The great divide over this north shore council’s housing plan

Her Ku-ring-gai Housing Group colleague, Jem Punthakey, was also against the proposal: “We are fighting to stop Ku-ring-gai becoming an elite gated community of the old and wealthy, waited upon by a servant class of essential workers that have no choice but to commute hours each way and each day from suburbs far away.”

Michael Clayden, 24, lives with his family in St Ives and cannot afford to move out. However, he supported the proposal as he believed homes needed to be built now.

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“We are watching our own community become a place only the wealthy can afford, forcing out young people, businesses and diversity and for what?” he said.

Shankar Sapkota, 30, was also against the proposal, though not for the same reasons. Sapkota believed the housing crisis is only solvable by capping immigration numbers. The son of immigrants and a member of Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment, which supports neither proposal, Sapkota said the livability of the area shouldn’t fall second to accommodating new residents.

“Our backyards have been taken way from us,” he said.

Councillors voted unanimously to endorse the alternative plan, which will go back on exhibition for public feedback.

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