1

greening the west

LeAD sPOnsOrs

PArt 2

the yellow brick road is green.

FeAturing the surrOunD

sOunD FOr Perth

2

CO-LeAD sPOnsOrs:

suPPOrting sPOnsOrs:

surrOunD sOunD sPOnsOr:

surrOunD sOunD PAneLLists:Senator Scott Ludlam Australian Greens

Darrel Williams Director, Norman Disney & Young

Joe Lenzo Executive Director, Property Council of Australia (WA Division)

Michael Barr Senior Development Manager, Kings Square at Leighton Properties

Ryan Keys Executive Director Planning, Metropolitan Development Authority

Geoff Warn WA Government Architect

Dr Brad Pettitt Mayor at City of Fremantle

Debra Goostrey Chief Executive, Urban Development Institute of Australia WA

Professor Peter Newman Director, Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute

Tim Urquhart Project Director, Waterbank at Lend Lease

Apologies: Kerry Fijac, General Manager Business Development and Marketing, LandCorp; John Carey, Mayor at City of Vincent; Carly Barrett, Director, Open House Perth

3

In November last year we kicked off the most exciting of projects, Greening the West.

With the help of our fantastic co-lead sponsors, Leighton Properties and LandCorp, supporting sponsors NDY, Mirvac and City of Fremantle, advertising sponsor HFM Asset Management and finally Surround Sound sponsor Aurecon, we gathered together an amazing group of people, held two events, produced now two ebooks and significantly expanded our coverage of news on the ground from Perth and WA.

At the first event, the Sustainability Salon for Perth and WA, we invited a group of the most influential people in Perth's future to dinner. We turned on the recording equipment, started the questions and listened.

See the results of that salon and expanded coverage of the key issues raised in the conversation in Greening the West Part 1.

Now, we're bringing you the results of the second event, the Surround Sound for Perth and WA, where we invited back some of the original panellists and asked others to join them.

The audience this time was close to 80. And it was a huge hit, with great interaction from a highly engaged audience. The evening itself and the feedback afterwards left us in no doubt that the sustainability champions of Perth and WA mean business. They want better outcomes environmentally, economically and socially.

We've gathered the key highlights in this book and fleshed out some of the major projects under way that will transform the city, and improve communities in the bush.

It's clear there is inspired leadership, in key parts of the property sector, local government, academia, politics, and professional and industry organisations.

Importantly too, there is a determination to influence the state government to switch on its attention to the realities of the sustainability challenges it must quickly grapple with if it is to provide the governance and policy settings to enable rational outcomes for all.

There is no doubt the West has a golden future, but as you can see from our cover, we think it's that wonderful tone of gold that's fast going green.

Tina Perinotto, Managing editor and publisher, The Fifth Estate

ForewordFOrewOrD

LA

ND

399

3

We’re working closely with our partners to develop forward-thinking,

environmentally conscious initiatives that will ensure a positive future

for our State. These initiatives include:

Design and built form – we’re exploring new ways to design for

climate, affordability and diversity with best practices in urban planning.

Energy saving – we’re assessing residential geothermal heating and

cooling in metropolitan Perth to find out if geothermal technology

reduces energy costs.

Water recycling – we’re working with a number of partners to trial the

use of Grey Water and recycled wastewater for irrigation in the Pilbara.

Native landscaping – we’re encouraging water-wise landscaping using

native plant species to reduce garden water use.

To find out more about our initiatives visit landcorp.com.au

Our commitment to a sustainable WA runs deep.

LC 2527 - Fifth Estate DPS (420x279) LAND3993.indd 1 12/12/13 2:34 PM

5LA

ND

399

3

We’re working closely with our partners to develop forward-thinking,

environmentally conscious initiatives that will ensure a positive future

for our State. These initiatives include:

Design and built form – we’re exploring new ways to design for

climate, affordability and diversity with best practices in urban planning.

Energy saving – we’re assessing residential geothermal heating and

cooling in metropolitan Perth to find out if geothermal technology

reduces energy costs.

Water recycling – we’re working with a number of partners to trial the

use of Grey Water and recycled wastewater for irrigation in the Pilbara.

Native landscaping – we’re encouraging water-wise landscaping using

native plant species to reduce garden water use.

To find out more about our initiatives visit landcorp.com.au

Our commitment to a sustainable WA runs deep.

LC 2527 - Fifth Estate DPS (420x279) LAND3993.indd 1 12/12/13 2:34 PM

6

Aurecon doesn’t just talk sustainability, we live it

Aurecon played a key role in our new 5 Star Green Star office in Western Australia.

Our new 5 Star Green Star rated

office building was planned with

environment and sustainability at the forefront of the design solutions,

receiving an Office Design v3 certified building rating. This multi-disciplinary

project saw Aurecon provide Environmentally Sustainable Development,

acoustics, vertical transportation, fire engineering, mechanical, electricaland plumbing, façade and structural services that all helped to achieve this

Star rating.

Whether we provide water resource management, optimal public transportand supply chain infrastructure, or green precincts and buildings

— Aurecon is committed to the principles of sustainable development — meeting the needs of the presentwithout compromising the abilityof future generations to meet their own needs.

To learn more about Aurecon’s commitment to sustainability, visit

www.aurecongroup.com

For more information contact

Phil Hues Technical Director, Buildings

T +61 8 6145 9430 E phil.hues@aurecongroup.com

Aurecon Office, Hay Street, Perth Australia Photographer, Peter Bennetts

Advert_Sustainability_Perth_2014-11-07_8.pdf 4/11/2014 3:20:22 PM

7

Foreword 03

Perth: the challenges 10

The Surround Sound 16

Geoff Warn: on design and sustainability 60

Joe Lenzo: fixing Perth's infrastructure gap 66

Industry collaboration and R&D 68

The changing perception of waste management in Perth 78

Perth City Link 82

Elizabeth Quay 86

Riverside 90

New Northbridge 92

City of Fremantle 94

City of Perth 98

City of Subiaco 101

City of Cockburn 103

Transforming Perth 106

Heal the land, heal the people 112

Ensuring the Pilbara's long-term sustainability 116

IndexinDeXAurecon doesn’t just talk sustainability, we live it

Aurecon played a key role in our new 5 Star Green Star office in Western Australia.

Our new 5 Star Green Star rated

office building was planned with

environment and sustainability at the forefront of the design solutions,

receiving an Office Design v3 certified building rating. This multi-disciplinary

project saw Aurecon provide Environmentally Sustainable Development,

acoustics, vertical transportation, fire engineering, mechanical, electricaland plumbing, façade and structural services that all helped to achieve this

Star rating.

Whether we provide water resource management, optimal public transportand supply chain infrastructure, or green precincts and buildings

— Aurecon is committed to the principles of sustainable development — meeting the needs of the presentwithout compromising the abilityof future generations to meet their own needs.

To learn more about Aurecon’s commitment to sustainability, visit

www.aurecongroup.com

For more information contact

Phil Hues Technical Director, Buildings

T +61 8 6145 9430 E phil.hues@aurecongroup.com

Aurecon Office, Hay Street, Perth Australia Photographer, Peter Bennetts

Advert_Sustainability_Perth_2014-11-07_8.pdf 4/11/2014 3:20:22 PM

Leighton Properties is Australia’s only investment grade pure developer of A Grade office buildings and urban and residential precincts. We believe in delivering profitable investments to clients by developing high quality, sustainably built environments of architectural integrity in which people can work and live. Established in 1972, as the development arm of Leighton Holdings, a global leader in property and construction, Leighton Properties has the financial and operational strength to guarantee delivery and provide investment certainty.

ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST DEVELOPERS

www.leightonproperties.com.au 02 9925 6167

King Square, WA

Erko, NSW

Eclipse, NSW

King George Central, QLD

567 Collins St, VICWrap, VIC Hamilton Harbour, QLD

9

Leighton Properties is Australia’s only investment grade pure developer of A Grade office buildings and urban and residential precincts. We believe in delivering profitable investments to clients by developing high quality, sustainably built environments of architectural integrity in which people can work and live. Established in 1972, as the development arm of Leighton Holdings, a global leader in property and construction, Leighton Properties has the financial and operational strength to guarantee delivery and provide investment certainty.

ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST DEVELOPERS

www.leightonproperties.com.au 02 9925 6167

King Square, WA

Erko, NSW

Eclipse, NSW

King George Central, QLD

567 Collins St, VICWrap, VIC Hamilton Harbour, QLD

10

Perth:the ChALLenges

1111

Perth mAy hAve A gOLDen Future As the CAPitAL OF A stAte with A DeeP vein OF resOurCes AnD nAturAL AttrACtiOns, but ACCOrDing tO the eXPerts in OrDer tO reALise this POtentiAL it neeDs tO First DeAL with its vuLnerAbiLities, PrimAriLy wAter, urbAn sPrAwL AnD COngestiOn.

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Perth has immense opportunities and none more obvious that the bounties that have come its way from the natural resources of its state. But the city also has major vulnerabilities, with suburban sprawl and water availability flagged as critical issues needing urgent attention.

With population projected to grow from just under two million in 2012 to 4.4 million and 6.6 million in 2061, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, those concerns seem increasingly acute.

Now it seems the state government agrees it can see a problem, with its new strategic planning document promising to increase density and rein in sprawl.

President of the Planning Institute of Australia, Western Australia division Charles Johnson identifies controlling sprawl through infill development and addressing the water issue as critical for Perth’s future as a sustainable city.

wAter

On water Perth has two water desalination plants in operation, which Johnson says were quite “energy hungry” and something of an interim solution. The city recycles the lowest volume of water of any Australian city and is at this point “not ready” for large-scale recycling of water.

For this reason, with the dropping of the aquifer and the substantial reduction in rainfall observed over the last 30 years, the city needs to use less water, he says.

According to Johnson a major gap in sustainability is the ongoing outer-edge suburban development that continues to make Perth the most car-dependent and sprawling of Australia’s capital cities.

“We need policies around urban consolidation,” he says.

“This links into another aspect, which is we need to connect places to live, work and play. If you are talking about a green city, it’s a city known for the journeys not taken.

Perth: huge OPPOrtunities but ChALLenges tOO by wiLLOw ALientO

1313

happen if Perth continues to grow outwards, creating suburbs that he says would rate highly on Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe’s “Vampire Index” (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage, Petrol and Inflation Risks and Expenditure) and are at risk of becoming untenable.

“The CSIRO is predicting that fuel will reach $18 a litre in 2018, and Perth is running out of water. If people can’t irrigate the lawn [in the suburbs], it could create urban ghettos easily.”

There is a “vulnerability” underlying the city, where it would only take a shift of one major factor such as fuel prices or water supplies to have a major negative impact, Bolleter says.

“People think the city has a stability, but that’s not really the case. When the theatre’s on fire, you need to tell people.”

”Perth has discovered congestion. It needs policies for public transport and active transport, and there is a need to think about land use and transport integration. To be smarter about where to put places to work and places to live – that is the green city approach.”

There is also a need to have dialogues with the community about why there needs to be more housing choice, including housing for the ageing population and for a Gen Y contingent less inclined to own a car or want to drive.

“We need to provide for that choice, which ties into that story of why our cities need to change, and why we need to change the way our city grows.”

Dr Julian Bolleter, assistant professor at AUDRC, based at the University of WA, has been looking at what will

14

“It’s unsustainable to continue to sprawl out,” said Ms McGowan.

But that doesn’t mean that life as Perth knows it will come to a halt.

WA Planning Commission, Lumsden, who attended our Sustainability Salon for Perth last year told the publication demand for types of housing is changing.

“People are now showing a need to downsize and an increasing number of Gen Ys don’t want four-by-twos in greenfields,” he said.

Bolleter is currently finalising a book on the issues surrounding suburban sprawl in Perth, which includes a systematic audit of the urban sub-region and the potential yield of non-urbanised spaces for infill developments.

the stAte gOvernment COuLD be Listening

It seems someone in state government could be listening.

According to a report in Perth Now, the state government’s Perth Future Plan will soon be released for public comment to deal with the 3.5 million people that could be living in the city by 2050 or earlier if you listen to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and a key thrust will be that higher density infill housing developments in existing suburbs must be accepted and that there be a curb on sprawl.

Director general planning Gail McGowan said the plan aimed to “limit” sprawl, and consolidate the city’s urban footprint.

1515

dropping considerably, and due to the low rainfall throughout most of the year and limited catchment for dams, the local aquifer is already being topped up with treated, recycled water to maintain sufficient supplies.

He says some fringe developments are already having difficulties getting a sufficient water allocation, and that perhaps the question needs to be considered: What does the suburban form become when you take the water out of it?

“That could be one of those pivotal moments where suburbs in their current form need to change,” he says. Perhaps one idea is to look to the Middle East where significant density surrounds urban oases of green – “where the green becomes like a precious jewel”.

His research identifies areas including freeway reserves and golf courses that could be used to develop residential projects, and also infrastructure easements on the verges of streets that could then be added to individual house lots to sufficiently upsize them for subdivision.

“Perth currently has 45 square metres of public open space per person, but so much of it is barren,” Bolleter says.

“The Australian open space standard is 28 square metres per person. We could subdivide some of [Perth’s] space and use the money from that to upgrade other public spaces. The main issue is, if we don’t take action, the city will keep sprawling.”

Bolleter agrees water is a critical issue Perth’s groundwater table is already

“ If we don’t take action, the city will keep sprawling.”

16

Soundthe surrOunD sOunDPerth, 19 August 2014

17

Soundthe surrOunD sOunDPerth, 19 August 2014

18

19

Nearly 80 people attended our first Surround Sound in Perth on 19 August. The concept was for soap boxes and microphones scattered throughout the room so that the audience could jump up and jump in – to question the panellists or to state their case. As long as it was short and snappy. But would people be activated? Would they fire up and create the slightly bawdy open format we envisaged? Would they challenge the panellists?

They did. In spades. Following are the main highlights of what happened.

Opening proceedings was Josh Byrne, environmental scientist, consultant to major agencies and

developers, ABC television host and builder of the well know Josh's House in Fremantle, which aims for outstanding environmental performance. Byrne proved he knows the material backwards and his highly skilled facilitation of the evening demonstrated superior communications skills…

Josh Byrne:

Tonight’s format is a bit like Q&A and Shakespeare in the Round. I’m calling it a cross between Q&A and speed dating with some of Perth’s leading sustainability thinkers. It’s going to be short and sharp, informal, and it’s about participation.

It’s unusual in that we’re not just asking for questions. You can make a soapbox comment, but it’s got to be kept short to 60 seconds. So here’s how it’s going to work: we have two panels, five people a piece, and we’re going to invite them up, we’re going to give them a two to three minute commentary on what they see as the most pressing sustainability issues facing Perth, and indeed Western Australia, from a built form and development perspective, and then we’re going to throw it over to the audience, where you can ask questions or make a statement.

surrOunD sOunD FOr Perth brings Out the PAssiOn AnD the LOgiC

Phil Hues

Josh Byrne

20

intrODuCtiOns

Josh Byrne:

I’d like to start with Senator Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens. Scott is well-known to many of us, and was re-elected as an Australian Greens Senator in April. He’s a former graphic designer, a social and environmental justice campaigner and political adviser. But it’s his work in housing, cities and transport that has earned him the respect and attention from thought leaders in the property world

– in particular a collaboration with the Property Council and Urban Design Research Centre.

Our next panel member is Darryl Williams, director at Norman Disney and Young. Darryl is a mechanical engineer with 25 years’ experience in the construction industry and has worked around the world, including the UK, Indonesia and, of course, Australia. As a leader of NDY’s sustainability group, he has actively contributed to the development of some of NDY’s most iconic projects.

Next we have Joe Lenzo, executive of the Property Council of Australia’s

Western Australian division. Over the years the Property Council has been a leading influencer in helping the property industry become more innovative, rational, efficient and profitable – so a key player in tonight’s proceedings.

Next we have Michael Barr, senior development manager of Kings Square at Leighton Properties. Michael first joined Leighton Properties in 1995, managing and coordinating various phases of commercial, industrial and residential projects. In 2008 Michael relocated to Perth and became senior development manager with Leighton Properties for the master-planned precinct of Kings Square.

And finally on this panel we have Ryan Keys, executive director of planning for the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority. As per the MRA mantra and vision statement, MRA’s vision is to create dynamic, authentic and sustainable places across Perth. Sounds like exactly what we want to hear this evening. The aim of MRA is to achieve this vision through planning, development and placemaking in partnership with local government, community and industry.

Senator Scott Ludlam Darryl Williams

PAneL 1

21

stArting COmments

Josh Byrne:

So to kick off, and we’ll actually start with Joe on behalf of the Property Council, if you can just in two to three minutes, outline some of your key thoughts and concerns about the sustainability issues facing the property market here in WA.

Joe Lenzo:

Okay, well the first thing I should do is take my tie off because I think it’s going to get heated with those sorts of introductions. I want to start with a statement of fact. And the fact is the built environment can play a most significant role in reducing the carbon emissions in this country. That’s a statement.

Let’s get to Perth, and talk about the commercial property sector. When we look at the sustainability story in respect to commercial offices in Perth, it’s a good news story in one part, and it’s a real challenge in another part.

When we look at buildings like this one [Aurecon’s 5 Star Green Star offices, the Surround Sound venue], when we look at any building that’s been

designed and built in Perth over the last three to four to five years, most of these buildings have been built to very high sustainability standards. Most developers in this state, and right around Australia, have been very quick to understand that it is important to be able to design and build buildings that cover all the necessary environmental issues: things like water, energy, airconditioning – they look at all these things, and the reason they do that is because they’ve found that it actually does make the building, and the economic life of that building, more sustainable and actually cheaper.

