David Bell says the experience was mostly positive when and his family sold their suburban Wollongong home eight years ago to move into an apartment in the centre of the coastal city.
"The ability to walk to shops and restaurants down to the beach around the harbour, that is just fantastic," the retiree said.
His son could catch the free bus to university and they needed one less car, but parking was still an issue.
"A lot of people in Wollongong live here but work in Sydney or Western Sydney and public transport is not good enough, you have to have a car to get there," he said.
"I don't think providing one car space per unit is adequate."
The Bell family is part of a shifting demographic, with home owners and renters increasingly living in medium and high-rise buildings.
It is an accelerating trend in regional cities and outer suburbs towards Sydney's fringe.
Award-winning architect and urban designer, Phillip Thalis, said higher densities could enhance quality of living.
But he said poor planning and design could make it worse.
"The dynamism of some of the centres around Sydney, say Burwood which does have some towers in it, is fantastic," he said.
"But in other places you are really seeing high-rise dormitory suburbs with no urban life, no employment, no social dimension to it.
"That's not the way forward."
Striking the right balance
Mr Thalis said while high-rises were appropriate in some situations, simply relying on towers would not solve the housing crisis.
"The really good scale to encourage is a four-to-six-storey scale and that would be quite appropriate across many places in Sydney and wider, that gives you smaller buildings with better opportunities," he said.
"That is the scale we should be really pursuing, towers should be reserved for really major centres."
Wollongong's current height limit is 120 metres, but its tallest approved but yet to be built building known as the WIN Grand, is for 123 metres or 39 storeys.
Other high-rise plans for the wider city include 1,300 homes spread over 12 towers of eight to 22 storeys above a shopping centre in Warrawong, a 16-minute bus ride from the nearest train station at Port Kembla.
By declaring the area a state significant development, the state planning department will mainly handle the approval process under a pilot program to help fast track five large developments in regional areas.
During the public exhibition phase in July, Wollongong's Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbury said flood risks were among his several concerns.
He also said the area lacked the social infrastructure required to support a rapid growth in residents.
NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully said the proposal was still being assessed, and the council's concerns would be part of the assessment.
"Whether it's floods, whether it's transport, whether it's anything else related to any development, there may be further examination needed and that's part of the process," he said.
Accountability in development
The NSW Building Commission has been busy in the broader Illawarra region this year, issuing a stop work order and calling out defective homes.
NSW government architect Abbie Galvin said she could not comment on specific projects but that under current guidelines, it was a regulated requirement for a registered architect to ensure high standards for apartment buildings above three storeys.
"I think there's always going to be instances where we try and push guidance or the controls or rules as far as we can and that is often to try to maximise the development yield," she said.
"But I think we can do both.
"It's important we use very good architects, we use the guidance we have and it's important we use the guidance not prescriptively but in a merit-based way."
Newcastle taking the lead
More than two hours north of Sydney, Newcastle has earnt industry recognition for the way it has dealt with growing density.
"A huge amount of growth in Western Sydney isn't necessarily fair to some of those communities and areas like Newcastle, that have really wonderful access to amenity and beaches and good jobs, that has a role to play in the state of NSW in providing that housing," Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said.
Newcastle's long established planning controls for taller buildings are only now being used, as a new western centre emerges from a once dormant area of the city and expands out towards Broadmeadow, where 20,000 new homes will be built over 30 years.
"Broadmeadow in Newcastle will be one of the largest urban renewal precincts in the country," Cr Nelmes said.
She said part of the key to success was collaborating with the state government on a strategy.
"We will invest $3 billion into the centre of Newcastle over 30 years and create 20,000 new homes and 15,000 jobs," she said.
Cr Nelmes said that was likely to include more plans similar to the city's current tallest building, which is currently under construction at 98 metres or 30 storeys.
"Newcastle West, which is really what we've seen come to life over the past 10 years, has a 90-metre height limit."
For Phillip Thalis part of the solution to the housing challenge was for council to be more involved.
"Councils need to lift their game, they need to be much more proactive rather than reactive in their consideration of planning," he said.
"Of course they have to listen to their community and they do because of the ward councillor system, but really we need to be thinking of an urban future not looking back to a suburban past."
