When my partner and I bought a home in Ann Street, Balmain, in the mid-1980s, there was a container terminal at the end of the block. The noise was 24/7 and lights glared all night.

There were two early opener pubs around the corner, where wharfies could get a beer and a steak at 6am, the end of an arduous night shift. Our house had two small bedrooms and a fibro bathroom out the back. Nevertheless, it was a big step-up on my first home purchase, a noisy one bedroom by the railway tracks in Erskineville, unsewered, with a backyard dunny and a nightsoil collector.

Balmain is earmarked for rezoning as part of the Minns........

© The Sydney Morning Herald