So what’s really the big question if they’re doing these things and everything’s working fine? The real issue we’ve got here is this: in Perth about 70 per cent of all our buildings are over 30 years old. And this is the challenge: what are we going to do about those buildings? Because I can tell you, the take-up rate – the green retrofitting of those buildings – in Perth has been very slow, extremely slow. And the reason for that is… two to three years ago the vacancy rate in the Perth CBD was virtually zero. So people were knocking at the door paying whatever rent you wanted.

Joe Lenzo Michael Barr Ryan Keys

22

Older buildings are the problem because in the mining boom tenants were knocking on the door paying whatever rent you wanted. Why would you bother retrofitting? And the government couldn't care less…

Why would you waste time, money and effort to retrofit your building? It didn’t make sense.

The other issue was, whether you like it or not, we’ve got a state government that really isn’t all that interested when it comes to incentivising green buildings, or doing anything in that area whatsoever. So there hasn’t been a government stick that says, “We’re going to try to help you do that.” So for those reasons those buildings have not achieved what they have in some other parts of the country.

So that’s the challenge I’m going to throw to you. The challenge I’m going to throw to you is, since you’re all very knowledgeable people, and know more about sustainability than I do:

tell me how we can incentivise those buildings – that 70 per cent of the stock – because that’s the big bang. That’s where we can make a difference when it comes to carbon emissions. It’s not the new buildings like this one.

Josh Byrne:

Thank you Joe. That was a very succinct two to three minutes. But how could you stop a man when he’s on a roll like that? Now I’ll throw to Senator Scott Ludlam to touch upon your key thoughts and concerns at the moment.

Scott Ludlam:

Alright thank you. Thanks for the invite. I feel distinctly uncomfortable being up here on some kind of stage in the middle of a room full of practitioners who know more about this stuff than me, so I’m looking forward to people jumping up on the soapboxes.

I’ll start also my comments by acknowledge that we’re on Aboriginal ground, and in the work that we’ve been doing over the last couple of years, including a very productive partnership with the Property Council and others, start with that acknowledgement for the obvious reason that those people, that culture, have been here for about 200 times longer than the city has. The city has

Panel one Ryan Keys

23

been here relatively briefly but it actually occupies a space that’s been inhabited and cultivated for a very long period of time, including right through the last time the climate changed. There were people here who still carry those stories.

I would also really like to acknowledge the ethnic and gender diversity that’s present up here on the stage, and pay my respects to The Fifth Estate. It is so good to have you guys in the mix, being critical, and throwing people a bunch of flowers when they deserve it, and throwing half bricks when they deserve it. It’s actually very, very important to have that critical thinking.

[On gender diversity unfortunately two women invited to the panel were forced to cancel due to illness and and family issues – Kerry Fijac, general manager business development and marketing

for LandCorp and Carly Barrett, Open House Perth director – ed]

A bit of a theme that has slowly been dawning on me for a couple of years is that the business and sustainability community in this country, but particularly this town, is a lot more progressive and switched on than the tiers of governance, who according to the textbook are meant to be driving this stuff. They are actually really not. Where I go to for optimism isn’t actually Canberra, you will be stunned to hear. It’s the folk in this room. It’s the people who are making things happen.

So my question tonight is: Can you imagine what would happen if you aggregated the intelligence, the will, the urgency, the skill base that folk in here are really the tip of the iceberg of – imagine if the top political tier of

“Where I go to for optimism isn’t actually Canberra, you will be stunned to hear. It’s the folk in this room.” – Scott Ludlam

Scott Ludlam and Darryl Williams

24

government at a state and federal level wasn’t trying to block everything you do?

Imagine how nice that would be if we actually took the brakes off and let you guys do what it is you are trying to do.

And I guess in a way that feels a bit like our job. We’re not in government – I’m not a minister for anything – but I would like this offer to you collectively tonight, that our door is open and one of our roles, I guess, is to hold the door open to the Australian parliament so that from a legislative sense and from the soapbox sense your voice can be heard. I liken it really to… being on the bridge of the Titanic when you see the iceberg coming out of the fog, and the captain’s trying to make the ship go faster, and we need to grab the wheel, friends, and turn the damn thing as rapidly as we can. So what I offer tonight, really, is a sense of urgency and I hope what you can fire back at us is your expertise and your good ideas of where to go from here.

Ryan Keys:

I sit up here being part of the state government. So it’s interesting, and I’m always happy to hear thoughts of where governments should be sitting – the carrot and stick type argument. As Josh reflected too in the introductions, I guess the way we look at [sustainability] from the Redevelopment Authority point of view is in a holistic sense, and it’s very much a discussion between performance of individual buildings as well as what goes around it.

Our focus is on places, and we call ourselves a placemaking authority rather than just a project delivery authority, and we look at the space in between the buildings as much as the buildings themselves. The challenge is delivering that. We set our objectives – we have six redevelopment objectives, which is an expansion of traditionally the triple bottom line.

We always try to find the balance of stick and carrot. We have dual roles as planning authority and project delivery, we buy and sell land through the private sector, and [we try] as a place manager to deliver the ultimate outcomes. So sometimes we do take a financial hit to meet our objectives.

But the balance for us, and the challenge for us and the Perth community, is the broader knowledge of the community. They drive the market. It’s not just about a Green Star

We look at the space in between the buildings as much as the buildings themselves – Ryan Keys

The panel engages with the audience

25

rating or Green Leaf rating, or this is a fantastic environmental building – there are other things that people will start to realise whether it’s in economic or social or extra housing or different types of housing. Once the community gets that broader proposition, they are the market for the private industry. So it’s that broader education, telling the story in a different way, that then drives all of us sitting up on this panel in a different way.

Michael Barr:

From my perspective, we moved to Perth as a family in 2008, and I reckon it’s changed a fair bit. It’s moved from a market dominated by private investment, high net worth individuals, to institutional product. And that’s probably the space we sit in. And from our side of things, institutions understand the economic benefit of ESD-rated buildings. Kings Square has four buildings underway at the moment all being pitched as 5 Star Green Star As Built, as well as 5 star NABERS. And that’s pretty standard, to be honest. And I think the market accepts that.

I’m really proud of Pat Hollingworth, one of our development team who recently got a design rating on the first building, one of the first credits on the innovation challenge from the Green Building Council, and the lifecycle costing. And that’s a great example of us as a culture within Leighton Properties, trying to keep doing what we can do.

It’s the community stuff that really excites us at the moment. It’s getting the liveable neighbourhoods.

Residential I think is different. Affordability’s an issue, let’s face it. It’s fundamental issue in residential property. It’s hard for people buying properties to pay the extra. People buy the idea. But we need to prove that the same philosophy that’s quite well-accpted in a commercial market is the same for residential. It doesn’t have to cost you extra to get to a good ESD standard. Yes, the bar changes a bit and we want to push it a bit more. But it’s the community stuff that really excites us at the moment. It’s getting the liveable neighbourhoods. It’s that stuff that will add value to your buildings. We’re developers, okay, so we’re not that altruistic. We want to do a great job, we want to have a great legacy, but we are there fundamentally to make money. But what we understand is that the parameters are changing. I would agree that the message of the government is a bit underdone on ESD at the moment.

Josh Byrne:

You reckon? [laughs]

Caption

Michael Barr

26

Michael Barr:

I reckon it is, Josh. From the perspective of working with the MRA, they do set pretty good targets on ESD. And they do listen. And there is a balance between setting targets and commercial reality. We have to move away from the perspective that that side’s warm and cuddly, and the other side’s just about money. The sooner we move away from that, and understand that some good stuff is happening in the state government, and some really ordinary stuff as well [the better]. The communities program in things like Perth City Link and other programs around the major redevelopment areas, they’re the things that I think will turn into great spaces. And they make liveable spaces; that’s a place you want to live and work. You don’t need a car all the time, you can ride your bike. They’re some of the initiatives that the government is investing in. And they’re setting high standards on ESD, and that what we’re targeting.

Darryl Williams:

I was going to say a number of things the other speakers have already said, so rather than go over a lot of the same issues, I thought I’d maybe have a segue with what I’ve done in sustainability – not that I’ve contributed a huge amount, it’s sort of my own

personal journey, and how it ties in with the construction cycle and how it ties in with where we are in terms of an industry or group of people who are concerned about what’s happening in the broader environment.

I first started getting involved in sustainability 10 or 12 years ago – so not very long compared to some people in this room. Peta, one of our employees, I worked with her 10-12 years ago in Melbourne at Docklands came in after I made a whole pile of outrageous promises about what could happen. I then left to go to Manchester in the UK. Peta finished off the job and it was the first 5 Star Green Star project in the Docklands. It was fairly groundbreaking at the time. There was a lot of negativity about “Can it be done? Why are we doing this? This doesn’t make sense.” The 5 Star rating was, again, driven by the developer. The developer of the precinct saw sustainability back then as a key benchmark of the quality they were looking to do. The park was driven around technology, so there was a big technology focus there – sustainability was a key platform.

In Manchester everybody said, “Oh, you’re from Australia. You’re so much further ahead of us in sustainability.” And I said, “That’s surprising and interesting to know because we

27

think the same thing about you.” And what you’d find is they are gaps. We probably took a front-running in some aspects, and the UK probably took a front-running on others. And overall we were probably at a similar place.

One of the most interesting projects I did there was working for a developer called Ask Developments, who primarily worked on brownfield regeneration, particularly contaminated sites in the northwest of the UK. And they wanted to embed sustainability into their overall delivery of projects – getting involved with their supply chain. So again, there is the developer pressing what needs to be done. They saw it as a way of future-proofing their stock. They were 20-year delivery programs – 30 years on some of the larger master-planned developments. And they actually saw it as embedded.

“If we don’t do this now from day one, our development will lose relevance, our yield will drop over the course of the 20 or 30 years.”

How do we maintain that enthusiasm?

Someone raised the question [of Asian developers and poor quality buildings] We have three large clients, all Asian developers, either Singapore, Indonesia or Malaysia, and all have a strong desire to build sustainable projects.

Part of it is marketing driven – they know they need 5 star NABERS, 5 Star Green Star, but beyond that there is actually a burning desire – maybe we got lucky with our clients – to actually deliver something that has long-term value. A lot is family money, and they think generationally. So the first thing is [sustainability] is here to say. You’re mad if you don’t do it.

The question is, how do we maintain that enthusiasm when a lot of the press that you read, and a lot generated from sustainable individuals, is negative?

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Josh Byrne:

Thank you gentleman for that terrific kick-off. So now’s the chance to throw it open to the floor, to jump off one of the soapboxes. Who would like to be first off the rank? Sid Thoo! Why am I not surprised, Sid?

Sid Thoo, Association of Building Sustainability Assessors:

I’ll start with a slightly contentious question. Is there such thing as sustainable growth?

Joe Lenzo:

Growth is good. There’s nothing wrong with growth. We’ve made it into this sort of word that has connotations that it’s all going to be bad, it’s all going to be congestion, it’s all going to make life more expensive for us. There’s nothing wrong with growth but growth can be planned, and planned properly, and that’s the key issue.

Growth without an end is the ideology of the cancer cell

Scott Ludlam:

I’ve got a slightly different view. The way economists define growth at the moment is the doubling of the economy within a finite period of time. And if you continue doubling and doubling eventually you completely overrun the carrying capacity for whatever it is that we live in. Growth without limit or growth without an end is the ideology of the cancer cell.

But then coming out and being anti-growth seems a bit dumb as well, because there are stages when an economy needs to grow. I am strongly in favour of the [exponential] growth of the solar energy system for the time-being. When renewable energy occupies 100 per cent of the energy market then we’re going to need it to stop growing. It won’t make sense for it to continue to double and try to create demand to accommodate its growth. In a sense, the growth ideology has kind of hijacked development. Why do we grow? We want to provide a good life for people, and that I’m more interested in than just growth for the sake of growth. Which is not necessarily a strong disagreement with Joe, but I don’t think we should

sOAPbOX

Fabian Le Gay Brereton

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fetishise three per cent annual growth of the material economy every year because that buys you a doubling time of about 25 years until you kill the place. We have to do something a bit more subtle and sophisticated.

Fabian Le Gay Brereton, Greensense:

The question was asked about how do we deal with the existing building stock, and I thought I’d offer two suggestions about how we can improve it.

We have a unique opportunity in WA right now as the state government is going through another reform of the electricity sector, and we have the unique position that we’re separated from the national market, so policy decisions we make now might affect the energy mix we have in WA over the next 50 to 100 years.

It’s a really good opportunity to get engaged in that reform that’s going on, and think about policy that can encourage distributed generation and more sustainable energies.

And the second suggestion is, when thinking about the existing building stock, the only instrument we’ve got

right now to measure the operational performance of that building stock is NABERS. And for a small older building, NABERS can be quite an expensive instrument to use. And it’s not very actionable. You say you’ve got a one star rating – as a building manager or facility manager what do you do about that? So I think one of the challenges for us as an industry is how do we give people in these buildings cheaper tools that are more actionable to address the performance of older and smaller buildings?

Darryl Williams:

On Fabian’s last point – and I think this is where we as a profession do ourselves a disservice – the biggest change we can make is with all those existing one star buildings, congratulating them if they go to two or three. I’ve found even with educated property people or building owners, they get scared into paralysis that they’re not actually going to achieve anything because they think they need to do five stars. “I’ll never get to five stars because I’ve got an old building.” Where really we should be encouraging them. One star to two? Great! Well done you for getting to two. And we don’t do enough of that. It’s

How do we give people in these buildings cheaper tools?

Sid Thoo

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always about the five star or six star, when these small incremental changes are what we need to be doing.

Small incremental improvements should be congratulated

Damien Moran, HFM Asset Management:

We do a lot of electricity procurement, so we negotiate the supply contracts for a lot of the building owners in the city. We also do a lot of the NABERS ratings. And we’re also heavily embedded in solar analysis on commercial buildings, on all sorts of buildings around the state

– a lot in the northwest. And we’ve got building owners ready to go. They know the viability of solar is there, then we’ve got the federal government saying no, we’re going to get rid of the [renewable energy certificates]. That takes about 25-30 per cent of the viability straight out the door. Some of them are still saying, “Well we pay 42 cents a kilowatt hour in Port Hedland or Karratha – [so solar is] still viable.” Whereas in Perth the viability is less but it’s still there.

Solar is ignoredThe government doesn’t get it. And we’ve got an electricity market review

that ignored solar; it’s the capacity of their ability to understand what they’re playing with right here. It’s wrong. It’s flawed. They don’t get it.

Joe Lenzo:

We’re going to make sure the government does get it because Rebecca, our policy officer, is putting together a paper for the government on electricity reform, and these excellent points that have come up are going to appear in that.

Michael Fuller, Energetics and Fremantle Community Wind Farm:

I don’t mean to pick on you [Michael Barr], but you mentioned something about the cost of sustainable housing for the residential sector, and it’s probably a common myth – or maybe it’s the truth – that I wanted to ask about: this idea that it’s more expensive to have sustainable homes. I visited Josh’s House when it was open in Hilton, and you could probably elaborate on it a bit more than me, Josh, but I believe it was built for the same price as a typical house of the same size. And it’s 10 star NatHERS.

Josh Byrne:

Plus a lot more than just the 10 star NatHERS rating. We actually had eTool do the LCA on it, for the record.

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Michael Fuller:

I might throw that over to Alex at eTool.They look at the embodied energy of buildings. Are we looking holistically when we look at the cost of a building and its impact? Everyone’s focused on the operating footprint. And I want to make one more point that the poorest households in Australia, including WA, are the ones that are buying solar panels for their roofs. These are the people that are actually the most cost sensitive making the capital investments to reduce the operating costs of their homes.

It's the poorest people buying solar panels

Audience member:

That’s because they can’t afford to drive cars [referring to a recent gaffee by federal Treasurer Joe Hockey who claimed the poor don't drive much].

Audience member:

I’m actually very disappointed with this audience because there’s a presumption in the room that low energy design costs more. And that’s just cobblers. We’ve had a few people here just make the assumption that doing a green building costs more. It doesn’t. What it does require is intelligent design

and effort and technical risk. And it requires clients to take technical risk. [For instance in a house at Leighton Beach the use of motors to open a building to natural ventilation allowed the airconditioning system to be halved in size, with significant cost savings.]

In Manchester, we did a building where we used groundwater cooling for 30 per cent of the cooling load. The client asked us, “What would we save if we cut out that system.” And I said, “Minus £400,000.” “Terrific, that’s a £400,000 saving.” “No. It’s a £400,000 cost if you delete this system.” Because the system saved energy but it was lower capital cost. The thing that was different was it was higher technical risk, so you needed to have a designer who knew what they were doing. So the thing in this room – and I’m a bit disappointed – is no one has talked about design.

Audience member:

Yet!

Josh Byrne:

Perhaps on that we’ll throw back to Michael for a bit of follow-up in that for many of us working in the design space, we are frustrated about this very important issue that often it is perceived that many of the initiatives we’re talking about are either more

CaptionMichael Fuller

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expensive or in some cases there is a justifiable increase in design fees at the front end of the project to do this clever design and thinking through, and there can be demonstrated paybacks both in reduced capital spend and also operational savings. So, from a clients perspective, and working with a range of clients as you do, how do you see getting over this key hurdle?

Michael Barr:

I probably would say I was slightly misrepresented there. I think there are two things I would say. One is that on office buildings we’re really comfortable with 5 Star Green Star, 5 Star NABERS. We believe we can hit that target with no additional cost.

