On the edge of a historic north shore suburb, residents and heritage experts are fighting to stop additional housing.
It was envisaged as a residential utopia, where houses blended into the rocky bushland that bowed down to the harbour on Sydney’s north shore. A century after it was built in the 1920s, Castlecrag is still lauded by architects as an “international treasure” forged by the couple who designed Australia’s capital city.
But plans for a 13-storey luxury apartment building at the entrance to the suburb have placed some frustrated residents and the ideals of the historic Castlecrag estate’s creators, pioneering American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, on a collision course with the reality of easing Sydney’s housing shortage. Walter Burley Griffin Society spokeswoman Adrienne Kabos and Castlecrag Progress Association member Scott Graham in the garden of one of the Griffin houses on The Parapet.have invoked the Griffins’ legacy to fight a new plan to build 150 homes where the Quadrangle shopping centre once stood, months after plans for a five-storey shop-top development were approved.
Their opposition to new plans for the site, which abuts the Griffin heritage conservation area, has been rejected as “spurious” and “silly” by housing advocates who are pushing for greater density closer to the city. Emeritus Professor Paul Kruty, an architectural historian at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in the US, said the “tragic development” on the edge of the suburb would “greatly compromise the creative accomplishment that is Castlecrag”.
“This marvellous ‘garden suburb’ that the Griffins imagined and implemented deserves to be protected as the international treasure that it is,” Kruty said. Urban Taskforce developer lobby chief executive Tom Forrest lashed residents against the plan as “intergenerational NIMBYs” and said there was “no place for that sort of selfish privilege any more”.
“We have a housing supply crisis, and this is an ideal location to contribute to much-needed additional supply,” Forrest said. Similar tensions are playing out across Sydney, as authorities try to balance preserving heritage with building sorely needed homes – stoking debate about whether they are ringfencing historic areas from excessive development or locking out new residents. In Castlecrag, eight kilometres from the CBD, that heritage comes with the added weight of the Griffins’ legacy.
The couple, who designed Canberra, bought 263 hectares of foreshore land to model how to develop and build in native bushland in the 1920s. Castlecrag Progress Association secretary Tim Donahoo, who is among those objecting to the development, said the Griffins were ahead of their time, designing modest homes that were subordinate to the environment and integrated into the landscape.
“People can still live an urban existence but very much in tune with what nature has provided. That’s what makes this place unique,” Donahoo said. The block proposed for development is on the corner of Edinburgh Road and Eastern Valley Way. It is adjacent to the heritage conservation area, which was gazetted in 1995 to preserve Castlecrag’s streets, bushland reserves and 15 surviving Griffin houses.
In 2024, the site’s previous owners, Greencliff, sold the land to Conquest with approval for a five-storey complex with a supermarket and 38 apartments – a project that had eventually won broad support from residents, heritage groups and Willoughby Council. Locals were shocked when they discovered that Conquest had applied to the state government’s Housing Delivery Authority seeking accelerated approval for a $250 million proposal.
The plans, lodged with the government in April, include 150 units – 10 of which would be temporary affordable housing – in twin blocks of about 13 storeys. Willoughby Liberal MP Tim James said Castlecrag was a “unique and precious suburb” of national heritage significance, and the site’s proximity to the conservation area “should demand care and sensitivity”.
James said the community had supported increased density in nearby town centres close to railway and metro stations, such as Chatswood, Crows Nest and St Leonards.
“Castlecrag is different,” James told state parliament last week. He said the “one road in, one road out” suburb was not near a train or metro line, and bus services were patchy. Kate Geraghty Donahoo said residents were willing to accommodate more housing, but the unexpected jump in height was “clearly unacceptable” to many locals.
“Potentially, we could have had an outcome that satisfied their investors and what they want, and meets our obligations to contribute to the housing shortage, but is still acceptable, unobtrusive and in accordance with the Griffin principles,” he said. Kruty likened the proposal to a tower being built near architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, and said that keeping Castlecrag as “intact as possible, even with the difficult choices facing Sydney in the present world” was an “essential quest”.
“It is not a matter of NIMBY versus YIMBY, but one of appropriateness in a very particular case,” Kruty said. Emeritus Professor James Weirick, a former director of the University of NSW graduate program in urban development and design, said: “The Griffin legacy was one of very beautifully considered planning for the highly sensitive site of Middle Harbour, and this is a totally insensitive plan dropped in on that particular corner.
“Rightly, the community is up in arms because all of that consultation has been neutered by this decision to go the HDA pathway. ” The Walter Burley Griffin Society said the project would cause “irreversible harm” to the “unique planning and heritage” of the Griffin conservation area. It described Castlecrag as “a suburb like no other in Sydney” that drew international tourists, noting Marion Mahony Griffin once described it as “truly a bit of paradise on earth”.
Conquest’s head of placemaking, Benji Williams, argued that the planned complex would create a vibrant community zone with a supermarket, medical services and a gym.
“By thoughtfully increasing the height of the already-approved shopping hub, we can provide 150 much-needed homes including a tenfold increase in affordable housing on a site that is perfectly positioned for density at the intersection of two main roads,” Williams said. Housing advocacy group Sydney YIMBY said any suggestion that the unit complex would encroach on the heritage area “should be rejected as the spurious assertion that it is”.
Centre for Independent Studies chief economist Peter Tulip said 34 dwellings had been built in Castlecrag in the 30 years to 2021, and it was “silly” to suggest that flats should not be built next to a protected heritage area. Sydney’s laneways were abandoned to rats and garbage trucks. Now they’re being reclaimed for humans Planning Minister Paul Scully said the development application would be subject to a full merit-based assessment.
He said the process involved considering all public feedback received during the exhibition period, which closed earlier this month.
“All areas of NSW need to do their part to deliver more homes so young people, families, downsizers and the next generation can live in the neighbourhoods they choose,” Scully said.
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