Sunday, April 19, 2009

Public Housing design worries

The Federal government has reversed the housing neglect of the Howard years with their new housing stimulus package. NSW has been allocated about $2 billion for new housing. Let's hope Housing NSW are not running around like headless chooks, because they've got just 2 years to spend the 2 bill on 6000 new housing units.

Let's hope that in their haste they don't repeat the design mistakes of the past, or impose new 'big ideas" on us.

DH is worried that everyone is talking about getting max buildings for the buck, but no-one seems to be talking about design.

Housing NGO's are pre-occupied with economic and social welfare issues, and noone is talking architecture. Yet that is what affects houso's lives most.

Is Housing NSW consulting with stakeholders at all?

Who are the designers? What are their guidelines?

I lost Rudd's $900 bonus on the Bells Line of Road

[Not really whining... writing a footnote for the social historians on how the NSW government screws the last drop of money out of ordinary citizens]

Sometimes DH could swear that she is nothing more than the State's way of making money out of the Commonwealth.

There goes a good bit of Rudd's $900 on this godforsaken downhill stretch at Bellbird Hill. And that must be the goddamn sign DH missed while blithely following the traffic downhill.

Now DH is one of the slowest drivers in NSW. On the Christmas Holidays, she was the one you were banked up behind all the way down the south coast. In 30 years of driving, she has never had a speeding ticket in her life, nor virtually any other infringement. In fact the only thing she has ever been stopped for is by anxious young police officers inquiring if she is ill, given how cautiously she drives. But they say this is a notorious stretch for fleecing motorists. But not only that. DH hasn't owned a car for years, can't afford it, but being the pioneering soul she is, she joined a car-share scheme. Who'dda thought these new fangled cars could be so light. Or that there'd be cameras springing up everywhere???

6 points

But worse was yet to come: this plus another 2 incidents, another minor speeding in the same car, a week earlier, and then wandering into some T-way while lost in the wilds of Kellyville where she'd gone to replenish her failing spirits by roaming around MacMansion Land ... no wonder the poor bloody woman was disoriented ... talk about culture shock ... being in this alien environment both she and her daughter had massive anxiety attacks as they found themselves in a time warp constantly going around the same 3 roundabouts amongst pseudo roman mansions that all looked the same while desperately trying to get back to civilisation ... and now her licence is gonna be suspended for 3 months!

But dammit. She's a good driver who is cautious, doesn't drink, take drugs, or even smoke and has never even had a prang, except maybe occasionally while reversing into a neighbours car, and its all because of the greed of the RTA, a private corporation registered in the USA, would you believe???, so they can mispend our money on idiot schemes like the Dual Carriageway on the Iron Cover Bridge

OH, NEVER MIND! She's copping it sweet, and there goes the bonus, except she's already spent it by doing the right thing by her local hair salon, the phone bill, the mobile bill, the internet bill, the pharmacist, the car share bill, oh, and the neighbour's dented mudguard...

Boo hoo.