I would say on the residential front of things, we do have an affordability crisis at the moment. There’s a reason why we don’t have a lot of 4 Star Green Star-rated or 5 Star Green Star-rated buildings of residential multi-unit dwellings. Putting aside single dwellings. I’ve followed your website, Josh, and fully accept that they’re built at the same cost – but the perception, right or wrong, on Green Star for residential multi-unit dwellings is that there is a cost premium. And when the market is driven largely in the inner-city context by investors who are looking at capital cost and return on their capital, and you’ve got two dwellings

in the same locations, one with Green Star and one without, the reality is the investor won’t go to the more expensive one. Even marginally. And I challenge ourselves on that, because there is still a lifecycle cost–benefit that we can put into that equation. We’re not saying it’s not possible, but the reality is we still work with designers and builders. There is a cost premium to get a Green Star residential.

Josh Byrne:

To keep that thought moving along, can we go to Joe for the Property Council position. There are second tier developers, who are building buildings that are, let’s say, cheap and nasty to save that premium, but really they’re putting the impost of the operational cost of those dwellings onto perhaps people who can least afford it. And in many cases these buildings are actually built for the Department of Housing. So how do we start to look at a situation where there’s more collaboration between the development industry and government, to look at a fairer occupancy timeframe spread of some of these costs?

Joe Lenzo:

With respect to commercial… tenants demand high green credentials. When you go into residential, we have the conundrum about affordability, and the problem that we’ve got is that we talk

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about affordable housing; we should be talking about affordable living. Because I can sell you an affordable house; at the other side of Armadale you can by that land/house package for $380,000. That’s affordable, if you use that metric. But then the cost of commuting, the fact that that house doesn’t have energy saving systems, is going to cost you more.

So let’s talk about affordable living. And that’s where the property industry is starting to come from now. They’re starting to look at affordability in the residential sector – all about affordable living. And they’re already on that mark.

Take the pressure off expensive technologies

– it's not necessaryRyan Keys:

I agree that design needs to be a further part of it. I think there is more recognition, and it goes to what was said at the start – if someone doesn’t understand what you’re

saying then talk about it in another way. Get them to understand it. Much of the energy and water use comes down to how that person behaves in that particular building. So the early thoughts –the design, the fundamentals of the building, throughflow of air – all those type of things become a far more important part to the ongoing operation of that building. Sometimes the less mature developers who think it is costly… tap on technology, which is a very expensive way to do it. So that’s education. Help them, talk with them, show them examples, set the benchmarks, so people understand. Change the fundamentals of how a building works, and take pressure off the costly technologies to tap on at the end of a process.

Rocio Bona, Curtin University:

My question is for MRA. I really would like to pick your brain on the processes and systems that you have implemented at MRA to ensure that the vision, the targets, and the objectives of the program or project get prioritised as the project gets delivered.

Caption

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Ryan Keys:

It’s a good question, and it’s great to hear the conversation of developers in the room, and this building itself, of the difference of not just doing the design and getting a tick-off at the design stage but following it through to construction and making sure the outcome is matching the theory. For us, we’re unique in our roles. We are a land developer on behalf of the government, but we also have the planning, regulatory role, as well as placemaking. We see projects on behalf of government from the start of the project right through to the very end. We have six redevelopment objectives. So very quickly: sense of place, economic wellbeing, environmental integrity, social inclusion, connectivity and urban efficiency. So for us they’re embedded in our regulations under our act. They are our KPIs, they are the six things that we measure ourselves against.

Scott Ludlam:

Am I allowed to ask a question? When I was taking a shot at government before, my thoughts were more directed at Canberra and much less at the public service. I think in WA we have some of the best planners in the business. I’m not at all critical of what MRA does. I think the political layer, however, has got quite a bit to answer for at the moment, both here in WA but particularly in Canberra.

My question, and it seems like too good an opportunity to miss, there is a lot of innovation in the commercial space because I guess you’re designing bespoke projects for clients that have

huge energy bills, and you can apply much more designer-led thinking to each project, but go to the suburbs or fly in over the eastern or south-eastern suburbs and what you will see in hundreds and thousand of identical four-by-two brick and tile cubes with double carports going up in huge numbers. In conferences in 20 years time we will be looking at that building stock going, “Why did they do that?”

So my question for the development community, even though I know this is more commercial than residential expertise, is how do we stop that? Can we stop building stuff that we know we’re going to need to retrofit? From a policymakers perspective, please tell me what we need to do to push that transition along, so we’re not building stuff that’s obsolete on the day people move in? Obsolete and really unaffordable, as I think Joe you pointed out quite correctly. Cheaper to buy, maybe, once you nut out all the taxes and all the other stuff, but very expensive to live in, and a bit of a disaster. So how can we stop doing that?

The Fifth Estate:

Is there an appetite for more regulation? Everyone seems to think the market has to drive everything. Why?

Audience member:

We let six star [NatHERS] regulation come in and we gave the building industry an entire year, year-and-half to actually accommodate it in Victoria. It was uptaken very, very quickly. In Western Australia it seems we have a resistance to more sustainability.

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Piers Verstegen

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Josh Byrne:

There’s a soapbox standoff! And there’s a striking similarity [between Alex Bruce from eTool and Piers Verstegen from Conservation Council WA].

There is no affordability crisis

Alex Bruce:

The challenge is that we don’t have a housing affordability crisis, and sorry to pick on you again [Michael Barr], but it’s something the government has to stop saying. I think we’re all guilty of it. We have the highest ratio of income to cost of living in Australia that we’ve ever enjoyed. We’ve never had more stuff. And the size of our housing has increased in 20 years by 40 per cent. So 160 square metres when I was a kid – 220 sq m now.

We do not have a housing affordability crisis. We have this ridiculous appetite for big houses. So the first thing we need to do is stop the marketing that says you have to have a 220 sq m house to be happy.

If we do that, you drop the environmental footprint instantly. We could hit our Kyoto agreement protocols and targets just by that one thing alone. And the problem we have is marketing. You open the West Australian and those guys have like $10 billion a year to advertise big, crappy houses.

Don't rely on government, it's up to us. It's an opportunity

The one thing we’ve got to stop doing though is say, “Oh, we’ll rely on the government to legislate it.” We can't do that anymore. The government just won’t do it. It’s up to us to drive it. We’ve got to stop sitting around saying,

“There’s barriers, issues, challenges”. We’ve got to say, “No, there’s opportunities.” Every one of us has got an opportunity, or a requirement – it’s just part of what you have to do as a person – to get out there and sell this stuff. And you’re up against people with multi-gazillion-dollar budgets selling crap. We’ve got to get out and push a better product.

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Piers Verstegen, Conservation Council of WA:

I was going to make similar comments, and wanting to pick back up on what Joe said earlier, because it’s really, really important. I’m really a political economist so I’m interested in the politics and the economic drivers here, and we’ve got this debate in Western Australia at the political level – the debate about cost and affordability – which has been completely captured by a sector of

the building industry, which is making profit from urban sprawl.

And that’s why we’ve got this capturing of this debate saying, “We need affordable housing therefore we need to build more and more urban sprawl.” We need to change the nature of that debate, otherwise we have a market failure happening. People actually think that affordable housing equals urban sprawl when in actual fact that’s complete rubbish.

And so we’ve actually commissioned some research into this to see what people really think. And I’ll talk a little bit about that later because it’s quite exciting.

We’ve got to force ourselves to challenge that dominant political narrative about the cost of housing and about affordable housing, because it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Josh Byrne:

As a follow up to a good act, that wasn’t a bad effort. Please join me in thanking panel number one.

The debate on affordable housing has been captured by the developers of urban sprawl

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intrODuCtiOns

Can I welcome up Geoff Warn, WA Government Architect. Geoff Warn is the partner and design director of Donaldson + Warn, as well as being the WA Government Architect. Geoff’s particular expertise is in urban design, master planning, arts projects, educational projects, civic architecture and technical buildings, and the practice has won many industry awards. Geoff has also been widely published and has been a guest lecturer at architecture schools in Perth, as well as around the country and overseas.

Next we have Dr Brad Pettitt, Mayor of the City of Fremantle. Brad is increasingly known as being one of the most proactive sustainability thinkers in local government, but his background prior to that was as Dean of the School of Sustainability at Murdoch University, where he took over from Professor Peter Newman, and I’m sure all of use have been following the City of Fremantle’s leadership work in terms of local government initiatives, and largely championed by Brad, my local mayor, which I’m very, very proud of.

Next we have Debra Goostrey, chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia WA. Debra has been CEO of UDIA since 2007 and as such is able to influence some of the most important developers key to our discussion tonight. Thank you very much for joining us.

Next we have Professor Peter Newman AO of Curtin University. Many would know Peter for his work not only here in Western Australian but indeed for his international work through the IPCC, where he is one of the lead authors on transport. Peter helped author the state government’s sustainability strategy 2001 to 2003, which at the time was the first state sustainability strategy of its type nationally and I believe possibly, at the state government level, in the world. Following up from that he was a key advisor of sustainability to the NSW government. He was the founding professor of the Institute for Sustainability Policy at Murdoch University, where I studied, and grabbed his whole team and is now running the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute. And I should also mention he is my long, long, long, long-time suffering PhD supervisor.

Geoff Warn Brad Petttit

PAneL 2

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Finally we have Tim Urquhart, project director of Waterbank at Lend Lease. Tim has 30 years of international experience within the property industry in development, urban regeneration, business management and strategy, and of course heading up one of the most exciting projects, if not in Western Australia, possibly Australia.

stArting COmments

Josh Byrne:

We’ll kick off with Debra on highlighting from your perspective, and perhaps that of the development industry in general, what are some of the key sustainability opportunities and challenges you’re seeing at the moment.

A history lesson in why we sprawled

Debra Goostrey:

Thank you. I want to start with a very brief history lesson, because I think it’s important people understand where we’ve come from. If you go back to the turn of the last century, Perth was a very dense place. And we were all very communal, and ended

up with a typhoid epidemic. At that point in time the health authorities said, “Spread. Spread your wings and go as far as you can.” We saw the automobile come in and make that happen even faster and further. We had a government policy that said that the minimum lot size was 597 square metres. We were on easy to develop land and, absolutely, we went out and developed into those areas. We were so good at it, we were so affordable, that people started to believe that a four or five bedroom home was absolutely first homeowner territory. That is not realistic. But that’s what everybody believed.

When we ended up with a population boom, and not enough land to supply the market, then we suddenly hit the reality of our five-bedroom mansions being built were not first homeowner territory. And when we were starting to get the most expensive properties in Australia, we actually had to reconsider where we are going.

Demand has changed – people want smaller houses

Debra Goostrey Professor Peter Newman Tim Urquhart

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What’s happened post-GFC is a transformation. I’ve heard everybody speaking today but many of you are not knowing how much is changing. We are now seeing for the first time people coming in and saying, “I want a two-bedroom home, I want a three-bedroom home.” Pre-GFC they were saying, “No, I’ll wait until I can afford the big one.” We were getting real estate agents saying to people, “Don’t buy the small one because you won’t get the resale on it. Make sure you buy the big one.” We had this message being constantly reinforced.

A few weeks ago I went out to Shorehaven, which is just south of Geraldton, and the reality is that there are people moving in within 10 minutes of where they work; they’ve already got established workplaces. They’ve got a lifestyle. I went out there because the minister was launching the new modular product – created in a factory, brought in on the back of a truck, very low waste, and very low embodied energy. It has a good star rating. We are now seeing that product rolling out into Banksia Grove [north of Perth].

We are on the cusp of something that’s quite radically different to what we all do and perform. And the key

ingredient there is when we were pre-GFC we were previously doing big lots, big houses and the two things were utterly separate. Now we are seeing very small lots and that has driven the developers and the builders to start working together to actually design areas. The real thing that’s going to move us forward to much better sustainable outcomes is the fact we’re starting to go through the wholesaling of lots to builders so they’re able to design multiple dwellings with all of the sustainability features built in, instead of selling it to the individual who then goes and gets a home developer and builder to put a house on it. We’re moving towards built-form product.

I want to very quickly run through what the barriers are. One is the way our taxation system works. If you buy a built-form product you end up with double taxation. If anyone wants to know about it, I can tell you later. But it is an absolute disincentive. We have a system where doing vanilla is easier to get through than doing anything innovative.

We are on the cusp of something that’s quite radically different to what we all do and perform.

Panel 2

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At the Alkimos area, they were looking at having reticulated water for non-potable use coming out of a wastewater treatment plant. The developers were putting in $75 million, the federal government was putting in some money and the state government was going to as well. The water coming out of the tap was going to cost the city another million dollars a year so the project was canned. We now don’t have the water in that northern corridor to be able to water the public open space in the way we want.

UDIA represents both greenfield developers and apartment residential developers. None of it’s easy. And the reality is when we start talking about affordable living, banks don’t lend on affordable living. And [things won’t change] until we actually get some benefit that will allow people to acknowledge affordable living within the mortgage application process.

Designing for better places and spaces

Geoff Warn:

As a practising architect I’ve always been throughout my career committed to intelligent design. As government architect I have been given the role to implement a policy the state government has put in place for better places and spaces. It’s the first in Australia and that is something we can be proud of. What that basically means is, in a way, manifesting policies and approaches on the ground for people. People of all incomes and all ages should be able to live a dignified and comfortable life in Western Australia.

If we think about sustainability, the thing that interests me is what are we going to sustain? Obviously environment and the climate, but people live in social groups. We live in cities and environments that should be engaging and inspiring and long-lasting, and in some respects as a practising architect and also with my government architect role, I’m really committed to the fact that well designed places create and encourage people to be innovative and creative and immensely adaptable and tolerant.

And I think we miss out on all of this with our common monocultural approach to things. We’re an engineering society; we have, I think, the second highest proportion in the world of engineers. We have a tendency then to engineer economics and engineer solutions. And I think we miss out on the true value of creative thinking and innovative thinking – and I don’t mean graffiti on walls – I mean true creative, deep thinking and action. And I think that’s our next maturation as a society – to embrace creativity, and culture and the arts of our society, equal to our economics and engineering. It’s a big ask but I think it’s our future.

Not so optimisticBrad Pettitt:

Picking up a little bit from Debra’s optimism, I’ll be upfront. I actually don’t see it in those kind of optimistic terms. In fact, I don’t see a transformation. Opening the paper doesn’t spell it out to me at all. What I see is actually a lot of business as usual with some tweaking at the edge.

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For example, we were here when Alannah MacTiernan was minister for planning, and we were going to Banksia Grove to celebrate the great new post-brick revolution that was about to happen. Has anyone seen it? Six years later it hasn’t happened. And my sense is actually what we’re doing right now is actually the worst kinds of development on our fringes. In fact, we are getting smaller blocks, and we’re getting slightly smaller houses – down from 250 to 220 square metres. It’s not a big change. So our blocks have got smaller and now we have no open space. We have created an absolute desert out there – a desert of roofs. And it’s actually the worst kind.

So, for me, it’s actually about, we do need radical change? And it’s about getting people living around transport hubs. Radically I’d suggest that we actually need to look at having an urban fringe where we say, “This is an urban growth boundary and that’s it.” And we all work out now how we actually live together.

Following on from Geoff’s comment, cities are great! If you read Edward Glaeser’s book, Triumph of the City, that idea that [cities] create places where you come together, and density actually brings us together, and I think it does sustainability in those ways you can’t do in any other way. And that’s actually a really exciting possibility about what we can do. What we invest in over the next 20 years, now, is the infrastructure we have to live for the next 100. And my fear is we’re not investing in the right infrastructure.

Tim Urquhart:

I’d like to start by having a little bit of thinking about what sustainability is, because I guess our focus as a big corporate is that we really don’t look at it as being a challenge. It is more about opportunities and how you explore those opportunities and actually realise outcomes. Lend Lease has a really simple vision, and it’s actually to create the best places. How you might want to define I’ll leave up to you, but that’s the benchmark that we try and set ourselves.

We’re incredibly privileged at the moment as a company, because in Australia we have a portfolio of urban regen projects that has a value of about $15 billion, which we’ve never had before. So we really are challenging what is sustainability, but more importantly we are actually starting to redefine the nature of some of our urban landscape in our big cities. Importantly we also have the ability to challenge people about what’s possible. And that is a unique position to be in.

Some of you will be aware of some of our projects, no doubt, like Barangaroo in Sydney, which is just starting to take shape, and Victoria Harbour in

We have created an absolute desert out there – a desert of roofs.

Tim Urquhart

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Melbourne. And while I think we’re delivering outstanding building outcomes, really for us it is about creating vibrant places and thriving communities, and actually focusing on people, and what people are actually getting as a result, which is way beyond the built form.

In the context of something like Waterbank, just down the road, which is a big inner-urban regen project, for us the opportunity is about really trying to redefine what city life and city living is about, because ultimately it’s about urbanity, but how do we blend urbanity with the natural environment that we have, with the fantastic natural assets that are on our doorstep – being the river and the landscape. And the reason I mention that is because for me the role of nature is in fact what it’s about. And there’s many cities around the world now taking the role of nature as shaping what they’re actually doing and how they’re actually starting to redefine where they want to take their cities.

The challenge is for me, at a project level something like Waterbank ultimately is about alignment of stakeholders, both internal and external. And really trying to take their thinking beyond what’s possible, If we don’t sit above the mundane, ultimately we won’t improve our way of life.

Perth is leading – the potential is huge

But I guess invariably a lot of those initiatives are industry leading, and in fact challenge conventional thinking, and that’s precinct infrastructure, it’s community engagement, social governance, liveability.

But I think the challenge is to do things differently. People aren’t looking beyond what’s actually possible because they’re just seeing how they’ve done it before. So for me that’s actually where we need to go.

With a glass half full approach, I think Perth is an extraordinary city. In many contexts, we’re actually doing things here much better than in the other cities in Australia. We’re not followers. There’s a lot of areas where we are actually leading. We have a unique period in the history of this city at the moment where there’s absolute generational transformation taking place. And with this fantastic portfolio of the bigger picture projects, I think we really have the opportunity to excel as a city and redefine what sustainable outcomes mean in the context of people.

