A drive through Waitara - Transcript

A drive through Waitara

Narrator: Helen Curry

I’m going to take you on a drive through the suburb of Waitara on Hornsby’s northern outskirts.

On the right-hand side, that’s the train station, and that is why the suburb of Waitara

is subjected to the urban dynamic of urban consolidation, over the last 10 years.

This train station allows the residents of Waitara to travel on one train line to the city or Chatswood or North Sydney.

10 years ago, Waitara was a suburb with predominantly single-storey houses on quarter acre blocks, and you can see on the left-hand side that this street here, Alexandria Parade, still has quite a few of the old quarter acre blocks left.

But, the rezoning of Waitara has meant that the whole suburb is open to development of either 5 storey or in other parts of Waitara up to 10 or 12 story apartment blocks. And you can see on the left-hand side of the street, this street is called Balmoral Street, we have 5 story unit blocks, and on the right-hand side we still have single story houses on traditional 1950’s quarter acre blocks.

This street has seen quite a lot of traffic calming put in, mainly because of the increased population in Waitara, and massive increase in traffic through this area.

This area used to be quite a thoroughfare, but to slow the traffic down, they have implemented speed humps all the way along. That another one. So, I’m just about to turn left onto Edgeworth David Drive. This is a brand-new set of traffics lights it was put in about a year ago, again to cope with the increased traffic in this area. So, this is Edgeworth David Drive, and we’re about to turn left down Park St.

On our right, is brand new tennis courts, that’s Mark Taylor Oval, and behind it, the brand-new building PCYC - Police Citizens Youth Club. That’s a brand-new facility build two years ago for the citizens of Waitara

You can see that Park St still has some single level houses, but really the development has taken over and it’s a mix of 5 – 6 -7 storey unit blocks at this point.

OK, so we’ve gone around the block and were going to turn right again back on to Alexandria Parade.

So we’ve just turned right back on to Alexandria Parade, well go past the train station again and I’ll show you the more westerly side of Waitara which has already gone through the process of urban consolidation.

On the right-hand side Magpies Club, Millennium Gym, so a few businesses that cater for this increased population.

To your right that’s a blocked-of street now, basically so that through traffic cant go through that any more because of the increased population.

I’m going to turn right onto Romsey St here and in Romsey St you’ll see a combination of 10 -12 storey unit blocks, in basically what used to be, single level quarter acre blocks, and this continues on for some blocks.

I’ll take us around to turn left onto Edgeworth David Drive, you’ll be able to see that Waitara is very well serviced, medical centres on the left, and just further up to our left – Hornsby Westfield - big shopping centre.

Lots of people walk in Waitara rather than driving, partly because it’s so close to the Westfield shopping centre on our right, and also very close proximity to the train stain. This is Thomas St Medical Centre on the left, 8 – 10 storey unit blocks on our left, Hornsby GHS on our right hand side.

And as you can see in front of you, back to Romsey St, 10 – 12 story unit blocks.

End of Transcript.