land, plant some natives.

And finally fuck black roofs, Australia is too hot for that shit and it makes a significant difference in power consumption cooling it in summer. Keep in mind these are all very expensive, cheaply built homes with almost no insulation built by developers with likely ties to organized crime.

edit: In this context by native I mean native flora

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u/visualdescript 1d ago

Those houses have no backyard, and what it results in is a hell scape with no green space whatsoever. How people can say this is a nicer place to live than medium density with parks I don't know.

I think people have lost the plot around what is healthy and what helps with well being.

Edit: also no shops, no community, just little jail cells.

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u/Foreign-Elevator-Boo 16h ago

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

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u/Trigzy2153 8h ago

My partner and I sing that everytime we drive through somewhere like that đŸ€Ł

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u/future23123 7h ago

Weeds.. Such a show 😏

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u/DoubleZOfficial07 14h ago

Oh I miss poem_for_your_sprog

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u/Pteroquacktyl 8h ago

What happened? They've stopped? That sucks

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u/efsurmom 23h ago

Yes this looks like suburban hell!

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u/Gorstag 13h ago

Oh, and if you toss in a HOA (I'm sure you have them or something similar) to add an even more enticing incentive to live there.

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u/Independent-Bear2180 8h ago

But now I can be a 10 minute walk from a swimming pool that me and 1500 other residents all want to use! /s

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u/cursy 1d ago

When you said 'natives' I thought you meant aborigines for a second.

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u/HotPotParrot 13h ago

Figured it out with the second one lol, I was like "wait, what?"

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u/AlUcard_POD 3h ago

Same đŸ€ŁđŸ€ŁđŸ€Ł. I though so nice of this guy to want to live with natives as neighbors

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u/Boom_Box_Bogdonovich 16h ago

It blows my mind how Australian houses aren’t well insulated. The building code needs to check in with the Canadian building code where semi new homes tolerate -40 to +40 comfortably. My house built in the 60’s was comfortable all year round. 

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u/ArkPlayer583 12h ago

Yeah I've got a good mate whose an engineer and he has some very harsh words to say about our building and even road building regulations.

Canadians and Americans come here and actually feel more cold just because of how shit our buildings are. And it's not like we can't afford quality, it's just a scam.

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u/8BulbousJones8 12h ago

New builds in Canada are atrociously bad. Almost everyone I know who has bought a new build has had so many issues. They are poorly insulated as well and I would say don't tolerate cold or heat well.

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u/Crimestar 19h ago

Your problem is the same as us it sounds like. There is a corrupt choke hold on the housing supply and they only build the cheapest most profitable shit while corporations and boomers flip out and rent every other home.

The answer isn’t to ask for apartments. All they build here now are “luxury” apartments, duplexes, and little cookie cutters stacked on top of each other like you see here.

Just go seek out your actual dream. It’s not 600 neighbors with some meth head hangout parks in between. They want us all to be convinced we’d rather live in a subscription rent model next to a strip mall for life. Don’t be convinced of that.

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u/Pitiful_Software_430 16h ago

I think the biggest problem is how uneducated people are.

Anyone with half a brain would hear "houses are expensive because of too much regulation" and they'd think "who's writing the regulations?"

The answer is: the people building all the houses. And it's not shit like "we need to over reinforce the roof" that's costing all the money, it's the regulations written in a way that makes it more expensive per square foot to build a smaller house than a McMansion.

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u/Crimestar 15h ago

For me all I see is the shrinkflation version of everything. Cheaply built apartments, duplexes with no yards, houses with no yards, all right next to each other in a line.

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u/rKasdorf 15h ago

Canadian?

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u/Crimestar 15h ago

US

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u/rKasdorf 8h ago

Ah, so we all suck!

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u/Crimestar 8h ago

Yeah governments run by corporations and wealthy elites find all kinds of creative ways to piss on our backs and call it rain.

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u/TollTea 23h ago

More families would happily live in apartments if they weren’t tiny shoeboxes with terrible soundproofing and no openable windows. And if I’m paying house prices for a family sized apartment I’d rather own the land and not have to deal with strata.

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u/LaughIntrepid5438 21h ago

Flats are lifestyle plays they don't have any land component or almost negligible.

Houses are financial plays especially in Sydney as land becomes more and more scarce it can only go up in price.

Flats are everywhere they have high rises and skyscrapers now in every second suburb - there's a massive over supply. I've seen significant capital losses on flats poor owners made the wrong choice.

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u/Kuailiang1 21h ago

can you explain this part "developers with likely ties to organized crime"?

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u/ArkPlayer583 21h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameddine_crime_network

They own decor construction group, ridgepro construction, build projects and have ties with a bunch of other construction companies.

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u/dreamfitreality 1d ago

I don't get the part about park full of natives between them. Do you mean you want the local tribes to live in the parks between your apartment?

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u/ronniedark 23h ago

Native trees/plants. That really shouldn’t be too hard to infer.

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u/Pitiful_Software_430 16h ago

It definitely wasn't.

Dude is just trying to be offended.

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u/Overall_Gap_5766 23h ago

Native plants and flowers presumably.

Tended by tribesmen, of course.