The question is, do we have the collective passion to do it?

Brad PettittDebra Goostrey and

Geoff Warn

Tim Urquhart

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Josh Byrne:

We have a short presentation by Professor Peter Newman.

FOur sustAinAbiLity revOLutiOns thAt Are unstOPPAbLe

Peter Newman:

King Canute was thought to say, “I order you not to rise onto my land,” talking about the ocean, “Nor to wet the clothes or body of your Lord.” Well I’m wanting to make the point that governments tend to think they’re a bit like that. They say, “Well if we say sustainability is not happening then it will just disappear.” It is unstoppable.And there are four revolutions going on globally that I think are changing our cities everywhere.

The first one Ray [Wills] and I did some work on – the investment in renewable energy, which now is more than is

in fossil fuels. Peak fossil fuel power investment occurred in 2008. We also have peak power consumption around the world. We have our power consumption now going down, particularly on a per capita but totally as well. The utilities have been taken by surprise. Ten per cent of Perth’s homes have PVs and it’s growing at 20 per cent a year, and the future’s very clearly going to be moving to smart grids, batteries and [electric vehicles]. That’s all happening. It’s unstoppable.

Second one: sustainable transport. Peak car use is happening in every developed city and I’ve now found it happening in Shanghai and Beijing. Car use per capita is going down rapidly in American cities. Public transport is booming everywhere. In every Australian city car use per capita is going down. The world is changing. Eighty-two Chinese cities, now 46 Indian cities – the new Prime Minister has just announced they’re going to build metros in 46 cities – and around the world wall-to-wall cities are attracting capital.

The third one is the offsite manufactured buildings. We can go so much better than Green Star or the same. This building in Cockburn Central went up in 11 days: 20 per cent less cost, 40 per cent less carbon, 50 per cent less time and 80 per cent less waste. This is the kind

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of revolution that is now happening everywhere, and we are just catching onto. But it’s certainly going to sweep its way into our cities.

And the fourth thing is biophilic urbanism. The whole thing about landscaping walls and roofs, landscaping our cities, cooling cities, reducing stress. We’re working on it in prisons in WA, but not yet much anywhere else. So the reality is that King Canute in fact said, “All of the inhabitants of the world should know

that the power of kings is vain and trivial.” He actually was just trying to show that there’s nothing you can do to stop the rise of the sea, nor of sustainability. Thank you.

Josh Byrne:

Thanks for that global context, which I guess reminds us that the world truly is an amazing place, and the opportunities are there and things are happening. On that note, over to the floor.

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Dr Ryan Falconer:

I’m a transport planner and independent scholar. I say that because my company Arup might not necessarily share my point of view, so I’ll just make that very clear. Now I have a short diatribe then a question, and when I get to the question time I must stress it is not a question for Peter Newman, because I think we already know the answer.

My short diatribe has to do with a recent conversation I had with a friend about infrastructure delivery in Perth in the transport space, and that friend, and I use the term relatively loosely, suggested that the introduction of a multi-lane viaduct road would be a fantastic opportunity to create transit-oriented development. Now we also know that our friend in federal government, a friend by the name of Tony, is willing to commit 9-10 figures towards road construction in Perth, and as we know he that tends towards excluding public transport, rail investment and all that sort of thing. I don’t necessarily share that view either. What I would like to pose as my own personal point of view is that there should be a moratorium on adding road capacity on our arterial road network for at least the next political cycle, let’s say three or four years.

My question is, for the rest of the panel and potentially the floor, what are the risks of doing so and what could be the potential benefits?

Debra Goostrey:

The reality is we need public transport. One of the things we desperately need is for the government to have a bipartisan approach to public transport and actually commit to a public transport plan that they will implement regardless of the political cycles. What we’re finding is that the trains are promised, developers have gone to try and do their development, then the train doesn’t appear. We absolutely need the public transport to become less politicised and just part of the infrastructure programming.

Geoff Warn:

One consequence will clearly be a lot of people complaining of traffic congestion, and that will immediately stop the program.

Brad Pettitt:

I’d add, yes, the infrastructure we invest in now is infrastructure we need to be doing. One of the key things is actually putting it in public transport but not seeing transport as an isolated element. It’s actually about getting

We desperately need the government to have a bipartisan approach to public transport.

sOAPbOX

Ryan Falconer

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the land use planning around that right. And if we do that, in conjunction, actually investing in proper transit and getting transit-oriented development around it, actually coming back to the question of density and sprawl, dealing with those as a package, then all of a sudden it starts to make sense. Trying to do that in isolation I think is where it would potentially unravel.

Tim Urquhart:

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, public transport works extremely well when you have density, and that’s so obvious when you go to cities that have density. At the moment when we talk about TOD development, we tend to think of people moving to the single train line and building dense around there, but you go to other cities and it’s a complete web and network of integrated buses, trams, undergrounds, overgrounds, the whole system is completely knitted into the urban fabric and there are not these isolated TODs. The whole built up area of the city is a TOD.

Josh Byrne:

We can’t bypass Peter who of course got an AO largely from his work in saving Perth to Fremantle railway line, so it would be almost remiss not to throw it to Peter for at least a passing comment.

Peter Newman:

I think that the public do get it, actually. If you say we’re going to solve traffic congestion through public transport, they understand that now. They never did before. They always thought it was just roads. They’re much smarter now. The other thing they understand is that urban sprawl isn’t a good idea, and that affordable housing can be

made much closer in near to train lines. So I talked to Piers [Verstegen], and he’s going to release the results of his surveys eventually, and you’ll find that all of that is confirmed. The Perth public want to see this.

The reason it is not happening is purely politics, and part of the responsibility for it is the public service, who let down their models. Their models are still stuck in a different era. They still predict how to overcome congestion by increasing road capacity. They still predict that urban sprawl is the most affordable way to build things. But it’s heavily subsidised, in both cases. The easiest way to stop dead urban sprawl is to get them to pay for it. It’s $100,000 per block subsidy at the moment. You put that on the price of a new block.

Josh Byrne:

So can I ask a quick follow-up to Peter. On 7:30 WA several weeks back when you were speaking on the public transport conundrum here in Perth, you discussed a very innovative funding model whereby the expansion of public transport, in particular light rail, may be partly funded by the increase in property values that would happen as a result of this infrastructure being fast-tracked through Perth. Could you touch upon that quickly?

Peter Newman:

It’s called value capture, and it’s simply that if you put a railway in, it raises the property values around it, and that means that the taxes and rates go up around it. And they’re actually going to Treasury. They can be hypothecated into a fund and used to raise the financing. Now that’s a mechanism

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now being used in the US and UK; it’s not yet being used in Australia although people talk about it.

Private rail? Why not?Now this [venue] is an Aurecon place. Aurecon can tell you exactly how to do it. They do it in other parts of the world. So in my view we should now move, because there’s such a market for public transport, you could actually make a private rail system and it would work using that mechanism and you could immediately call for expressions of interests of consortium who would build, own, operate and do that major development and financing. And you would get consortium put together by teams like Aurecon and Arup who would show you how to do it. And they would put in rail systems that would not go along Fitzgerald Street and those crazy light rail lines. It’s ridiculous. They would go to where there is real demand, not just the political solution because the busway along Beauford Street didn’t want to be moved. I mean, they would do it much more sensibly.

The public service failed. Give the private sector a chance.

You have to say the public service failed here. They had several years to do it. They were shown how to do some of this value capture, and it never happened. So give the private sector a chance. I think it’s the only chance we’ve got. The [government] can’t even contemplate the kind of money that’s involved. And they shouldn’t have to. They shouldn’t have to take

it out of consolidated revenue. This is something that can pay its own way. You can show how to do it.

Joe Lenzo:

I want to make a point. We’re launching a report that’s going to government on what we should do on infrastructure in the state. The biggest problem we’ve got is the political cycle. And you’re absolutely right. Developers and financiers and investors want to invest in infrastructure. They need, however, certainty over the long period. They need that certainty from government. Here in WA we haven’t got it. NSW has Infrastructure NSW. Victoria has Infrastructure Victoria. They look at the long-term requirements. They prioritise infrastructure. They work out how it’s going to be funded, and the private sector gets involved. This government refuses to do that, and we’ve been bashing their ear for quite some time. We’ll release the report, and if all of you get behind it, and all of you tell the premier we ought to do it, then we might get it.

Vanessa Rauland, CUSP and Simply Carbon:

I recently finished my PhD in the area of low carbon urban development focusing on precincts under the supervision of Professor Peter Newman. My research, my thesis, looked at all sorts of things, but one of them was barriers. My question to the panel was touching on what Joe was saying before, information barriers into consumers and home owners/buyers, looking at the residential side.

My question is, who do you think is best-placed to address this issue? Is

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it state government? Is it the UDIA? Is it the banks and green loans? Is it universities? Or is it the wonderful people like Chiara [Pacifici] with her business Green Gurus, upskilling real estate agents? I personally think that it is a massive barrier and we really need to deal with educating people about affordable living.

Debra Goostrey:

Certainly from UDIA’s perspective, we’re very aware of that, and trying to unpack sustainability. One of the challenges you’ve got if you ask six people what sustainability means you’ll get six different answers. So we’ve brought in EnviroDevelopment [rating tool], which breaks down sustainability into some elements. It won’t be the be all and end all to everybody. It covers water, energy, waste, materials, ecosystems and community. And that is designed deliberately to try and educate consumers. We’ve got a media partner, the West Australian, who will run articles for each of the development when they’ve done something to explain the new grey water systems etc. Is it that there’s solar photovoltaics? Is it about the design of housing? All of those things continue to be put out there to the individuals to try to promote

EnviroDevelopment, just like all the other certifications.

It is critical that we educate people. We have to keep educating people that they don’t need the airconditioning in a house that is appropriately designed. But it’s up to everybody. It’s all of the above; shouting louder, because at the moment we keep surveying people and at the moment if you ask if they want to spend those few extra dollars on photovoltaics, or whatever it might be, they’ll say, “I’ll take the alfresco area, please”. And that’s our big challenge.

Chiara Pacifici:

Information needs to be simpler. Real estate agents, and all of us, can do better to simplify information to the consumer. Low cost, low impact: it’s as simple as that. Energy efficiency, water efficiency, solar PV – they’ve become the social norm, and they’re becoming valued by the consumer base. People are not expecting to pay for it, and actually developers that I work with are delivering it and finding a point of difference in the marketplace,

We need to deal with educating people about affordable living.

Vanessa Rauland Professor Ray Wills

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selling product and actually building a very credible reputation by doing so. In terms of education and communication delivery, it needs to be simple, simple, simple. And I’ve had to learn that myself. Because I thought giving them all the fruit was what they needed. But actually, they don’t need that. It just needs to be marketed precisely, simply.

Debra Goostrey:

And that’s what we’ve tried to do with EnviroDevelopment.

Professor Ray Wills, Sustainable Energy Association:

Three points: first of all the model is changing. What we’re seeing at the moment is a situation where the building industry is still trying to sell six-cylinder or eight-cylinder Commodores to us. They’re out of fashion. We want energy-efficient VWs, thanks very much. We don’t mind if it’s imported. So move on. The reason we know that it’s happening is because the data Peter [Newman] is presenting is telling us that this is so. But the advertising is still trying to sell the Commodore. We need to get to the new model.

The second things is, yesterday we celebrated. It was great! We opened a

new… train station. But what was at the train station? Was there a shop at the train station? A high-rise building? A residential tower? No, it was just a train station.

Josh Byrne:

With a car park next to it! Fair go.

Professor Ray Wills:

Yes, so you could park in there so you could get to the shop on the other side. Just like Cockburn Central. You get a car park, then you get a shopping centre. What’s this about? This is irrational. It really is. If we got a train in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane, we can get off in a shopping precinct with a residential tower above us, and we’ve just got home. So what we’re facing right now is still this challenge in planning to say that the planners know best. I believe in the market. I think the market knows best.

And my third point is of private development of these facilities. Last year, in my business hat, I was working with a client who’s down and around Secret Harbour. They would love to build a 12-18-storey residential tower over the top of where the train station would go. They would build the train station and they would develop the land, and that

Chiara Pacifici Josh Byrne

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Piers Verstegen, Conservation Council WA:

The Conservation Council is a sustainability organisation, really, but you probably don’t hear a lot from us in the sustainable housing and building dialogue, because we tend to spend most of our time defending numbats and trying to stop the fossil fuel industry from cooking the planet, but there’s one thing that we’ve been trying to work on for a long time, and haven’t got a lot of traction on. And that’s the fact that urban sprawl is annihilating our threatened species, and cockatoos are going to go extinct because of urban sprawl. But we don’t get a lot of traction on that in the public dialogue because the housing affordability myth has been trumping the numbats and the cockatoos for years and years.

would be a bit controversial because it’s over three storeys, and this is Western Australia so you can’t have over three storeys, for goodness sake! Somebody might be able to see it over a tree.

But if we released that property, they would build the train station. It wouldn’t be a train station; it would be a residential multi-use tower. But they can’t do it, particularly because they’ve been told by the public transport authority that that train station is planned for 50 years time. They can’t do it.

Let the market do it. Let the market take the value. Companies are ready to jump in.

Let the market do it. Let the market take the value. Let the market take the market risk and deliver the project because they will profit from it and they want to do it.

And it’s not just the likes of Aurecon, who are kindly hosting us tonight. I know of Korean companies like POSCO, who are ready to step into that space. I know of Japanese companies that are also just as ready. The market is ready for it. What we have is the handbrake on. We’ve got to take the handbrake off.

Stop saying no. Say “try this” and get into the pro-development space.

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Chiara Pacifici, whose employer Psaros won the Banksia SMB Leadership Award in November, and Poers Verstegen.

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time someone buys a sustainable apartment it means less urban bushland is cleared, less energy is used, less waste is created.

So we started talking to them and thinking, “How can we take a campaigning approach to this? How can we take community engagement approach to this?”

So in that partnership we’ve now forged with a developer – a conservation organisation working with a developer! – the first step has been to find out, “Well, what do people actually think about these issues?”

Psaros has put some money where their mouth is and actually invested in some really interesting research on this.

The top things that people want for Perth [in a survey taking in people within 10 kilometres of the CBD] are public transport, more cycling lanes, green buildings. They are the things people want in Perth. And by the way, people in Perth don’t believe the myth that urban sprawl is affordable. They’re

So we’ve been thinking about this for a while, and thinking, well maybe we need to take a different approach here. Maybe we need to stop saying no to things – and by the way I love the idea about a moratorium on roads; I’ll add that to the list of things we want a moratorium on – and start saying yes to things, and start getting into the pro-development space. Because we know what the solutions are, and maybe we can actually take the advocacy approach that the Conservation Council and other groups like ours are good at – the community engagement approach – and apply it.

Instead of saying no to urban sprawl – which we’ve been trying to do and not succeeding for a long time – actually say yes to a different type of development – yes to a sustainable type of development for Perth.

So, we started having conversations with Psaros, which is doing fantastic things in this space, delivering exactly the kind of housing product that we want people to live in. Because every

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CLOsing COmments

Tim Urquhart:

I’d just like to bring together what was said in the last 10 minutes. The first thing about infrastructure is there’s no doubt that regeneration needs to be infrastructure-led. Infrastructure can’t be a follow-up. If you look at best cases, that’s actually what happens. And it does speak to Peter’s point about value capture and value creation. The market will respond if there is foresight around infrastructure. And that will be generally the cheapest way of doing it, because it will stop the urban sprawl. I’m not talking about infrastructure going out; it’s a re-utilisation of land and creating better infrastructure within that inner-city environment.

Second thing, in terms of the culture of Perth and WA, in about 25 years time, which is not that far away, the majority of first home buyers now will be starting to downsize. And the majority of those people will be really happy to live in an apartment environment. And you’ve got to start planning for that.

Geoff Warn:

We’re a highly commodified society. Our housing is commodified. As a result of that we tend to build a lot of features and not a lot of lasting quality. Inner ring suburbs that were built in the late ’60s

just not buying it. So that’s a bit of a snapshot… but we’re just about to move into a phase of going beyond Psaros and Conservation Council. Because we know if we’re going to take this more broadly, and build a public constituency in support of a new type of development – which is what’s needed in Perth – we need to work together with other partners and other organisations. So this is just an entree to that.

Josh Byrne:

Well said. What a brilliant note to end the soapbox position on. Can I just throw it to any last comments from the panel before we draw it to a close tonight.

Josh Byrne

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1920s to now, and they’re classified as being significant to the human habitation of Earth. That’s the level of quality they’re building. And they’re still being occupied.

We could significantly raise our bar, I believe. Our public realm tends to be activated by commercial activity, rather than cultural and social activity. Our housing is commodified and the bigger the houses are, the more we seem to be then having the need and aspiration to fill them with more junk, possibly to get thrown away.

So we have several systems working against gains we might make that are coming out of the intelligence of this room. We’re actually also counteracting those with other completely non-sustainable practices.

Debra Goostrey:

I did focus on the masterplanned community type developments, and I do want to make a couple of comments about the other 50 per cent of our members, who do urban infill and high-rise developments. If you really want to see more of that, get out there and actually help to promote the fact that these developments need to go ahead. Our developers say they can’t get good

and ’70s, we’re ploughing through those and knocking them down. It shows that they don’t have a particularly long life, yet we’re now knocking them down and building bigger versions of the same thing with a shorter lifespan and significantly less material substance. So we’re actually going backwards rather than forwards. They are less sustainable than they were. We’re ploughing down suburbs that have had 30 to 40 years growth of vegetation and knocking down all the trees – a wholly unsustainable approach.

