The NSW Government’s Transport Oriented Development (TOD) plans have been a controversial topic in the Illawarra. We spoke to one resident who not only supports the idea but has launched a new group to advocate for more apartments around stations to ease housing supply and improve public transport.
Fairy Meadow local Phillip Balding is a member of Sydney Yimby (Yes In My Back Yard) who has moved back to Wollongong and launched a new group called Greater Gong and Haven to advocate for more housing here.
“We want to see councils permit modest three- to six-storey units around town centres and train stations,” Phill says.
“This is similar to what the state government has proposed at Corrimal Station.”
Phill would like people to start thinking about medium density. “How it can get more public transport … and how it eases prices.”
He supports the NSW Government’s new Transport Oriented Development (TOD) planning controls, which allow residential flats up to 22 metres high and shop-top housing up to 24m high within 400m of metro and rail stations. The new planning controls began yesterday, May 13, and will initially apply to 18 station locations, including Corrimal.
Phill’s views clash with those on some neighbourhood forums, where heritage values and environmental effects are often key concerns.
So who is this new campaigner shaking up the status quo?
“I do identify as a Yimby,” Phill says. “We need to address affordability by permitting modest, attractive units.
“We can't really build more houses around here. We're out of land. I don't want to spoil the escarpment – there's just no need. There's plenty of place to build up.
“Land values rise, but why are apartment prices rising? It's because we don't build enough anymore.”
The Yimby movement began as a counter to the better-known Nimby (Not In My Back Yard). However, the play on words has become divisive, so Phill says his new Greater Gong and Haven group tries to avoid using it.
Phill knows the region well, having grown up in Kiama. “I went to school in Wollongong and uni there, doing maths and some programming, and now I do data analytics.”
Today he works in the electric vehicle charging sector and is newly back in town after pursuing government roles in Canberra and Sydney.
“I was away for about eight years, so I've just moved back to Wollongong. I like running and do a little bit of surfing… it's good to be back here.”
Phill likes some of the changes he’s seen. “All the apartments going up – I thought that was pretty good in Wollongong. I was quite proud of that, because of the affordability issues – it definitely provides a cheaper option for people.
“But it got a little bit frustrating to see that was only really dedicated to one-kilometre-square in the CBD – and not everyone wants to live there.”
Phill believes rising home prices bode ill for future generations. “How people can stay in their own communities unless we're building more units?”
He discovered like-minded people when he came upon the Yimby movement through X, aka Twitter.
“I've been on Twitter for a few years and, with my analytics background, I'd already been kind of tweeting a little bit about the economics of housing and the prices rising and how it's just kind of getting a bit ridiculous.
“With the algorithm on Twitter, you just meet up with other people and eventually we started Sydney Yimby.”
The group launched in April 2023 and Phill later took on the role of secretary. “Now we've got maybe 400 members and then another 1000 on the mailing list that join us in putting in positive submissions to support development.
“We go to council meetings. We've hosted a few of our own talks … got an architect to come in and a planner, just to talk about urbanism and stuff like that. Lots of people talk about parking and removing cars. There's a lot of urbanists that like better, more modern cities. So there's a mix of people.
“But the main thing is just pushing more housing to ease prices.”
As well as bringing his mathematics background to bear on the housing issue, Phill is driven by first-hand experiences as a renter.
“I've always rented,” he says, “but it's always been okay for me because I enjoy share housing. But I did cop it a lot in Sydney, trying to find a unit with my partner – you end up in this tiny shoebox.
“It’s really hard when there's a shortage and then the prices rise and then you are like, 'Oh, do I really want to spend more money or do I want to save money for deposit?' The two years I was in Sydney, it was a bit of an eye opener to the choices people have to make.”
Phill founded Greater Gong and Haven earlier this year, but it has been slow to take off.
“We're trying to build it up. We've only got about 20 people in the WhatsApp group and then maybe 80 following on Instagram. It's just the early stages. We really want to create a website and start taking membership fees.”
So who should join?
“Renters should join, and parents and grandparents should join. Pretty much everyone – because if you want your kids to stay in your suburb and look after your grandkids, you want some affordable housing choices.”
Phill says his group is not engaging with developers. “We don't want to be lobbyists for developers, we want to be grassroots, independent.”
Greater Gong and Haven’s membership is mixed.
“A lot of people are pretty on board with urbanism," he says.
“Urbanism is just about making cities functional and affordable. It's all about having public transport and bike lanes and really nice streets. People love having nice streets – lots of trees, lots of footpaths and separated bike paths. And a lot of it revolves around having the right density of housing.
“You just can't send enough buses and trains down the street when you have low-density suburbs, it's just not feasible. They'll all be empty. And you can't just pay for all this biking and footpath infrastructure when we just don't have the number of people paying rates.
“It's not feasible economically to fund good public infrastructure with low-density housing.
“I want more frequent public transport and the answer is to make it viable with more dense housing, proximal housing.”
Phill – who travelled via electric bike to our interview at Coledale Community Hall – acknowledges the geography of the Illawarra and the single coast road would make the new TOD policy impractical in some northern suburbs.
“Up here would be kind of terrible because there'd be just too much traffic. I think from Austinmer and above, you can't really have a 400m radius [of apartments permitted around stations].”
For more information, follow Greater Gong and Haven on Instagram