1998: Newington is unveiled

In 1998, the suburb of Newington was launched by NSW Premier Bob Carr. The suburb was built to act as the Olympic Village as part of Sydney hosting the 2000 Olympic Games and is reflected by the names given to streets within the suburb.

10 000 Olympic Athletes and officals lived in the village during the 2000 Olympic Games. Following the Olympic Games, they were converted into private housing. 

Around half of the 2000 dwellings in Newington were built prior to the Olympic Games. Around 250 dwellings were sold to the public while around 870 dwellings were used for the Olympic Games. The remaining dwellings (Around 1000) were built after the Olympic Games.

Newington was developed by Lend Lease and Mirvac. 

Currently, the suburb is home to around 5800 people (2016 Census). 

Source: Parsons, K. & Hilferty, T. 1998. "Olympic suburb unveiled". The Daily Telegraph, October 22: 3 (Final Edition).

1965: Sylvania Waters Feature

Above: Sylvania Waters as photographed in 1965. Full citation below. 

The Daily Telegraph published in 1965, a feature on Sylvania Waters, which was being promoted as Sydney's "first marine suburb". It focused on the planning and design approach towards the suburb. Over 200 acres of land was being reclaimed from Gwawley Bay, formerly home to mangroves and oyster leases.

While much of the land had been reclaimed from Gwawley Bay, sand from the Kurnell Sandhills was mixed in sections. The curved shorelines were designed to ensure that water could circulate with the rise and fall in tides.  The roads also reflect the curved nature of the shoreline. This aerial sourced from Google Earth depicts the suburb today with the street layout.

 

For the developers - Sylvania Waters Pty. Ltd. (now known as Sylvania Waters Ltd.), it was estimated that the 800 homesites would have a combined value of 10 million pounds (or $20 million) when the development was completed by 1968. This did not eventuate they were still selling vacant housing sites into the 1970's. 

The full article appears below.

   

Source: Anon. 1965. "Marine estate from swamp". The Daily Telegraph, January 25, 20. 

I have enlarged the aerial photograph at the top of the entry to highlight progress at the time of publication. Murray Island (towards the bottom of image or northern end of the suburb) was completed (1964). James Cook and Barcoo islands were under construction. 

Normally, I would reserve real estate advertisements for Saturday's but the advertisement complements the article and hence have included it in this entry. The attached map does exclude streets and cul-de-sacs that were built either to the west or south of Belgrave Esplanade.