I was recently in Berlin and was stunned that they are on a program of building 400,000 apartments by 2050. The population is 3.2 million. In not long it will be 3.5 million. And the infrastructure they have is phenomenal. That also is not including the backlog of work in upgrading what is primarily an apartment city. It’s fascinating when you think about that program. In 2006, they had six residential estates that were built between 1920 and 1940, which were listed in the UNESCO World Heritage. Those six estates house 10,000 people. Are we building estates that are going to be in the future, in 50 to 100 years time, classified as World Heritage sites? Those developments have lasted from the

The market will respond if there is foresight around infrastructure.

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sitting there together. I actually do think that with us all doing it we actually can make a transformation.

Peter Newman:

We need an infrastructure plan. We need a plan as to where development should occur rather than the continuing sprawl. We’ve actually done a plan like this as part of a couple of PhDs and shown how to finance it, and we want to get it out. So we’ve asked the Committee of Perth and we’ve asked the RAC, and perhaps we haven’t asked the right people – we should have come to Joe and Debra. It seems to me this kind of group needs to get hold of the kind of ideas we’ve got, massage it until you think it’s heading down the right track and get it out! Get it into The Fifth Estate, get it into the newspapers and let’s stop talking amongst ourselves like this but into the broader community, because I think they’re really wanting to hear from us.

Josh Byrne:

We’re going to draw this evening to a close.

Tina Perinotto:

I’d like to thank everybody here tonight. It’s been an amazing night. It far exceeds our expectations. The panellists have been fantastic. The audience has been amazing. We’ve got enough material here for the next several years, and certainly there’s enough material there for a plan, as Peter was saying. It’s all about cooperation and talking. It’s about conversation, which is really where we started this whole idea from. So thank you to everyone. Thank you so much Josh for MCing. You’ve done a fantastic job. Thanks to our sponsors, especially lead sponsors LandCorp and Leighton Properties, supporting sponsors NDY, Mirvac and City of Fremantle, and to Aurecon for hosting the event.

sites. We need to be able to talk logically about infrastructure. At the moment the government is saying the infrastructure is fine. It’s not. The developers have to go through and redo all the power, the water, and all of those things. We need to have reasonable and rational discussions about what heights we can go to. We need to have these discussion with the community on planning reforms so when the developers are trying to get through the system, they’re just trying to meet the standards that have been set.

So if you really want to make a difference – and I like what was said before – stop protesting and start saying what you want to happen, and make sure you understand the reasons why it is difficult and challenging. Don’t take the high road of saying, “But they’re bad and evil people because they’re not doing it.” Understand what the barriers are and help us to unblock those barriers, and that will be the best thing that you can do to help with sustainability going forward.

Brad Pettitt:

I think what’s been quite inspiring here… I don’t think we’re there yet on that transformation but I do think what’s been shown tonight is there is a real appetite for, and convergence around, acknowledging that the business as usual approach really isn’t working. And that there really is a proper sustainability outcome, and by that I mean one that creates better communities, is more affordable, is economically more viable, and of course helps the environment.

And for me that’s really exciting. We actually are on that, and I think that’s been a really nice part of this conversation, that real sense of,

“Actually, we can do it.” And every part of the spectrum wants to do it. It’s nice to see Joe [Lenzo] and Piers [Verstegen]

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"It’s been an amazing night. It far exceeds our expectations. The panellists have been fantastic. The audience has been amazing."

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the wAy FOrwArD: innOvAtiOn AnD insPirAtiOn

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As a practising architect and educator I’ve been committed throughout my career to intelligent design. As government architect, part of my role is to implement the state government’s

“Better Places and Spaces” policy, which outlines a commitment to providing a better quality built environment. It’s the first policy of its kind in Australia, and that is something we can be proud of. It is an excellent initiative to build on. What this means is making manifest the policies and approaches that help create better places for people. People of all incomes and all ages should be able to live a sustained and dignified life in Western Australia.

And if we think about sustainability, what interests me is the question

“what are we intending to sustain?” Obviously the natural environment, by reducing pollution and other damaging impacts on essential resources and on climate. Then there is the economy and its relationship with human well-being. Also there is the matter of preserving, curtailing or expanding individual freedoms and self-actualisation, which are closely associated with “lifestyle” and in contemporary society, that means consumption.

And our collective identity and our heritage are, to many people, important to preserve. All of these different aspects of sustainability lie at the juncture of architecture, planning, engineering and politics, as these disciplines should be concerned with how best can we occupy space while managing the resources required to do so. People live in social collectives; we live in cities and suburbs, villages and towns. And given the need for such

geOFF wArn On hOw better Design LeADs tO greAter sustAinAbiLityFollowing is an essay by WA Government Architect Geoff Warn where he expands on some of the ideas he raised in the Surround Sound for Perth and WA.

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places to be socially and economically viable, I hold that these environments should also be engaging and inspiring to people, as well as long-lasting.

AFFOrDAbLe hOusing AnD A wArning On Pre-FAbriCAtiOn

With the drive for more affordable housing and greater density we must be careful not to be overzealous when it comes to rapid construction using prefabrication methods. While these technologies are appealing on several accounts, and can address immediate issues of construction time and cost, we should not overlook the fact that many cities across the globe are demolishing apartment blocks and commercial properties that were constructed using building systems that championed prefabrication. The attractiveness of immediate gains in construction speed (and presumably cost effectiveness) soon waned, as the buildings and their settings were seen to be soulless, unattractive and uninspiring – technically impressive but culturally impoverished. Negative connotations fueled social issues, and this has most likely stimulated the subsequent reaction from town planners, with their leanings towards the nostalgia of “new urbanism”.

Repeating this cycle should be avoided. Good design can foster efficient and effective results by building on existing sensible practices and by thoughtfully adapting current conditions to new demands, minimising waste and excess, and keeping positive societal values in the design and delivery process.

I’m committed to the fact that well-designed places can nurture robust communities and encourage people to be innovative and creative, adaptable and tolerant. And I think we miss out on some of this with our approach that tends towards somewhat of a mono-culture.

Interestingly, we’re somewhat of an engineering society; we have, I think, the world’s second highest proportion of engineers living and working here. This is historically consistent with the state’s development and our very strong economic growth. So, understandably, we have a tendency to “engineer” solutions.

We must be careful not to be overzealous when it comes to rapid construction using prefabrication methods.

And with this bias we can overlook the full spectrum of creative thinking, artistic enquiry and innovative activity – and by this I don’t mean commissioning more graffiti and licensed buskers – I mean genuine creative, critical thinking and inspired action. I suggest this is our next phase of maturation as a relatively young society – to embrace diversity, creativity, culture and the arts; to hold these equal to our strengths in economics and engineering.

A greater artistic sensibility can only improve our capability to tackle the new challenges of increasing complexity that will inevitably continue to arise, and to address these in an efficient, imaginative and resourceful manner. While this is a big ask, there

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are signs that both government and business does recognise the value of a more creative and innovative society.

PubLiC trAnsPOrt

Public transport works extremely well when there is density. This is so obvious when I visit dense, compact cities. At the moment when we talk about our TOD (transport oriented) development, I tend to think of people driving to the train stations distributed along our coastal rail line.

Planning regulations encourage density around these stations, which is a good move, although the response from the residential developers and their allied marketers is, on the whole, pretty underwhelming. When visiting other cities – such as Berlin for example – it is obvious that a complete web or network of integrated transport exists, with buses, trams, undergrounds and overgrounds being completely knitted into the urban fabric, co-existent with private transport (vehicles, bicycles, scooters and walking), and there are no TODs.

The whole built-up area of the city is a TOD. It appears that the public transport system (trams, trains, buses, underground), the private transport system (cars, bikes, scooters) and the dense city/suburbs have grown together. Given the sustainability imperative, we are now faced with the difficult task of introducing a more expansive public transport network into our car-based transport system that dominates the form of our city and suburbs and the way we inhabit them.

The cost of introducing a fully integrated network across our now

increasingly expansive city is a very challenging political and economic issue. And also, residential density served by public transport affronts our general preference for individual home ownership that is a major part of our shared history and identity and is very effectively promoted by the well-established forces that drive our housing industry.

Residential density affronts our preference for individual home ownership that is a major part of our shared history and identity.

We shouldn’t lose sight of authenticity and balanced outcomes. We’re now a highly commodified society. Our housing is commodified, as is most of our “lifestyle”. This can be readily

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seen in our new physical environments and how we inhabit them. We tend to build a lot of features and not a lot of lasting quality. We’re rapidly ploughing through inner-ring suburbs that were built in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, and trashing perfectly good housing stock, much of which was built with robust, long-lasting materials.

This shows that we don’t consider our housing stock to have a particularly long “shelf-life”, so we trash them into landfill and build bigger versions of essentially the same thing, often with a shorter lifespan and significantly less material substance. Clearing blocks includes felling tall trees and removing all the established vegetation to construct bigger houses, often for the same number – or even less – inhabitants.

So are we actually going backwards rather than forwards? Are with thinking this through sensibly, or

simply reacting to market forces and commercial trends? And what about the rising debt levels? It seems to me that ploughing through suburbs that have been around for only 30 to 40 years, digging up all the landscape, and gaining only marginal increases in density, is a wholly unsustainable approach. As an aside, a few months ago I stayed with a family in Venice, in their house – we would call it an apartment—that has been continuously occupied since the 1400s!

I was recently in Berlin, a city that is still undergoing massive change. And I was very impressed with the program to secure a future for their expanding population, by targeting an additional 140,000 affordable living spaces by 2025, or approximately 10,000 apartments a year. The long-term plan is for 220,000 apartments, delivered in accordance with a mantra of “developing the city with care”.

The population of Berlin is currently 3.2 million (it is not long before our population will be 3.5 million, according to current predictions) and the support infrastructure in that city is phenomenal. This residential construction program is additional to the refurbishment of the existing housing stock in what is primarily an apartment city, and upgrading rail stations and tram stops, as well as many civic and institutional buildings.

Are with thinking this through sensibly, or simply reacting to market forces and commercial trends?

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Existing and new buildings, including their many heritage structures, are being retrofitted with double-glazing, insulation, and other energy-saving measures. Renewable energy is being widely adopted. And authorities and agencies are working hard to maintain diverse, socially and economically mixed communities through the implementation of strict rent controls and other mechanisms.

Are we building exemplar housing stock destined for future World Heritage accreditation?

And culturally Berlin is a very rich city. The city houses several universities and significant learning institutions, performance palaces, museums and grand galleries with impressive collections alongside travelling exhibitions. The city is home to some remarkable architecture, both new and old, and a lot of sound, sensible, well-designed building stock interspersed with landscaped public parks and urban squares, all networked with impressive public transport. And Berlin is the undisputed international centre for a thriving dance-music scene that continues to attract many young people from across the world. Art, music, architecture, fashion, design, landscape, planning, business, economics, urbanity all seem to work together, creating that city’s unique identity.

It’s fascinating to think more about Berlin’s building program. In 2008 the city had six modernist housing estates of affordable apartments, all constructed between 1913 and

1934, inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage. All were designed by significant architects and their original agenda was to demonstrate the benefits of modern, urban living. The now famous developments had a significant impact on subsequent housing develoment. These historic estates are currently undergoing refurbishment, being provided with new power supplies, fixtures and fittings, better insulation, reduced energy consumption, and overall repair and maintenance.

Those six affordable estates (they are not gated communities for the wealthy)

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malls while neighbourhood mainstreets are suffering under high rents and low patronage.

But the good news is that we are building apartments, although they do tend to be quite constrained.

Planning regulations coupled with marketing trends have a tendency to reinforce similar outcomes, while lending institutions tend to dictate the minimum apartment size. Much of the architecture is of “questionable” quality, with a mean-spirited approach to the public realm and a design approach that is geared towards attracting investors rather than providing long-term housing for society.

But over time this trend should change. With continued advocacy, better involvement of the design professionals and good government leadership we can expect to see a greater commitment to design that is more sustainable, offers greater choice within an affordable price range (such as variety in apartment sizes, plan layouts and styles) and delivers attractive overall settings in the form of well-considered mixed-use environments that feature good amenity.

In other words, places that are carefully conceived for long-term living. They might even be suitable for raising families.

have been housing a population of 10,000 people for many years, and will continue to do so for many more years. And the estates are tourist attractions. Visitors can enjoy guided tours or access multi-media information packs supplied by the state.

Are we building exemplar housing stock destined for future World Heritage accreditation? Those Berlin developments have lasted up to 100 years and they’re still being occupied, and they’re classified as being of outstanding universal value; places that dignify human habitation. This is a measure of the quality that can be achieved and sustained; a fine example of the gains that “good design” can deliver.

We could, I believe, significantly raise the bar here. Our public realm tends to be over-activated by mercantile interests, in lieu of cultural and social activity. This results in homogenisation and is subtly discriminatory. Our housing has become commodified and the bigger the houses, the more we need and aspire to fill them with more junk, much of which will probably be thrown away.

We can afford – and happily accept – more roads and expanding suburbs, but not light rail or good quality residential density. We eagerly build large shopping

With continued advocacy, better involvement of the design professionals and good government leadership we can expect to see a greater commitment to design that is more sustainable.

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Perth’s highly regarded planning system to accommodate the city’s hyper-growth is being let down by the absence of an effective infrastructure plan.

Perth is experiencing annual population growth in excess of three per cent, which is double the national average. To accommodate this growth, Perth’s strategic plan, Directions 2031, aims to fit half of the growth in infill areas around activity centres and transport corridors.

Directions 2031 sets housing construction targets around activity centres and in new expansion areas. What is overwhelming clear is that without the necessary infrastructure in place, the government’s own targets cannot be met.

A number of strategic activity centres in the Perth metropolitan sector require substantial infrastructure in order for the land to be made available to accommodate the significant increase in housing density. This includes freeway extensions, railway station modification and other public utility infrastructure incentives like Stirling and Canning Bridge.

The absence of a central infrastructure coordinating body to plan for these infrastructure shortfalls means that whenever a development is proposed the proponent has to negotiate a raft of different infrastructure agencies and service providers. These bodies have competing interests and priorities, which often result in development delays and even deferrals.

Delayed or deferred investment in infrastructure can profoundly delay development and reduce economic growth across the state

Research conducted for the Property Council – Mind the Gap: The Costs of WA's Infrastructure Provisioning Framework – has indicated that delayed or deferred investment in infrastructure can profoundly delay development and reduce economic growth across the state.

The solution is a central infrastructure coordinating body that is working

time tO FiX Perth’s inFrAstruCture gAPby JOe LenzO, PrOPerty COunCiL OF AustrALiA

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the delivery of major infrastructure projects creates certainty in an area that can otherwise suffer from an enormous lack of it.

The Property Council’s research will reveal how an Infrastructure WA-style body would fit the Western Australian context and advance the argument for centrally coordinated delivery of infrastructure in the State.

Joe Lenzo is executive director of the Property Council of Australia’s Western Australia division.

to a strategic infrastructure plan for the city and, ultimately, the State. The plan would include priorities for infrastructure that are aligned with the city’s strategic planning framework, that is, Directions 2031.

So what does effective infrastructure provisioning look like? Infrastructure NSW is an independent statutory body that identifies and prioritises the delivery of critical public infrastructure in New South Wales. Its ability to coordinate the infrastructure funding of the State and to monitor

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more sustainable housing as well as resilient and accessible transport infrastructure for the future.

Some are being undertaken through the $96 million Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living at the University of New South Wales, which involves 26 private companies, 16 government agencies and six research institutions across Australia. Others involve the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre,

The housing sector and transport infrastructure in Western Australia have some significant sustainability challenges. Some of these challenges are being addressed through collaborative research projects involving input from the private, public and education sectors, with the focus on driving innovation and sustainable outcomes.

In housing, a shortage of skilled labour associated with the mining boom over the past few years, an unwieldy development approval process and rising materials costs in 2012 pushed up housing prices, particularly for apartments, with high rise apartment construction costing on average around 26 per cent more in Perth than in Brisbane, according to Rider Levett Bucknall. This has contributed to ongoing urban sprawl in Perth.

Collaborative research projects currently underway focus on finding new ways to create affordable and

COLLAbOrAtiOn between inDustry AnD r&D Drives innOvAtiOnby Lynne bLunDeLL

Professor Deo Prasad

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or SBEnrc, a key research broker between industry, government and research organisations servicing the built environment industry.

CRCLCL chief executive Professor Deo Prasad told The Fifth Estate that a key aim of the CRC is to create low carbon buildings, low carbon communities and low carbon cities – zero carbon if possible.

“Living is about buildings, precincts and communities,” Professor Prasad says.

“With buildings we are trying to really raise the bar as high as possible and then by doing that looking at how we can capture the opportunity for Australian industry – manufacturing as well as professions and next generation [rating and measurement] tools that might drive performance.”

The CRC’s primary objective is to create a globally competitive built environment. Beyond individual buildings, the task is to create zero

carbon precincts and finally to understand how people behave in the built environment and use this knowledge to cut emissions faster.

Living is about buildings, precincts and communities.

“Unless we understand the people part of the equation – what resonates and what doesn’t, what has worked in the past and what hasn’t – unless we understand that side we are not going to win the game of trying to reduce carbon,” Professor Prasad says.

The CRC has established a number of Living Laboratories projects in Perth where peoples’ behaviour can be studied in situ. The achievements and lessons learnt are recorded so that this evidence can be applied to future projects, something that has been previously lacking in the built environment, Prasad says.

Brownlie Towers, part of the Bentley regeneration project

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whether the technologies work and whether people make less effort to save energy when they have technology such as solar panels and houses with good passive design – known as the Jevons effect.

“When you make buildings very comfortable and efficient through technology and good design there is evidence people take them for granted and don’t save energy,” Prasad says.

“There is also increasing evidence that people with photovoltaic panels on the roof seem to think that because they’re doing such a good thing they don’t have to save any energy.