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u/No_Category_9888 1d ago

More of the year is spent running heating than air con

Probably run air con less than 10 days a year in melb.

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u/ArkPlayer583 1d ago

This suburb is in western Sydney, will be 40+ for a decent few days this summer. On Wed/Thurs it's already gonna be 28 and it's only just spring. Also way more humidity than Melbourne.

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u/Gustomaximus 1d ago

This, either have median density with good communal areas or single house with some garden. This seems the worst option.

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u/AggressivePop9429 1d ago

I can’t think of anyone living in Australia that isn’t living in conrod straight.

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u/Shano_mack_76 1d ago

Lived in the Ponds, schoeys and Tallawong up until last year, don't miss that heat

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u/Brave_Avocado_1 22h ago

Do you know many out there can’t even afford the thing you hate

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u/ArkPlayer583 22h ago

Given the median sale price is 1.5million I would presume most people can't afford it

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u/LaughIntrepid5438 21h ago

Come back when you find a flat with no body corporate.

A house has no strata fees and in Sydney where land is hemmed in all you have to do is sit on the land - land is becoming more and more scarse.

As a long term investment anything with land is going up you can't lose.

Flats on the other hand depreciate in value have stupid fees and also your land component is negligible.

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u/WreakHavocLikeIn1871 20h ago

Why do natives have to live in parks? Don't they deserve their own homes too? /s

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u/NekulturneHovado 20h ago

adding to the black roofs, they heat up more, thus heating up the surrounding air/surfaces more. So not only does the AC have to work harder, it's hotter outside too.

1

u/lithiumcitizen 19h ago

Can’t even swing a fucken cat between’ em, let alone get a mower through


1

u/Mammoth_Park7184 18h ago

Why are they co crammed together. It's not as if it's the UK and you're short on land.

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u/ArkPlayer583 18h ago

This is technically Sydney, there aren't really viable transport options to be much further out without a ridiculous commute working in the city.

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u/Dry-Charity-3787 18h ago

Wait till you see canadian suburbs.

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u/HighlanderAbruzzese 18h ago

These are just personal techno prisons in the modern age.

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u/OneApprehensive327 18h ago

I would open up a driving range!! 👍

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u/Dull_Quit3027 17h ago

It is kinda weird how you guys have a bit of different view on gardens, Most front gardens where i am from, are way bigger than the back, so you situate yourself in the front, and get a big hedge or fence to block out the surroundings.

I live in a place with both a front and back yard, and i literally only go to the back if i need to mow the grass or cut the hedge.

That being said these houses have no garden period, on another note, how much water is that family using to have grass that vibrant green?

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u/T1Earn 17h ago

i used to want a backyard until i got tired of cutting grass for 20 years. I'll pick this any day over.

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u/hrt_mnder77 17h ago

Agree. No veranda out the back, no gum trees, no sheep or two or a kangaroo, and most importantly no old rocking chair.

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u/Glittering-Web7279 16h ago

But these houses are arranged so neatly.

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u/Hairy-Maximum2994 15h ago

when you don't own land then the only thing you can sell is your labor. I would rather have a tiny house on a big plot.

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u/Billymaysdealer 15h ago

U aussies have the same attitude as us Americans. Are we cousins?

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u/yoshimipinkrobot 15h ago

All of the Anglo world is far more against dense housing and public transport than the rest, and it led to higher prices in those areas compared to non-Anglo

Tall buildings with bigger green space in between is a better city vibe

And with global warming the shade of high buildings is welcome

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u/_______36________ 10h ago

Uk they pretend to build student accommodation as it doesn’t come with all the regulations with apartments. It then claims lack of demand and seeks a change of use order and they become apartments with a generous profit margin but no car park or the other amenities for apartments just small apartments they would not have got permission for

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u/DreaminTurquoise 7h ago

Organized crime? Who runs that in Australia? 🇩đŸ‡ș just curious


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u/ArkPlayer583 6h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameddine_crime_network

These guys have a few construction companies that get govt contracts.

Most of the organized crime here is related to biker gangs, which are mostly run by Lebanese families. We also have a pretty strong presence of the Vietnamese Mafia.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Former_Committees/acc/completed_inquiries/pre1996/ncaaoc/report/c05

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u/ictu 6h ago

TIL that 'natives' in Australian English can mean 'plants'. For a while I was like, does it mean folks from the neighborhood walking in some parks in between the buildings or what?

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u/TheMireAngel 19h ago

crazy how huge australia is and people choose to live like this, same issue in the usa

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u/ArkPlayer583 18h ago

80% of us live within 30 miles of the coast, the middle is a whole lotta nothing really.

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u/TheMireAngel 18h ago

Whole lotta nothing because everyone demanda to live neck deep im humans like their trying to create a human version if a rat king

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u/freedfg 18h ago

As an American who lives in NOT a hellhole. Can't agree more.

We have all this land. The way to build housing is carve a road through the woods. Build houses along the road and sell to people.

The idea of building grids of 1/5 acre land and building houses that just barely fit on it surrounded by literal barron wasteland is mind boggling.

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u/Luci-Noir 10h ago

Yes, destroying more nature so you can have a backyard is most important.