This short article is part of our '20 high impact research stories' series. This has been assembled to mark two decades of the City Futures Research Centre 2005-2025. Each of the 20 stories revisits an influential research study completed over those 20 years, linking it with related Centre projects and outcomes. A brochure version of all 20 stories will be published later in 2025.
As Australian cities grapple with the challenges of ageing housing stock, population growth, and planning for sustainable urban forms, researchers at the City Futures Research Centre have been exploring how to equitably and effectively renew and redevelop our urban neighbourhoods.
Strata building renewal impacts
In cities like Sydney, against the backdrop of intense densification pressures, growing numbers of strata buildings are nearing the end of their viable life. Yet existing policies, legislation, and financial models fall short of providing fair and workable pathways for renewal.
Our ARC Linkage project Renewing the Compact City (2012-15) was a seminal contribution to the research literature in this field. Led by Prof Bill Randolph with Prof Simon Pinnegar and Prof Hazel Easthope , Dr Laurence Troy and A/Prof Laura Crommelin, the study addressed the emergent challenge of how to renew ageing, privately-owned strata-titled housing.
The research highlighted the risks of displacement for low-income owners and tenants occupying lower value apartment blocks in areas subject to redevelopment. Drawing on fieldwork including engagement with resident groups, strata managers, legal experts and planning authorities, the report also proposed the development of more transparent and inclusive renewal models.
Beyond its overarching research report, the study generated a 2020 journal article which explored potential frameworks for greater inclusivity in both the process, and outcomes of suburban renewal. The project was also commended by the Planning Institute of Australia, winning the PIA National Award for Planning Excellence in both 2016 and 2017.
Building on the RCC research in a 2018 study, Profs Randolph and Pinnegar investigated the social implications of higher density renewal associated with the upgrading of the Sydenham to Bankstown Metro line – very much of relevance for the current TOD planning policies in Sydney.
The report warned that low cost rental housing would be replaced by expensive apartments. Without compensating affordable rental housing provision, wholesale social displacement would result. The study also argued that for these precincts to be redeveloped new governance arrangements to coordinate and manage the transition would be needed.
Collective sales, secondary dwellings and knockdown rebuild: the spectrum of local neighbourhood change
Other CFRC projects undertaken in this field have further unpacked the different, and sometimes competing, dynamics of neighbourhood change. In Reassembling the City (2021-24), Prof Pinnegar and colleagues investigated resident-led collective sales, where neighbours join forces to sell multiple properties to developers.
In contrast, the Centre’s earlier ARC-funded Knockdown Rebuild (2009-11) project led by Prof Randolph turned the lens toward individual-led housing redevelopment, a far more dispersed and organic process. KDR reshapes suburban landscapes lot by lot, as residents replace older dwellings with larger, often higher-value homes. The process raises concerns around affordability, urban form, and the cumulative impacts of fragmented, uncoordinated change, often occurring outside the reach of strategic planning frameworks.
In a fifth CFRC project in this area, Dr Laurence Troy and Dr Ryan van den Nouwelant researched the outcomes of the 2009 NSW Affordable Housing SEPP. Commissioned by the South Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, this study revealed the location, numbers and affordability of New Generation Boarding Houses and secondary dwellings enabled under the legislation, exposing its limitations as an affordable housing initiative.
The role of planning in a market-driven compact city
Underlying all of these transformations is the tension between planning ideals and market realities. In our ARC Planning in a Market Economy (2015-18) study, project leader Prof Bill Randolph together with Prof Simon Pinnegar, Prof Hazel Easthope and Dr Laura Crommelin examined how Sydney and Perth have been navigating the shift to compact city models.
Rather than a straightforward transition from public to private planning influence, the study revealed a nuanced repurposing of state power, through centralised planning, infrastructure investment, and regulatory shifts, that often reinforces inequality even as governments profess commitment to sustainability.
Together, these City Futures projects contribute to a holistic and multi-dimensional view of the forces remaking our urban neighbourhoods, from strategic renewal to bottom-up transformation, and the outcomes for residents. They call for policies that can better balance market imperatives with long-term social and spatial equity.