SPEAKING NOTES by Janine Kitson, FOKE Vice-President, on the Impact of the NSW’s housing policies on Ku-ring-gai’s environment and heritage:

In your BRIEFING NOTES we outline the threats to Ku-ring-gai’s nationally significant heritage.

Ku-ring-gai’s outstanding 20th-century domestic architecture is even more unique as it is integrated into the environmentally sensitive Blue Gum High Forest and Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest landscape.  

During the last NSW Labor Government (1995-2011) thousands of heritage homes in Ku-ring-gai were bulldozed. 

FOKE documented this loss in ‘A Photographic Record of Sites’ (2008) and which we presented as evidence to the TOD Inquiry (2024).  

NSW Labor planning policies, back then, were described as  “The Rape of Ku-ring-gai”.

Today NSW Labor’s planning policies can only be described as the “Death of Ku-ring-gai”.

The TOD, Low to Mid-Rise Housing, Dual Occupancies will irreversibly destroy Ku-ring-gai’s heritage and environment.

Back in the 2000s it was five-storey apartments.

Now it’s 10 storeys and dramatically higher.

This will decimate  Ku-ring-gai’s remaining treed and endangered landscape.

Recently FOKE ran four ‘Heritage in Peril’ walks to celebrate the Australian Heritage Festival (April-May 2025).

Ku-ring-gai is where the National Trust was founded in 1945 by Annie Wyatt.

In 1997 the National Trust classified 28 precincts in Ku-ring-gai for heritage listing.

In 2000, Ku-ring-gai was nominated as an “Endangered Place” by the Australian Council of National Trusts.

Ku-ring-gai’s strong conservation ethic builds on Annie Wyatt’s vision along with many other Ku-ring-gai conservation pioneers.

FOKE’s four Heritage in Peril Walks for  Roseville (26.4.25), Lindfield (27.4.25), Killara (3.5.25) and Gordon (4.5.25) told what reports, maps and other planning documents cannot tell you – just how unique and precious Ku-ring-gai  is and the utter disbelief of those attending – many of whom came from across Sydney – that you could destroy something as unique and beautiful as what exists today in Ku-ring-gai.