A community in Sydney's Northern Beaches is getting a facelift, but it comes with a hefty price tag for locals.
Frenchs Forest residents are being kicked out of their homes, to make way for new developments — leaving many angry, saying they've been caught by surprise.
Thirty families will have all or part of their properties knocked down for the new Frenchs Forest town centre.
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Resident Fanette Robinson said she felt let down.
She only bought her first home on Grace Avenue five months ago, and now has a major road planned on her front yard.
She said the road would be two metres away from her son's bedroom and wasn't expecting any money for loss of value to the house, just the land value.
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"The solicitor did the due diligence, to look at everything for us, and didn't see anything," she said.
"Otherwise, to be honest, we would have never bought here."
The home owners have been given no timeline as to when their land will be acquired and how much compensation they can expect.
Another resident, Gail MacDonald, said she was "devastated".
"Everything I've done to this place allows me to age here, now they are destroying that," she said.
The state government and Northern Beaches Council said they were preparing for a population boom in Frenchs Forest.
"In this area we are going to get an extra 2000 residences, dwellings, in the next few years," Councillor Jose Menano-Pires said.
"And obviously when you increase the population, you need to increase infrastructure."
