How a post-war population explosion put an end to Sydney's 'visionary' Green Belt plan

Updated

A "visionary and radical" plan to protect a swathe of Sydney's bush and farmland in the 1950s failed because of an unexpected population boom and pressure on development after World War II, experts say.

The 'Green Belt', designed to restrict urban sprawl, was part of a vision for a comprehensive and coordinated town plan for metropolitan Sydney.

John Austin heard a lot about the Green Belt between the 1950s and 1970s and wondered why it never eventuated.

He grew up in the suburb of Ryde and remembers travelling the route from his home to the Blue Mountains when it was still untouched bush and farmland.

"What happened to Sydney's Green Belt? The bush to the west of Sydney in the Cumberland district was to be protected from suburbia," he said.

That was the question ABC News in Sydney was asked to investigate through Curious Sydney, our series that reports on stories based on your questions.

"As I grew up and travelled out to the Blue Mountains increasingly it was just wall-to-wall red brick housing estates, red tiled roofs and I think that's probably increased over the years," Mr Austin said.

"It just begs the question, what ever happened to that town planning initiative which I think was initiated and endorsed by the state government and local councils?"

Population numbers 'dramatically underestimated'

As Sydney continues to face enormous challenges in balancing urban population growth with environmental considerations and the need for jobs, transport and services, Mr Austin's question seems particularly pertinent.

Growth was heavily on the mind of Labor premier William McKell when he created the Cumberland County Council in 1945, a tier of government between state and local government.

In 1948 the council released the Cumberland Plan, a scheme that legislated for the future direction of metropolitan Sydney and was made law in 1951.

It included land use zoning, suburban employment zones, open-space acquisitions and most controversially, the Green Belt.

"[The Green Belt will be] a girdle of rural open space encircling the urban districts and penetrating towards the centre between some of the outer districts," the plan said.

"Ensuring for all time, ready access by urban populations to a countryside specially planned and maintained for their benefit," it said.

The plan was the first post-war metropolitan plan in Australia and has been described as "visionary and radical" by many who have studied it.

The problem was no-one foresaw the extent of pressure on housing because of the post-war baby boom and explosion in immigration.

Architect and town planner from Cox Architecture, Bob Meyer, says the County Council's population growth projections were very wrong.

"The County of Cumberland's population estimate was dramatically underestimated, because the 2.25 million that they projected by 1981, was reached in 1961, 20 years ahead of their projection," he said.

"Between 1947 and 1971 Sydney's population increased by 1.3 million, more than twice the number predicted by the Cumberland Plan," authors Peter Spearritt and Christine DeMarco said in their book "Planning Sydney's future".

What went wrong?

It soon became apparent the plan was unpopular, with much public debate reflected in newspaper articles at the time.

"Councillor C. J. Monro from Sutherland Shire Council urged that the 'Master' Plan of the Cumberland County Council should be scrapped. He said that 'freedom and liberty of the individual have been interfered with'," one newspaper article said.

"Surely it is necessary at once to remedy the error of the master planners, and make available to home seekers land which they urgently need — land thoughtlessly included in the 'green belt' without regard to its suitability as rural area," a letter to the editor said.

Most of the land in the Green Belt was privately owned and land prices were going up due to an extraordinary demand for housing blocks, which worried the state government.

The Commonwealth was unwilling to provide funds and it became impossible to contain the urban sprawl that the plan was designed to address, Mr Meyer said.

"The Green Belt was holding up development and causing a shortage in land and prices were rising rapidly because of the shortage of land so something had to give," he said.

The plan was largely based on the Greater London Plan of 1944 with a Green Belt and satellite towns around it, which continues to serve London due to the different nature of the land and the fast train network.

Mr Meyer says while Sydney's plan also included satellite towns such as Campbelltown, Richmond, Windsor and Bringelly, at the time there was no infrastructure available apart from rail.

"There was no infrastructure further out — I mean sewer and water — there was rail but they were in corridors and not many roads out there, so it would have cost an awful lot to change that," he said.

Gradually the Cumberland County Council was forced to release more and more land in the Green Belt during the 1950s until it was abolished in 1963 and replaced by a state planning authority.

Before it was abolished it managed to ensure that private developers would in future have to pay for water and sewerage, previously paid for by the Water Board.

Where was the Green Belt?

It stretched across a wide swathe of Sydney, not just covering farmland in western Sydney but also across to the northern beaches, into the city's north and south-west and as far south as Woronora.

Town planner Ian Sinclair has been working in Sydney's suburban fringe for more than 30 years, and he says the land was intended to be developed as farmland and for parks and recreation.

"There was lots of farmland in western parts of Sydney, but it also went into the northern beaches. It covered Allambie Heights, Cromer, Davidson, Belrose and around to Killarney Heights, and then into the north-west with places like Cherrybrook," he said.

"It went down into the south-west as far as Kurnell, then south, and the whole of Woronora area. It covered a multitude of landscapes, not just farmland but the farmland is what people remember I suppose."

And there are little pockets still in existence, Mr Sinclair said.

"The area that has been kept of the original Green Belt is around the M4 and Prospect Reservoir," he said.

"What's interesting though is that the plan that came after it was the 'Sydney Region Outline Plan' and it outlined an area slightly to the west which basically has become the Western Sydney Parklands, so the Green Belt as an area of government-owned land exists today."

Sydney's agricultural 'green belt'

There's no doubt that Sydney's green urban fringe still exists and there's debate about how secure that fringe is in the face of development.

Mr Sinclair says it has been moving steadily outwards, but he believes the current major agricultural sector will continue to thrive there.

"We are still the state's number one perishable vegetable producer, we're the state's number one poultry producer, we're the state's number one egg production area and we're the state's number one area for nurseries, flowers and turf," he said.

"It's in Sydney and on the Central Coast in parts of West Gosford and Peats Ridge but also areas out in the north-west like Hawkesbury, Penrith, the Hills and moving down to Camden, and Wollondilly, and parts of Liverpool.

"A lot of people want their food supply local and fresh and the agribusiness that goes with it.

"I like to call it 'you shake off Sydney as you drive out of it' because it provides that wonderful landscape of openness.

"That's what the Green Belt was for, to provide that openness, and I suppose we've still got it — it's just moved out a bit further."

Mr Sinclair and Mr Meyer believe the recent greater Sydney region plan contains sufficient recommendations to preserve agriculture and green space.

Who asked the question?

John now lives in Brisbane and says although Sydney is a wonderful city, its sprawling suburbia is giving it a bad image.

He believes the Green Belt would have given a breathing space to city's growing suburbia.

"I guess you could trace it back to being one of the reasons why the suburbia of Sydney that goes out to the west endlessly is the way it is today — it seems to be a lost opportunity that Sydney had and for whatever reason was never realised," he said.

"There's constant stories of it being dysfunctional, lacking in open space, full of housing estates, tiny blocks of land with big enormous buildings lack of amenities, lack of services, all of that was to going to be dealt with by the Green Belt."

Lilon Bandler also asked about the Green Belt: "In the late 40s and early 50s Sydney released land from the Green Belt. Where was it? How big was it? Does any of it remain today?"

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Topics: urban-development-and-planning, environment, history, sydney-2000

First posted