“We want to understand this better and to inform, educate and learn in a live situation at the house and precinct level.”

In WA these projects incorporate individual houses, including a project by ABC TV presenter and Curtin University senior research fellow Josh Byrne (Josh’s House) in Fremantle, another project in Fremantle and a larger precinct level project at Bentley in Perth.

The Fremantle project, the Regenerative Economic Design, Zero Emissions development, or FredZed, is slated to provide zero carbon housing for 100 people. The project is expected to be 100 per cent renewable energy autonomous with solar power in the day and lithium ion phosphate batteries at night.

The aim of the Living Laboratories program is to better understand how people live in houses and precincts,

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community. While the proportion has not yet been determined, the amount of public housing is not expected to be more than 10 per cent.

DePArtment OF hOusing FOCusing On AFFOrDAbLe hOmes

The Bentley Regeneration project is one of a number of projects that the WA Department of Housing is undertaking in partnership with other organisations.

This includes the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority to create 1300 units of affordable housing by 2020 and a 148 bedroom Lime Street development, in partnership with St Bartholomew’s House, which provides much needed accommodation in the Perth CBD for social housing tenants, the homeless and aged persons.

According to the WA Department of Housing, since the WA Opening Doors program began in 2011 it has provided more than 750 families, singles and seniors on modest incomes with a home they can afford. The program

hOusing PrOJeCts tArget sOCiAL AnD envirOnmentAL sustAinAbiLity

In one of the CRC for Low Carbon Living projects, researchers from Curtin University Sustainable Policy (CUSP) Institute are working with the WA Department of Housing to create a low carbon affordable housing development that focuses on both environmental and social sustainability.

The Bentley Regeneration project is a partnership between the WA Department of Housing and the City of Canning, with research input from Curtin University, and involves the construction of up to 1500 new dwellings, as well as revitalised civic and community facilities, a range of open spaces, and commercial and retail buildings.

The development is eight kilometres from the Perth CBD on a 25 hectare site that has historically had a high proportion of public housing. At the centre of the site are the high rise public housing towers, Brownlie Towers, built in the early 1970s and later acquiring a bleak social history.

A key aspect of the project is that the new housing will be low cost and have low operating costs. The Department of Housing is using an affordable housing investment model, Opening Doors, which allows people on a low income to buy up to 60 per cent of a dwelling, with the option to buy the remainder when they have the finances to do so.

At Bentley there will be a mix of public, affordable and other private housing to create a more vibrant and varied

Bentley regeneration masterplan

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in the North West. The Authority delivered 400 houses for government employees such as police, teachers and nurses to live and work in key regional areas across the State.”

Other projects include the development of residential lots in the Osprey Estate in South Hedland, with the first release underway, and the Osprey Key Worker Village, which received its first residents in October 2013.

The lack of affordable housing in Pilbara towns has had a significant impact on local businesses.

Western Australia’s community housing organisations, or CHOs, have also taken on an increasingly significant role in delivering affordable housing. under a key initiative in

was one of the first major initiatives of the Affordable Housing Strategy and is the largest successful shared home ownership scheme in Australia.

Regional mining communities have particular challenges. WA Department of Housing chief executive Grahame Searle says the department supports regional development by providing housing for service workers, government and non-government employees in regional areas so that they can deliver the necessary services to their communities.

“The lack of affordable housing in Pilbara towns such as Port Hedland and Newman has had a significant impact on local businesses and their employees,” Searle says.

“We completed 58 properties for staff of 34 not-for-profit organisations in the Pilbara and Kimberley to ensure essential community workers remain

Jemma Green and Western Australian Minister For Housing Bill Marmion at Adara Success, using

prefabricated modular construction by Hickory.

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Jemma Green, research fellow at Curtin University, is working with the Department of Housing on the Bentley project. She told The Fifth Estate the emphasis is on regeneration and creating a more sustainable community, both environmentally and socially.

“This project is being seen as a regeneration of an area that has historically had some social problems,” Green says. “It will have some aspirational pricing and will provide people with housing choice just 8km from the city.

“The sustainability factor will provide a point of difference for the private housing buyers. And it will be meaningfully green with a low carbon footprint and low ongoing operating costs.”

With Curtin University only two kilometres away and a major hospital nearby, the Bentley development is likely to attract a broad demographic. Housing will be a mix of one-to-three-storey townhouses, two-to-five-storey apartments and four-to-10 storey apartments in the middle of the site around shops, activities and the central village square.

The traditional double brick house that has been the mainstay of Perth housing has been predicated on an urban sprawl that is no longer viable, Green says.

“This project will give people access to the housing market close to the city that they are otherwise unable to afford.

“We’ve had a style of housing for lower income people that just doesn’t work. The cheaper land is in outlying suburbs

the Affordable Housing. Through the Asset Transfer Program the department has transferred nearly $400 million worth of public housing assets to community housing growth providers since 2010.

These CHOs are then able to use any positive cash flow and leverage these assets to borrow funds and provide additional social and affordable housing. According to the Department of Housing, eight CHOs have since committed to a combined growth target of 491 units over the next 10 years. A total of 46 units have already been completed with more than 100 under construction.

bentLey’s AmbitiOus sustAinAbiLity tArgets

What differentiates the Bentley Regeneration project is the ambitious sustainability targets.

According to a sustainability blueprint report prepared for the Department of Planning and the City of Canning, the project will showcase sustainable urban outcomes through innovative technologies, delivering low carbon, low water and affordable living.

Consultants engaged by the Department of Housing and the City of Canning to provide detailed advice on the application, performance and delivery of sustainability at the site recommended significant application of solar photovoltaics, or PVs and water recycling for both external and internal uses.

The Bentley project is exploring the potential to pursue the autonomous renewable energy model as FredZed.

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Green says. “We’re looking at creating more attractive, highly sustainable buildings with the method. I think modular construction could be as much as 10 per cent of the market by 2020. It's currently three per cent.

BGC, one of Australia's biggest construction companies has recently established a division to manufacture detached modular housing for the Perth market.

She predicts the modular construction method will become much more common over the next five to 10 years in both commercial and residential buildings.

Modular projects in WA include a hotel in Karratha and the Perth Arena Hotel and serviced apartment development in Shafto Lane, Perth, designed by PTI architectural firm for Shafto Lane Investments and Mode Modular Projects. Shafto Lane is targeted as a revitalised area once the Perth Link project is completed.

Currently modular buildings are predominantly constructed in China, Malaysia and Thailand.

There is only one company in Australia, Hickory, manufacturing muti-storey company modular buildings, Green says. "The rest are currently all coming out of Asia,” Green says. “It is a big opportunity for local companies.”

Wood is the untapped jewel for sustainable building and is very suited to Australian conditions.

and because Perth has been allowed to sprawl it now takes one-and-a-half hours to drive from one side to the other. That means if you’re poor you’re travelling 10 to 15 hours a week.”

Other factors have encouraged Perth’s urban sprawl, including a shortage of skilled labour, a poor housing approvals process and union action. This has meant that building apartment blocks in Perth cost 30 per cent more than in Brisbane.

“It is expensive so nobody wanted to build for the low income end of the market. We’ve got to look at how this can be changed,” Green says.

Modular construction could be as much as 10 per cent of the market by 2020. It's currently three per cent.

One way is to use prefabricated modular systems, which is what is being planned at Bentley. The WA government has used the modular system supplied by Hickory at one apartment block in Cockburn Central, called Adara Success. Analysis by Curtin University shows the 77 apartment project produces 50 per cent less waste in the construction process compared to conventional equivalents.

This construction system is now being considered for other sites, both for hotels and apartments, Green says. It is also used in remote indigenous and mining communities.

“The modular buildings used in remote communities are often quite ugly,”

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administrative headquarters from Queensland University of Technology to Curtin University in Perth.

Chief executive of SBEnrc Dr Keith Hampson says the move follows an injection of capital from the centre’s Western Australian partners, which include Curtin University and the WA government.

“Moving to Western Australia is a natural progression for our centre as it is the centre of resources and infrastructure development in Australia,” Hampson says.

“This move will also provide us with greater opportunities to grow by servicing the resources infrastructure sector, complementing our existing activities in roads and building infrastructure.”

The use of cross laminated timber in buildings is also likely to increase, with Lend Lease’s Forte building in Melbourne one of the most recent examples.

“Wood is the untapped jewel for sustainable building and is very suited to Australian conditions,” Green says.

“Cross laminated timber performs very well with termites and also performs well above the Australian standard for bushfires because of its thermal mass.”

trAnsPOrt AnD inFrAstruCture

Another project, Greening the Built Environment, is being undertaken through the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre, which recently moved its

Adara Success

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One aspect of the Greening the Built Environment project is research into more sustainable road construction, including the incorporation of renewable energy generation into road infrastructure.

The “Future of Roads” project, which involves researchers from Curtin University and QUT, is looking at how the design, construction and maintenance of roads will face new challenges in coming decades and so will require a number of new approaches.

• See our article The 21st century road could take you somewhere interesting… and more sustainable

Charlie Hargroves, co-leader of the project and senior research fellow at Curtin University, says there are some exciting opportunities for cost cutting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy intensity in road construction.

The project has funding from three state government agencies to explore strategies and solutions for the future of roads. Research includes the use of solar panels in roads, new

technologies for bitumen, new ways to use a range of waste products in roads, incorporating smart technology into roads and the use of LEDs for route and signal lighting to cut energy use.

Research into more sustainable road construction is particularly important because they are such a significant part of Australia’s infrastructure investment and will face new challenges in the future, Hargroves says.

These challenges include environmental changes, a reduction in resource availability, and social pressures such as potential shifts to lighter vehicles, reduced use of cars due to higher fuel costs, and political pressure to respond to climate change.

There are some exciting opportunities for cost cutting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy intensity in road construction.

“We see it as an area that is critical to our country’s economic growth, and it’s going to face a lot of challenges in the future, particularly environmental with changing rainfall patterns, water patterns and greater salinity levels,” Hargroves says.

Increased fuel and haulage costs and availability of materials such as gravel and road base are also key issues.

The project is focusing on three key areas:

•identifying ways to reduce environmental pressures from road building

Charlie Hargroves

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•enhancing the management of carbon by road agencies

•investigating future trends and scenarios that will affect roads

The research team from Curtin University and QUT will deliver a report on current efforts to reduce the environmental pressures from roads, a carbon management guidance report for Australian road agencies and a report on a series of future trends and potential scenarios.

Each of the outcomes will be focused on providing value to partners and will continue to be developed in close collaboration with stakeholders. Project partners include: Parsons Brinckerhoff, John Holland, Queensland Transport and Main Roads, Main Roads Western Australia and the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia.

Professor Prasad says the research projects underway in WA are indicative of the strong interest in sustainability in the state.

“I think Western Australians are very involved in trying to raise the sustainability bar. In the recent Institute of Architecture awards there were some outstanding designs from Western Australia.”

He pointed to BHP Billiton’s headquarters in Perth, Brookfield Place, which took out the Ross Chisholm and Gil Nicol Award for Commercial Architecture, the Margaret Pitt Morison Award for Heritage and the John Septimus Roe Award for Urban Design.

The architectural awards jury said the Hassell and Fitzpatrick + Partners-

designed building “makes an outstanding and generous contribution to the civic dimension of the city”.

The 45-storey building, which houses Australia’s biggest miner BHP Billiton, professional services firm PwC and goldminer Barrick Gold, was also recently awarded Western Australia’s first 6 Star Green Star Interiors rating.

• See our article BHP Billiton receives WA’s first 6 Star Green Star Interiors rating

“There is a lot of interest in Western Australia in creating a more sustainable built environment. The CRC is focused on achieving this nationally and Western Australia is an important part of that,” Professor Prasad says.

Brookfield Place

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the ChAnging PerCePtiOn OF wAste mAnAgement in Perthby Jenny CAmPbeLL, enCyCLe COnsuLting

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In Perth, perceptions about waste are changing. At Encycle, we work on the waste aspects of the design of new large commercial developments like offices, hotels, hospitals, shopping centres and mixed-used precincts. In all of these areas and also in the general community, we are seeing a marked change in the discussions, approaches and ultimately outcomes.

Waste is a major environmental issue – landfills are a poor use of land and cause climate, water, land and air pollution. Yet bigger still, and what has hardly ever been talked about until very recent times, are the resources – materials, water and energy – that have been wasted (and taken for granted) along the supply chain, starting from mining, transporting, manufacturing, growing, harvesting and distributing our products to the consumers, us, to use once (and not even that sometimes) and then thrown away.

We are starting to hear terms such as “cradle to cradle” and “circular economy” used more often. Unique businesses are popping up with waste avoidance front of mind. People need services not “stuff” so hiring tools, bikes, toys, clothes is starting to replace sales. When people want to watch a movie or listen to music they are starting to live-stream rather than buy a plastic disc.

Waste from the commercial and industrial sector (waste that mostly comes from large buildings) accounts for around a quarter of waste to landfill in WA and construction and demolition waste nearly half. “Municipal solid waste” from households makes up the remaining quarter. The percentage

of material recycled in WA is embarrassingly low compared with other states (39 per cent compared with a national average of 60 per cent).

The percentage of material recycled in WA is embarrassingly low compared with other states.

When Encycle Consulting was established in 2008, despite waste being a significant environmental issue, it was rarely talked about beyond local government bodies and waste industry organisations. But the landscape is different now. People are talking about it. Architects, developers, project managers, site managers, building managers and hotel general managers are getting that waste has a big impact on the environment and the bottom line of any business, large or small.

The discussion about waste in the Perth property development sector is bolstered by stronger policy direction by

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area (and so not built on sand) will only increase costs further. As at 1 January 2015 the State Government landfill levy will increase from $28 a tonne to $55 a tonne for putrescible waste and from $8 a tonne to $40 a tonne for construction and demolition waste. Each financial year from 2016 to 2018, the levy will continue to increase by $5 a tonne for putrescible waste and $10 a tonne for construction and demolition waste. This change sends a clear message to waste generators and is great for the local recycling industries who should see additional material come through their gates. Hopefully new recycling businesses will start to pop up too.

Waste is a component of ecological sustainable design of buildings but it is often treated as a separate discipline to the standard elements of energy, water and indoor air quality for a number of very good reasons:

• Waste management is a fundamental service; without a regular service, environmental health issues arise

• Operationally, waste removal is a logistical exercise and requires large trucks to access the building

• Every council and waste service provider has a slightly different bin collection system and this can have a large bearing on how the building should be designed. Without considering vehicle access to large mixed-use or multi-unit developments with bin stores in the basement, there is a pretty good chance that the trucks won’t fit and bins will need to be brought up to the street for collection, ruining the beautiful facade or streetscape the architects had spent months designing

the WA State Government, who in 2012, finally released a Waste Strategy for WA and a business plan to support it. The waste discussion is broadened further by the fact that most new developments now require a waste management plan as part of the planning approval process that describes how waste in the proposed building will be transferred, stored and collected.

Rating tools such as Green Star have been major drivers in Perth for new buildings to design for good practice waste and recycling once the building opens.

Rating tools such as Green Star have been major drivers in Perth for new buildings to design for good practice waste and recycling once the building opens. Green Star buildings that are now in operation are benefitting from having large storage areas for recycling that are easily accessible by both building users and collection vehicles.

Costs to dispose of waste are increasing. New landfills are not permitted to be built on the Swan Coastal plain and transport costs to landfills outside of the metropolitan

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and that vergeside hard waste collections are not practical for a 200-unit apartment building with retail outlets and a cafe on the ground floor.

The real solution to all of this is to not generate the waste to start with.

The good news for WA is that the drivers for change such as Green Star and the pressures of limited space are now starting to act. In the property development sector, mind-sets are shifting pretty fast to realising that thinking about how waste is going to be managed right up front in the design phase is not that hard, and also that not thinking about it will make your building awkward, problematic and costly to operate. Of course, the real solution to all of this is to not generate the waste to start with. Imagine the benefits that would bring to each building, street, suburb, city, country and the planet.

Jenny Campbell is director of Encycle Consulting, which specialise in waste and recycling advice. The company was the winner of the NAWIC WA Triple Bottom Line Award 2014.

• There are always emerging new technologies to handle or treat waste onsite that can bring benefits such as financial savings, spatial savings, minimised health and safety risks, reduced noise and odour complaints, improved amenity and much better environmental outcomes

Overall, most elements of ESD can revert to a “business as usual” model and the building will still operate (albeit inefficiently and with a high environmental footprint), however the old school approach to waste was to not worry about it too much and that means that we are now stuck with lots of buildings where there are problems with insufficient storage, odours, cleanliness, safety, poor recycling rates and costly collection fees to cover service providers’ difficulties with accessing the bins. All of these negative outcomes from waste management will impact upon the desirability of the building by prospective tenants or owners.

In Perth we are used to large lots with single dwellings. With significant infill development occurring in Perth’s inner city suburbs, the need for recycling and waste management to be considered at the design phase has never been more critical. Councils are being forced to update their waste and recycling policies and services to cater for a rapidly changing set of land uses and with that, a new set of challenges around waste collection.

All of a sudden, side-lift collection services are no-longer suitable for the whole suburb. Some councils are finding that their large collection vehicles aren’t able to fit down narrow laneways or into multi-unit buildings

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the City Link – trAnsit OrienteD DeveLOPment tO reCOnneCt the Cityby wiLLOw ALientO

Kings Walk. Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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The urban transformation of 13.5 hectares of rail corridor, vacant land and outdated building stock through the $5.2 billion Perth City Link project has already given Perth a new Arena, vastly improved public transport, and connectivity between Northbridge and the CBD for the first time in a century. And in mid-2015 it will see the addition of four new 5 Star Green Star office towers and retail space.

