Alan Martheze, Parklands
My two cents is that what is marketed as “affordable housing” for people trying to get into the market, will actually end up like most of Parklands Main Road where unscrupulous small time investors buy up most of the units and put renters in instead (“Paradise lost through new development,” Tabletalk, March 21).
There will be minimal (or no) credit checks, then, after a few months of quiet and perfect neighbours, multiple families move in under one roof. Families that will pool salaries and grants to get access. We have seen this time and again where these families have no interest in complex upkeep or being community neighbours.
The shops they propose for the development will end up as hair salons and spazas.
Unless tightly controlled by an active body corporate backed up by security teams (something very quickly and violently opposed by renters — I’ve seen this) these mass housing developments turn into slums, driving down their values and the poor suckers living there as owners are trapped by their bonds and the empty promises of the developers while their investment crumbles around them.
“Watch this space” as they say!
