Disgusted Australians have blasted the NSW Labor government’s official new mid-rise apartment designs, calling them “ghastly” and comparing them to 1970s social housing.
The nine pattern book designs were unveiled on Monday and described by Premier Chris Minns and Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully as “world-leading”.
They will be rolled out as part of the state government’s Low and Mid-rise Housing Policy that aims to provide 112,000 homes across NSW by 2030, will be available at subsidised prices, and will be given priority for the “targeted assessment pathway” for approval.
But high-density development advocacy group Sydney YIMBY asked its followed for feedback on the designs on X after their release and got an overwhelmingly negative response, with many calling them “slop”.
Today the NSW government is releasing the mid-rise pattern book.
What do you think of the designs? pic.twitter.com/UoNm4JpGMA
— Sydney YIMBY (@SydneyYIMBY) November 23, 2025
“As I’ve been saying, the YIMBY movement will simply turn Australia into Beijing. High-density living, destroying the beauty and uniqueness of suburb after suburb, with developers’ and state and local governments’ insatiable appetites being perpetually fed by infinity immigration,” wrote Campion College lecturer Dr Stephen Chavura.
“Flat, bland, demoralising, lowest common denominator, cheap-looking (but will be hella expensive to build, and real life is never as good as the renders),” said The Daily Telegraph’s national affairs editor James Morrow.
“Wage slave dog boxes,” wrote one Aussie.
“They’re all ghastly pre-cast boxes,” said another.
A third gave a mixed review, writing: “2 looks like social housing block straight from the 70s. 3 and 4 are ok, 1 looks best.”
Others joked that the buildings were not large enough to fit the millions of new immigrants being brought into Australia, and said they didn’t compare to beautiful terrace houses from the 19th and 20th Century.
“Imagine how many Indians and Chinese we can stack in there,” said one.
Mr Minns said the designs were helping the state to approve homes 15% faster than the previous government, and Mr Scully declared the patterns “not only have character but are affordable and sustainable”.
Header image: A small lot design (top left), a corner lot (top right), and two large lots (bottom), (NSW Government).
