🔵 What exactly is affordable housing?

HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🏘️ What is affordable housing, and how does it work?

It’s well established that many people working on the North Shore — among them nurses, teachers, cleaners, retail and hospitality workers — can struggle to rent accommodation reasonably close to work.

While increased supply across the state is supposed to have the effect of lowering prices, luxury apartments in North Sydney and Chatswood are well beyond the means of the average worker.

A search of realestate.com.au shows that the average Sydney rent for a unit is $760 weekly. By comparison, the average in St Leonards is $915, Chatswood $830, North Sydney $820 and Killara and Gordon $810.

Wahroonga, at $750, was cheaper than the citywide average.

Affordable housing — a term that is commonly bandied about — is pitched as a solution. But what is it exactly, and how does it work?

Read the full story below.

🛀 Plug pulled on Lane Cove’s Lucretia Baths: Council to return Heritage site to nature

After sitting closed to the public for years, the reconstruction of Lane Cove’s Heritage-listed Lucretia Baths has been axed.

What happened: Lane Cove Councillors voted unanimously on Thursday evening to remove the Jean Mitchell Baths — also known as the Lucretia Baths — and allow nature to reclaim the area.

The Lucretia Baths have been closed since 2023, after council staff said the structure was no longer safe. According to council documents, the site has further deteriorated since then.

The harbourside baths were built in the 1920s by local Lane Cove residents.

Fixer upper: Locals repaired and reconstructed the baths in 1968 and 1987. The site came into council hands in 1992.

The baths received a local Heritage listing in 2010. Its listing describes it as “one of three remaining examples of timber-paling harbourside baths left in Sydney”.

According to consultation carried out in 2023, 80 percent of the local community was in favour of rebuilding the baths. However, council staff have now advised that the project was not financially viable.

Read the full article below.

🌳 Reporters in trees

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a gum tree on the Apple emoji keyboard, so I’ve opted for this deciduous topiary. Watch below to see me explain why, despite the supposed epidemic of tree poisoning, the full story behind the disappearance of so many trees from the upper North Shore may be more complicated.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

💬 “It does look like a nuclear bomb. At some reefs the habitat is completely destroyed and it's just like a shadow of its former self.”

— Dr Scott Bennett, marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania

Last March, hundreds of dead fish, dolphins, seadragons and other marine life began washing up on South Australian shores, caused by a toxic algal bloom that turned waters green. Well, it’s still happening.

The National Account first reported on the Algal bloom in May. In July, Archie spoke with Dr Scott Bennett, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania. At the time, Bennett said if the toxic algal bloom “was happening on Sydney beaches or the Great Barrier Reef, it would stop the nation”.

This week, he spoke with Bennett again to get the rundown on what’s been happening since.

Watch the full interview below.