And that’s just the first stages of an overall masterplan that will see 1650 dwellings, 244,000 square metres of commercial space and 4.4 hectares of public space created in an area bounded by the Mitchell Freeway, Roe Street, Wellington Street and the Horseshoe Bridge.

The project is a joint initiative involving the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority, the Public Transport Authority, the City of Perth and the Federal Government. The WA State Government has invested $1.3 billion in the project, including the financing of the Perth Arena.

The first task was the sinking of the Fremantle rail line from the Horseshoe Bridge to King/Lake Streets, which freed up land for development. Subsequent stages of the transport plan are the undergrounding of the Wellington Street Bus Station and the staged creation of five new pedestrian and vehicular connections between the city centre and Northbridge. There has also been a light rail connection planned, which is currently postponed.

The new Fremantle Line tunnel opened in 2013, and the City Busport Alliance, com-prising PTA, Brookfield Multiplex and engineering firm BG&E, is expected to finish the Wellington Street Bus Station in 2016.

A Mirvac and Leighton Properties consortium has been given the preferred contractor status to develop a 5.1 hectare parcel of City Link land owned by the State Government. The masterplan is for a transit-oriented community combining retail, commercial, hospitality, public space and residential apartments, with up to 15 per cent of these new dwellings affordable housing.

Leighton Properties is also the developer of Kings Square, a major new transit-oriented commercial and mixed-use Green Star precinct, which will be the centrepiece of a revived King-Lake Street area.

The development comprises four towers currently under construction, three of which, KS1, KS2 and KS3, have been purchased by DEXUS Property Group. KS4 has been purchased by WA’s largest health fund, HBF, which will wholly tenant the commercial space.

The plan for the precinct also includes two residential apartment towers, a fifth commercial building, and a public plaza, which incorporates the entries to the new underground train and bus stations, and lies at the junction of four major commuter cycle paths. All of the commercial buildings are seeking a 5 Star Green Star Office v3 rating

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and five star NABERS ratings, with KS2 also targeting LEED Silver New Construction rating.

A Leighton Properties spokesperson said this means the construction team needs to achieve a minimum score of 60 for the Green Star assessments, minimum score of 50 for the LEED assessments and a maximum of 66kg CO2/m2 to achieve the NABERS rating.

“This is about a 30-40 per cent reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions on the current building stock,” the spokesperson said.

The design of the office towers also reflects the high degree of public transport connectivity, with minimal carparking and a high order of cyclist end-of-trip facilities in each building.

KS1 comprises 23,156 sq m of A Grade commercial office space across 19 levels and 680 sq m of ground floor retail. It was the first the first building in the precinct to get the Green Star rating, and was also Australia’s first office to get points for life cycle assessment.

This is about a 30-40 per cent reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions on the current building stock.

KS2 comprises 20,440 sq m of A Grade commercial office space and 530 sq m of ground floor retail. The tower has been wholly leased by Shell Australia.

KS3 comprises 9185 sq m over nine levels of commercial office space leased to John Holland and retail space. The building features solar photovoltaic panels to reduce reliance on main grid electricity.

KS4 comprises 13,000 sq m of commercial office space over 10 levels.

Some of the overall sustainability measures Leighton Properties is mandating across all four construction projects include the diversion of at least 80 per cent of construction waste from landfill and the use of eTool Lifecycle

Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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Sustainability features include mixed mode natural ventilation to the public concourses, a low energy displacement air conditioning system which delivers air directly to patrons through a seating plenum, rooftop solar array, waterless urinals, WELS-rated fixtures and fittings, water sensitive landscape design and a retractable roof giving the option of 100 per cent natural light and ventilation to the central stadium area.

The Perth City Link project also includes a 1.1 hectare public space precinct within the arms of the Horseshoe Bridge, which will be named Yagan Square in honour of Yagan, a Noongar leader and warrior who was a prominent figure in the 1830s settlement.

The pedestrian-only square will include the Horseshoe Market place, an urban rooftop garden, water features, kiosks, retail spaces, landscaped terraced walkways, play spaces, Aboriginal art and portals to the underground bus station and Perth Central Train Station.

Analysis software to demonstrate reductions in the carbon footprints of the buildings. This is also a key element in the projects targeting the full 6 Star Green Star Innovation points.

A high number of points are being sought under the Indoor Environment Quality category, with the specifying of low VOC products and finishes throughout. FSC-certified timber has also been specified, and all refrigerants and insulation will have zero ozone-depletion potential.

All lighting installed will be low energy and high efficiency, and high efficiency water fittings have also been specified to reduce overall water consumption. All building systems including mechanical and electrical will be independently commissioned.

Additional measures incorporated to achieve a five star NABERS rating include passive design, for example as installing external shading to minimise solar heat gain, and the use of high performance glazing, as well as the specification of high efficiency mechanical and electrical equipment.

Completion of all four towers is expected in 2015.

The Perth Arena, completed in early 2012, and designed by ARM and Cameron Chisholm Nichol, has already brought thousands of people into the area for sporting and cultural events.

The arena won the 2013 Sir Zelman Cowan Award for Public Architecture, the Emil Sodersten Award for Interior Architecture, four 2013 Awards from the WA Chapter of the AIA and was shortlisted in the sports stadium category in the 2013 World Architecture Awards.

Perth Arena

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Perth’s Swan River waterfront has been a place of ongoing evolution since the first European settlement, and before that, was a place of importance for the Noongar people.

Its most recent incarnation, the MRA’s Elizabeth Quay project, is almost a summary of the area’s history, with a mix of public green space, community function space, pedestrian engagement, interaction with the water, and the vegetation and species that are part of its ecology, as well as high density residential, hospitality

and commercial office buildings that extend the built form of the CBD down to the edge of the water.

The development covers 10 ha of land on the Swan River foreshore between Barrack and William Streets. Public space within the project includes a 2.7 ha inlet, 1.5 ha of promenade and a landscaped island with children’s playground and heritage kiosk that is connected to the foreshore via a pedestrian and cyclist-only bridge designed by the MRA in collaboration with a local artist and Arup.

eLizAbeth QuAy – ACtivAting the swAn river wAterFrOntby wiLLOw ALientO

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There are nine development sites surrounding the public domain, with the guidelines allowing for buildings ranging from 20 to 36 storeys. They will be required to have podium levels of between three and six storeys to maintain the human scale at street level, and also ensure maximum light reaches public areas around the inlet and views between the towers are catered for.

The initial masterplan was undertaken by ARM Architecture and Oculus as part of a design competition held by the state government, and then a

detailed plan was completed by the MRA. Detailed design guidelines have been prepared for the developers of commercial and residential projects, which include the Far East Consortium, who are developing a residential tower and a Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

According to Ryan Keys, MRA executive director of Planning, the design philosophy behind the project is to develop a "multi-functional and vibrant social environment with a highly connective pedestrian, vehicular and public transport networks”.

Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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“It is about re-connecting the city and the river,” he says, “making it a place where people want to spend time as a place to live, work, socialise or visit. Design guidelines mandate provisions for incorporating public art in design and achieving environmentally sustainable development, including a minimum 5 Star Green Star rating or equivalent.”

The project has also been registered with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia to obtain a rating for the project upon completion of the public realm.

“Elizabeth Quay is one of the most publicly accessible parts of the metropolitan area with connections to bus, train, ferry, cycle and pedestrian

networks," Keys says. Planning for the project has prioritised public transport, walking and cycling wherever possible. End of trip facilities will be provided with individual development sites expected to provide modern cyclist facilities for tenants and residents alike.

It is about re-connecting the city and the river, making it a place where people want to spend time.

Water Sensitive Urban Design has been incorporated into the landscaping, with the MRA engaging extensively with environmental authorities during the planning and

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A whole-of-life approach is also being applied to the public space lighting, with consideration given to LEDs and other energy-efficient technologies.

ObJeCtiOns On heritAge grOunDs

But despite the high quality goals of the project there have been objections on grounds that it fails to respect heritage values. Mayor of Nedlands Max Hipkins told The Fifth Estate that the project converted heritage parkland into a marina and commercial development, and the go-ahead of the project partly moved him to resign from the Liberal Party.

Keys says that a heritage interpretation strategy has been developed, which identifies opportunities to interweave the European and Indigenous history into the design, and a public art strategy for the precinct aims to include Indigenous art into the public realm. Indigenous monitors have also been engaged for the construction period, to inspect any excavated materials for Aboriginal artefacts or remains on site.

A whole-of-life approach is being applied to the public space lighting.

The plans also include constructing an Indigenous cultural centre during one of the future stages, which Keys says will be a “nationally significant centre for Aboriginal culture, art and learning”, planned and designed in consultation with the local Indigenous community.

design phases to ensure the proper management of stormwater flows.

“A new water playground, inspired by the seasonal nature of many Western Australian lakes, will provide intermittent opportunities for the public to interact with the water,” Keys says.

FOOtPrints

In keeping with the high sustainability benchmarks of the design guidelines, materials footprint considerations include the bridge to be constructed from locally sourced steel, and all timber to be local and sustainable. Soil materials such as excavated sand are being re-used for construction of the island and promenades.

Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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riversiDe rising tO the ChALLenge

The 40 hectare Riverside project, located on the Swan River, is set to see a mix of residential, commercial and public spaces developed over the next decade, with $2 billion in investment leading to 7000 new residents and 6000 workers.

The first stage of the project, the $450 million Queens Precinct, is well underway, with a number of residential projects completed, as well as a luxury hotel.

The project will have buildings designed to meet Master Plan guidelines of 5 to 6 Star Green Star ratings.

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The crown of the project, however, is the riverfront site Waterbank. The $1 billion Lend Lease project, designed in conjunction with HASSELL, will see around 800 residential dwellings, up to 20,000 square metres of commercial space, 4000 sq m of retail and perhaps a hotel, all over six hectares. A large amount of public space has been included in the design, including green spaces, wetlands, riverfront promenades, a town square, a “natural beach area” and the Hay Street pier.

Tim Urquhart, Lend Lease’s WA project director, told The Fifth Estate Waterbank was one of the first in Perth to go for a Green Star – Communities Pilot rating.

The land Waterbank is being built on was reclaimed as landfill more than 50 years ago, and had served as an extra playing field for the prestigious Trinity College. Lend Lease is working with the MRA to remediate the land, compressing soil to below water level and packing 7-8 metres of soil on top to ensure no leaching of acid sulfates.

The area is subject to flooding at high tide, so extensive climate change adaptation measures will have to be in place. Urquhart says buildings need to be sited high enough to beat tide levels for the next 100 years.

The project will have buildings designed to meet Master Plan guidelines of 5 to 6 Star Green Star ratings. Features include blackwater recycling and stormwater management, green roof space with natives, high levels of daylight and a comprehensive waste management plan.

There will also be extensive restoration work of the foreshore.

“We are aiming for a 5 Star Green Star Australian Excellence rating for Waterbank and to deliver and Australian first with certification under this new Green Star – Communities rating tool,” Urquhart says.

Construction is expected to commence in 2015.

Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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The transit oriented development is focused on walking, cycling and Perth’s free CAT (Cen-tral Area Transit) bus services.

The project area comprises a strip-shaped 27 hectares, and its location bridges the entertainment areas of

At least 10 per cent of the residential component of a mixed use development by the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority in a freeway reserve conversion and on part of the Graham Farmer Freeway network will be for social and affordable housing.

new nOrthbriDge – trADing sPACe FOr CArs FOr PLACes FOr PeOPLe

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Northbridge and the residential areas of the City of Vincent. The state government invested $60 million in redeveloping the area.

Five distinct precincts have been developed; in each a number of existing heritage buildings have been retained and adapted for re-use. The masterplanning included plazas, public art, and streetscapes that are

pedestrian-focused to generate a sense of community and connectivity.

In total, 460 new dwellings, including 61 social/affordable dwellings and 70,000 square metres of commercial and retail space have been created. The MRA estimates there are now an extra 1260 new residents of New Northbridge, and 3500 new workers.

new nOrthbriDge – trADing sPACe FOr CArs FOr PLACes FOr PeOPLe

Source: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

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COunCiLs LeADing the wAy

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City of Fremantle recently gained One Planet Council certification, which provides a framework and action plan for councils to empower

“one planet living” – living within Earth’s finite resources.

Melanie Bainbridge, City of Fremantle’s sustainability strategic officer, said the One Planet process began in late 2013, with extensive internal engagement and strategy development completed and public community cafe seminars in the ten One Planet principles occurring in August 2014.

“We are trying not to view the principles of One Planet Living in isolation, instead looking at how they fit with the arts, cultural events and heritage for which our City is renowned and using a holistic view of sustainability issues as a lens – which goes beyond energy, water and waste.”

City of Fremantle had already developed a Low Carbon City plan,

and the One Planet strategy builds on this earlier sustainability framework.

Strategic targets and action plans have been developed for each of the 10 One Planet principles, and the cost implications will be assessed and budgeted for, and actions shared across business units and departments as appropriate.

The agreed targets include a commitment to reduce carbon emissions, with a target that all buildings and structures within the operational control of the City of Fremantle will be “net zero carbon” by 2020. The City already upholds carbon neutral claims through an integrated suite of energy efficiency, renewable energy, emissions reduction strategies and carbon offsets.

We are trying not to view the principles of One Planet Living in isolation.

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relocated due to an increasing need for space and facilities, and with an alternative site on the cards, the Knutsford Street site is now being considered for a potential zero carbon precinct development.

Energy efficiency and owner cost efficiency is a major selling point and it can be done for little additional capital investment.

“We are looking at the sustainability opportunities of the site, and what guidelines can be put in place around water, waste and energy. At this time, it looks as though it might be cost comparative to do a zero carbon project,

A major driver of the City’s ability to achieve sustainability goals is its ongoing commitment to a renewable energy investment fund drawn from one per cent of rates on a recurrent basis. It has facilitated the completion of some major projects, including a multi-million dollar renewable energy upgrade to the council-owned Leisure Centre and pool.

Expressions of interest have also been called for a solar farm project on a contaminated landfill site, a project designed to encourage large scale renewable energy investment in the district.

The top five corporate action points identified include sustainable development outcomes for a former city works depot site. Bainbridge said the works depot would soon be

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which utilises a mix of alternative energy options,” Bainbridge said.

“We see this as a huge marketing opportunity for any developer – energy efficiency and owner cost efficiency is a major selling point, and our research indicates it can be done for little additional capital investment – it’s a true win-win-win.”

Other projects the council has underway include a Solar Tree installation at the new Fremantle Youth Plaza, a public multi-use open space development that won a 2014 Planning Australia Award for Urban Design. This project brings together some key social sustainability aspects, including youth engagement.

The Solar Tree will provide free WiFi, host a webcam, offer a charging station for iPods and similar, as well as powering the local recycled bicycle workshop adjacent to the skate park.

“One Planet doesn’t look at sustainability from just one focus, there is also a focus on youth and Indigenous engagement,” Bainbridge said. “We will be looking at upskilling some of our local youth and getting them involved, and calling on local schools and business to inspire kids. We’re working with Curtin University of the Low Carbon Schools Project through the CRC for Low Carbon Living.”

One big ticket “aspirational” item on the drawing board is a proposed electric highway from Fremantle to Margaret River.

Another project recently completed is the installation of ProAcqua water stations for refilling drink bottles in order to reduce the number of disposable bottles sent to landfill. Fremantle’s suite of plastic reduction measures includes a law banning non-degradable plastic bag use, delivering the Responsible Cafe’s Program and installing 50 public place recycling bins across the City.

The City has recently become a signatory to the CitySwitch program, to support the local commercial sector to improve energy efficiency.

One of the big ticket “aspirational” items on the drawing board is a proposed electric highway from Fremantle to Margaret River, with charging points installed along the route. The feasibility and planning for this is being undertaken in conjunction with Electric Vehicles Australia, Sustainable Energy Australia and several councils, industry leaders and not-for-profit groups.

Green Star has also arrived in Fremantle, with the first two commercial 5 Star Green Star Design registered projects approved in 2014. The first, a $60 million seven-storey mixed use project, comprises a 173-room hotel, 77 units, a supermarket and small retailers on the site of the former Point Street car park and Port Cinema. The second project is a $21.5 million seven-storey commercial office complex that will replace Queensgate in William Street.

All commercial developments on inner city sites will now need sustainability outcomes equivalent to 4 Star Green Star, making Fremantle the only West Australian council that has mandated a minimum sustainability standard.

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Local councils in Western Australia are leading the charge on sustainability and its leading council, the City of Perth is no different. Its strategic work to achieve better outcomes includes close work with property and state government stakeholders and IBM.

According to Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi, sustainability is embedded across both its own assets and operations as well as within planning instruments.

“The City of Perth is very conscious of the need to work towards a greener, more sustainable future and we have seen this is numerous developments lately.”

The City recently launched Towards an Energy Resilient City Policy and Directions Paper, which identifies

strategies on energy efficiency, renewable energy and transport that could help to achieve a 32 per cent reduction in citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 (against business as usual emissions), and a 20 per cent reduction in the City’s operational emissions by 2020 (set against a 2011/12 baseline).

We need to explore innovative and alternative methods to create a sustainable future.

The City also participates in the Water Corporation and WA Department of Water’s Waterwise Councils Program and it has partnered with the Property Council of Australia to implement the Waterwise Office Program.

According to Scaffidi, in 2012, commercial office buildings consumed 35 per cent (1.8 billion litres) of all scheme water supplied to business customers in the city.

“As our population increases, there will also be a demand on our resources and to ensure we meet this need we need to explore innovative and

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alternative methods to create a sustainable future,” Ms Scaffidi said.

The City has made major changes to the planning scheme to support pathways to sustainability, including allowing for increased development density, particularly around train stations, increased separation between buildings to enable occupants to have greater access to natural daylight and ventilation, encouraging more affordable housing and encouraging more residential projects in the inner city.

