Newcastle, you have superb views. It's a pity you hardly get to see them.

At the top of the list are water views - of the harbour, ocean, Lake Macquarie and, usually forgotten, the pretty Hunter River.

With careful urban design, it should be possible for many tens of thousands of people in the Lower Hunter to see water from their living rooms. This would contrast with our curious current situation, in which we are surrounded by water but homes with great views of it are pricey rarities.

Zoning should be changed to create a city where you don't have to be rich to have a great view. We can do this because so much of the urban area will be redeveloped this century. As many unsatisfactory houses and commercial buildings are knocked down, we can reshape the city.

This mainly means going higher in select locations - very high in some of them. But there are two critical problems: current height limits in the best locations are too low; and, even if they were lifted, current demand would not be strong enough to fully exploit the sites. Land needs to be reserved somehow.

In this series of articles on long-term planning for Greater Newcastle, we will consider the best places where we can make use of water views. Let's start today with the harbour.

Over the past two decades or so, a line of lowish buildings has been built at Honeysuckle. South of them, zoning allows construction of a row of taller buildings flanking Hunter Street.

By Newcastle's standards, the second row can be pretty tall, from about 15 storeys near Civic to 30 storeys in the West End. The highest buildings so far completed in Newcastle are the two towers of the Verve apartments on King Street, with 20 floors.

But these buildings are high only by the standards of Newcastle in 2021. Decades from now there will be demand for many more, and much higher, harbour-view flats in central Newcastle.

As it happens, we have space for a third row of buildings, which would peer over the Honeysuckle and Hunter Street rows. Call it the Back Row.

This could be built south of the major divided carriageway formed by King and Parry streets. In the east, the Back Row could begin between Auckland and Union streets at moderate height, rising to full height west of Union.

The western edge would be along Gordon Avenue and Selma Street. The Back Row would run east-west and not extend far south, because residential Hamilton has high heritage value. (See the map.)

Flats on the northern sides of Back Row buildings would overlook the harbour and, in the distance, the ocean. Those on the southern side would overlook National Park, Hamilton and, not so far away, the racecourse.

These would be outstanding residences for many thousands of people.

But they will never be built if squat apartment buildings are constructed on the sites first, which is exactly what will happen if current zoning is retained. Height limits on this land now allow for only seven to 12 floors.

Strata titling is the underlying problem. Once a building is divided into strata titles, it becomes extremely difficult for a developer to acquire. Quite reasonably, most people don't want to quit their homes even when someone knocks on the door and offers a price well above the market.

This means that if the Back Row land is wasted on underdevelopment in coming years, it will never reach its full potential.

To secure that potential we need a new zoning category from the NSW government, one that gives owners two redevelopment choices: either build to a very low level (say, three floors), with no subdivision or strata titling; or fully exploit the site by constructing to a vastly greater minimum height. With such zoning, land can sit and wait until its time comes.

For much of the Back Row land, I think the minimum should be 60 floors, with correspondingly generous allowance of floor area. So the buildings would be skyscrapers.

Many readers' first reaction will be that I am dreaming. In fact, it is only a matter of time before the swelling population of Greater Newcastle, and the growing habit of apartment living, will generate demand for such accommodation in an A-grade location.

My guess is that the Back Row would be built in the second half of this century.

Already, developers are working on plans to build four towers of about 30 floors in the Hunter Street row. If they go ahead, two will complete Doma's development on the Store site; the other pair, by Thirdi, will be at Dairy Farmers Corner.

Some people may object that we would be constraining the redevelopment of inner Newcastle by withdrawing the Back Row land from immediate availability. I don't think so, because the inner city has innumerable lots that can be done first.

Indeed, the inner city is much larger than Novocastrians realize. Defining it generously, from Newcastle Ocean Baths to the Islington railway bridge, it is fully 3.8 km long. If you walk 3.8 km south from Circular Quay, you go through all of the Sydney CBD, past Central Station and end up half way down Redfern Park.

The availability of so much land in central Newcastle is one reason not to expect much progress in the Back Row before 2050. Another could be the cost of filling old mines with grouting to support the heavy towers.

The size of the city centre also reassures us that 60-storey buildings would in no way feel overbearing. The width of King and Parry streets is particularly helpful in this regard.

If we put the proposed new zoning on the Back Row land, current owners could not complain. Values should immediately rise, because of the ultimately available height limit.

Hunter Essay #1: Build an East Charlestown bypass

Perhaps surprisingly, overshadowing would not be much of a problem, either.

For Newcastle's latitude, the sun is about 45 above the horizon in the middle of the day in winter. So the length of a building's shadow at that time is about the same as its height.

The corner of Steel and King streets, a Back Row site where a McDonald's restaurant now stands, is 210 m from National Park. That's about the height of a 67-storey building. And remember that National Park is already overshadowed by huge figs that are actually inside its perimeter.

Shadows from Back Row towers would be longer early and late in the day, but at those times they would tend to fall eastward and westward - that is, on other buildings in the Back Row.

And another thing about shadows: long ones move fast. A long shadow that covers you now will be gone in half an hour.

Depending on exactly where Back Row towers were built, the northwestern corner of National Park could be overshadowed for part of the day, and so could edges of Hamilton. My opinion is that some overshadowing should be accepted.

We cannot make an omelette if we are afraid of breaking a few eggs.

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