POOr PerFOrmAnCe meAsures AnD COnstruCtiOn QuALity Are key ChALLenges

Three of the challenges the city has identified in terms of improving sustainability in the built environment are a lack of environmental performance measures for residential

buildings in the Building Code of Australia, low quality construction resulting in high maintenance costs, and asset management and associated costs.

A variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy options are being trialled.

In terms of its own asset management process, the council has implemented a requirement for a full lifecycle analysis to ensure total energy consumption and replacement costs are considered when procuring items.

A variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy options are being trialled including induction lighting at the Perth Exhibition and Convention Centre car park, which is expected to reduce lighting energy by half, automated lighting systems in some car parks with motion sensors and solar panels for car park roofs.

City of Perth also works closely with the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority on the various urban renewal projects taking place within the LGA. The MRA is overlaying its own matrix of sustainability requirements on projects, such as the mandated 5 Star Green Star or equivalent standard for all commercial developments at Elizabeth Quay, New Northbridge and CityLink.

“The MRA’s vision for dynamic, authentic and sustainable places is underpinned by key objectives for each of our redevelopment projects

– to build a sense of place, promote economic wellbeing, promote urban efficiency, enhance connectivity, promote social inclusion and enhance

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environmental integrity,” MRA executive director Ryan Keys said.

smArter Cities AnD the ibm initiAtive

Improving sustainability is among the outcomes Ms Scaffidi hopes will come from the city’s work with IBM as part of the IBM Smarter Cities initiative. The IBM team spent three weeks with the council, industry stakeholders and agencies to develop a series of recommendations around big data on water, energy, traffic, transport and other essential services and how the different datasets can brought together in an integrated platform of

“knowledge infrastructure”.

The aim is to use this knowledge resource to “break down the silos” between agencies. This will also improve the city’s ability to prepare more effectively for potential service failures, emergencies and city growth.

The process will make the city and agencies identify where they haven’t been as smart as they can be, Scaffidi says.

“We will look at tightening communications and better management to improve efficiency and enhance current performance.

“We all need to be innovative in addressing the civic challenges that are greater than they have ever been, and we need to be on top of our game in terms of delivering services.”

Scaffidi says the city’s growth and the need to improve sustainability are both budgetary and operational challenges, and it is hoped that the Smart Cities process will assist with both.

“Once we start to implement the [recommended] outcomes and work cross-agency, hopefully it will be seen as a legacy across all of Perth.”

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In recognition of the important role insects play in the environment, the City of Subiaco in partnership with the University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts has embarked on a biodiversity project that combines ecology and art in the form of “insect hotels” designed by UWA students.

“Most conservation efforts focus on ‘rock star’ species like pandas and whales,” City of Subiaco chief executive Stephen Tindale said. “While these are really important, those creatures lower down the food chain like bees and creepy crawlies often get ignored.

City OF subiACO’s inseCt hOteL

Image: Matt Galligan

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the most outstanding designs, with the overall winner, Timothy Delaney, awarded an internship with the City to assist with moving the project forward in collaboration with staff from the council’s environment, parks and sustainability team and the city’s public art coordinator. The community will also be invited to engage with the project as it progresses.

“The project is still in its infant stages – the design phase – but at this point in time it is thought that pilot installation will take place mid [2015],” Mr Tindale said.

“Once installed, the insect hotels are likely to need next to no maintenance; however they will be regularly monitored by the city’s parks, environment and sustainability team who can manage and maintain as required.

“We’re not aiming to conserve any particular species at this time, but rather, to increase general awareness and understanding in the community of the importance of insects to our ecosystem.”

“What many people don’t realise is that insects provide a huge range of ecosystem services like pollination and decomposting. For example, if bees became extinct it would threaten 70 per cent of global food production. Part of the project will involve identifying the insect species which are most common in Subiaco and the species which are most at risk.”

If bees became extinct it would threaten 70 per cent of global food production.

The insect hotels will likely be made from recycled material, including items that are collected by the city’s waste team during quarterly bulk rubbish collections. City staff and members of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts at UWA will work together to develop, implement and monitor the insect hotels.

Initially, students were invited to create designs that reflected local biodiversity and these were showcased at the June 2014 opening of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts’ mid-year exhibition.

City of Subiaco mayor Heather Henderson presented awards for

Image: Matt Galligan

Mayor Heather Henderson with Timothy Delaney

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In local government, sustainability is an often overused, misrepresented and misunderstood term that includes a plethora of actions and areas – from planning and development, to public health, transport, conservation, economic growth and social services.

For those of us vested with the somewhat daunting task of implementing sustainability into local government, the challenge lies in not what process to use, but how to mobilise support across an organisation, for a seemingly endless set of varied tasks towards an often undefined future.

A lot has been written about processes and systems as being the best mechanisms for embedding sustainability within an organisation, but not enough has been said about the effectiveness of behavioural strategies, which often mobilise an organisation to action.

While not disputing the logic behind effective systems and processes, mobilising action for sustainability equally requires motivation and

engagement, responsibility, time and persistence. These factors necessitate an understanding of people, because while imbedding sustainability into organisations is a systemic process, its success ultimately rests with the people within those organisations.

Over the course of the last five years, sustainability in the City of Cockburn has gone from strength to strength. Increasingly, senior managers are adding

imPLementing sustAinAbiLity At COCkburnby hAnA Jestribek, City OF COCkburn

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various sustainability commitments to their portfolios, independently managing processes and outcomes. The organisation has collectively embraced the concept, and is proactively progressing it. How has this happened? Here are some things, as a sustainability officer, I have learnt along the way.

1. CLeAr COmmuniCAtiOn

Sustainability can be confusing. When it’s translated into different professions, that whole integration of economy, society and the environment concept can begin to make a lot less sense. Where possible, think about your audience, how sustainability might apply to them, and tailor your explanation accordingly. Finance managers are much more likely to respond to economically grounded arguments than ideological statements about the intrinsic value of the world.

2. knOw yOur AuDienCe

Different people respond to things differently. It’s important to remember

that, because it will help you to present ideas to differing people with greater success. Once you know your audience, you’ll be better placed to pre-empt their responses, understand their hesitation and offer a way forward. Not only that, but people respond better to people they know. If you don’t actively make an effort to get to know the people who you will be working with to mobilise sustainability, you might find it a more difficult task. Without stating the obvious, say hi, smile, engage, be approachable. This will help when it comes time for you to nut out a detailed implementation strategy.

3. be reLevAnt

Your meticulous sustainability strategy may be meticulous, but if it’s not relevant to the work of your organisation it won’t do very much. It’s important to understand the requirements of your organisation and its workings before you introduce a system designed to imbed sustainability into it.

4. tAke the time

Sustainability is a journey, not an end process. It takes time. Many sustainability professionals enter organisations with excitement (which is necessary) believing that they will make great strides in a short time. It doesn’t happen that way. Entering an organisation is like starting a new relationship – it takes time to build trust and cohesion. En-thusiasm is absolutely necessary, but it needs to be tempered with patience. Good things come to those who wait, Rome wasn’t built in a day. You get the drift.

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in the face hours later, having tried to defend your position and its merits. By all means be passionate, but be smart and use logic too.

7. invite PeOPLe ALOng

Sustainability isn’t, and shouldn’t be, about one person leading the change. It’s a col-lective effort. Inviting people to actively participate and take responsibility for their part is essential. But remember it’s about inviting them, not forcing. People need to want to take ownership.

8. hAve Fun with it

This is the perhaps the most important part, for your own sanity as a sustainability professional but also your ability to engage people in the journey. Sustainability can often be translated into serious facts and glum realities. While there is much to be glum about, there’s a lot of room for innovation in change. It’s not about making light of the seriousness, but about positively engaging people in the challenge of creating alternative futures. Who doesn’t want to be a part of that?

5. Persist

Again, a number of old sayings could be applied, but it’s true. People don’t always re-spond to new ideas the first time around, but that doesn’t mean they should necessarily be abandoned. This point relates to getting to know your audience too. Sometimes a strategy doesn’t go ahead because of psychological factors as opposed to technical ones. Understand the barriers and find ways to get around them. If you do need to change approach or tweak your system before proceeding, by all means do. But persist.

6. LeAve iDeOLOgy Out OF it

There is no denying that sustainability is a philosophy. It contains values, but beyond that there are logical reasons why it makes sense for organisations to pursue it. The environment underpins economic growth and there are social consequences too. Each of these factors has the ability to affect an organisation’s performance, particularly in the public sector, where the bottom line isn’t as pressing. But proceed with caution when pursuing ideological arguments alone. You’ll end up blue

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trAnsFOrming Perth

Perth can be transformed from a sprawling city built around cars and roads to a people-oriented city with vibrant neighbourhoods connected by high quality public transport networks, simply through medium to high density infill development in designated “activity corridors”, according to a Property Council study.

Transforming Perth, a joint study by the Property Council of Australia, the Office of Senator Scott Ludlam and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre, recommended a raft of reforms to urban planning and governance instruments to remove barriers to higher density development.

The study, completed in February 2013, examined the potential number of new dwellings that could be accommodated in medium and high density in existing and often under-utilised areas along Perth’s activity corridors. The broader purpose was to explore the opportunity to transform what are currently congested and car-dominated roads into a vibrant series of High Streets and urban villages that are attractive places to live and work.

Perth now stretches 120 kilometres along the coast and is experiencing the fastest growth of any Australian city.

The report said: “Our city faces several urban challenges including traffic congestion, lack of housing choice and affordability, and loss of natural habitat. High quality infill development is one of the best options we have to address these pressing urban challenges most directly and sustainably; and to also strengthen – and leave untouched – our existing suburbs.”

Seven corridors were selected in the study, based on their strategic importance in the Perth Metropolitan Area and as future rapid transit routes

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in Perth’s draft public transport strategy, Public Transport Plan for Perth in 2031. These included Charles Street, Wanneroo Road, Scarborough Beach Road, Great Eastern Highway, South Street, Cockburn Road, Ranford Road, Thomas Street and Albany Highway. Collectively the seven corridors weave through 19 local government areas and run for more than 86km.

The WA Government is targeting a 50 per cent increase in current infill trends in its strategic plan for Perth – Directions 2031 and Beyond. This equates to 124,000 new dwellings, mainly in activity centres.

Activity centres were not the focus of the Transforming Perth study. Instead, it focused on activity corridors – the areas along Perth’s existing and future transit routes that link Perth’s activity centres together.

“By focusing infill along activity corridors we can enhance the public transport

connectivity between Perth’s activity centres and can transform these areas into vibrant High Streets with a mix of housing, employment opportunities and services,” the report said.

The study concluded that Perth’s entire infill target could easily be met through medium density development along the seven corridors. It also found:

•a total developable land supply along seven activity corridors of 1575 hectares

•a total potential yield of 94,500–252,000 new dwellings at medium to high density scenarios

•medium density development along the seven corridors would accommodate 100 per cent of Perth’s infill target of 124,000 dwellings to 2031

•medium-high density development would account for 126 per cent of the target

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Infill housing and urban regeneration at the precinct level would deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits.

The report also helps local government achieve its infill targets under Directions 2031 with information about potential dwelling yields along corridors at three different densities.

It found that infill housing development and urban regeneration at the precinct level would deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits.

However, Perth faces a number of barriers to infill development, including higher construction costs, community concerns about higher density and a lack of major public transport infrastructure.

The report calls for a state-led vision for precinct scale urban regeneration and makes 15 recommendations to overcome the barriers to infill development. These include:

gOvernAnCe – stAte

1. Establish an Integrated Design Commission attached to the Department of Premier and Cabinet and based on the South Australian model

2. Establish an Urban Renewal Commission involving key stakeholders from the government, private sector, academia and the community

3. Work with industry to develop a strategy for innovation in design,

manufacture and construction of medium and high density developments, with the aim for WA to become a world leader in this field

4. Re-establish a sustainability policy unit within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, with its first task to revise the abandoned State Sustainability Strategy with a more strategic approach that prioritises transformative actions that lead to sustainable outcomes in decision making processes

gOvernAnCe – FeDerAL

1. Reclassify urban regeneration and our current housing challenges as nation building activities, with the same priority as infrastructure such as roads and public transport, and establish a federal funding pool within the Department of Infrastructure’s Nation Building budget

2. Develop a long-term strategy for regenerating Australia’s urban corridors as part of a revised national urban policy

3. Revise performance against states’ strategic plans plans and incentivise measures to meet targets

4. Adopt the model of transport corridor regeneration used in this study as an additional focus for government strategic metropolitan planning documents

PLAnning

1. Using the study as a basis, conduct further research to estimate the housing yield and capacity for precinct scale regeneration along Perth’s activity corridors

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2. Introduce as-of-right development mechanisms and incentives, where developments are guaranteed a set approval time and transition through the planning process so long as they occur in pre-approved areas and meet certain criteria – both established through deliberative and participatory processes with the communities most directly affected. Criteria would include requirements around:

a. preservation of heritage

b. high-quality design

c. provision of affordable and diverse housing

d. sustainability and environmental performance

3. Revise the targets set in the WA Affordable Housing Strategy and Directions 2031 and Beyond to reflect the potential for dwelling and job yields along activity corridors

4. Introduce incentives in local planning schemes to promote higher-density developments along High Streets. This would include substantive density bonuses for:

a. discontinuance of non-conforming uses

b. heritage protection

c. provision of affordable housing

d. diversity of housing, including aged or dependent persons dwellings

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use programming in order to balance the competing demands of different functions along activity corridors, and the different priorities of competing government agencies, namely Main Roads, Planning and Transport.

2. Revise the Department of Transport’s strategic goals and the Public Transport Plan for Perth in 2031 in light of the findings from the study and the potential for regeneration along transport corridors. The report’s overarching aim is to “ignite an important conversation about the significant role and opportunity our activity corridors could play in delivering a more liveable, sustainable, vibrant and connected Perth metropolis”.

e. amalgamation of lots

f. meeting high energy efficiency and sustainability criteria

g. incorporating best practice design criteria aimed at improving comfort and quality of life, including noise reduction and privacy measures

5. Develop a “Liveable High Streets” strategy to compliment the “Liveable Neighbourhoods” strategy. This would be an instructive reference for local government scheme reviews.

trAnsPOrt

1. Develop more sophisticated descriptions of road types and road

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the structures for committees and organisations marginalising Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives, treating them as an “afterthought”, “add on” or tokenistic representation. In many cases, key non-Indigenous people simply would discount the input of Aboriginal representatives.

“There is a lot of work needs doing in the industry to stop people patronising Aboriginal people or using them as window dressing,” Collard says.

The Western Australian Government did choose to listen when Collard explained that after two years of trying to achieve effective engagement, and failing to do so, it was time to try things the Nyungar way.

There is a lot of work needs doing in the industry to stop people patronising Aboriginal people or using them as window dressing.

Collard says the first stage of developing the framework was a process of “mapping and gapping”,

Sustainability is integral to Aboriginal culture, and a new Natural Resource Management pathways project in Nyungar Country demonstrates how the combination of people, land, traditional cultural practices and education can create continuing economic opportunities.

The potential is to help mitigate the impacts of climate change, help with food security, conduct research and development on renewable energy, and develop renewable energy projects that can also be replicated in other Aboriginal communities

David Collard, state Aboriginal NRM co-ordinator at Department of Food and Agriculture WA and coordinator of the Single Nyungar Native Title Claim, says the framework that has been developed is the result of rethinking prior engagement frameworks for Aboriginal people in terms of initiatives such as Landcare, Natural Heritage Trust projects and NRM stakeholder committees.

“There was a lack of Aboriginal people being engaged,” Collard says, explaining that this was a function of

heAL the LAnD, heAL the PeOPLe by wiLLOw ALientO

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identifying resources including knowledge, people and land suitable for projects, and then establishing where capacity building was required.

“The Elders said, ‘How do we get our kids there?’” Collard says.

“Around Australia there is a huge capacity gap. So we sat down with the government and said, ‘We’ve got the framework, now we’ll show you how to use it.’”

The pathway begins with Aboriginal land management, which then branches off into NRM, agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The goal is build up the capacity of local land management across Nyungar country, and the framework is also aligned with Native Title requirements, through the Aboriginal Land Councils. The ALCs directly connect to appropriate training organisations.

The first stage of the pathway is carried out through elders going into schools to share cultural knowledge, and teach about cultural mapping, bush tucker, bush medicines and caring for country. This happens at a Nyungar knowledge precinct that includes six schools in South West

WA where the Single Nyungar Claim is currently being assessed.

The goal is build up the capacity of local land management across Nyungar country.

“The elders are passing on knowledge. My elders have been saying, ‘How do we protect and sustain that knowledge?’. The only feasible structure is the education system. At the moment education is not hitting the targets in terms of closing the gap, but this [new] NRM industry picks up on Aboriginal aspirations and delivers an economic outcome,” Collard says.

“We were able to talk the government into investing in it, first investing in the pathways of elders coming into the schools.”

A specialist program school for land management has been created that has the six schools around it and feeding into it. This program school then feeds its students into an agricultural college that the state Aboriginal NRM program and the Nyungar ALCs are working together to develop a curriculum for.

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through sequestration activities.

Another possibility is to develop a competitive labour hire business and workforce that can undertake contracts across Nyungar country on projects such as remediation, rehabilitation and ongoing landscape maintenance and enhancement.

In terms of Aboriginal culture, NRM and related industries are absolutely compatible, when undertaken in a manner that is informed by the teaching and tradition of elders, Collard says.

“It is an answer to a lot of things.”

The Single Nyungar Claim involves 3200 hectares of land throughout South Western WA. Other land already under Nyungar ownership comprises 54,000 hectares owned through the Indigenous Land Corporation.

“Once the kids get accredited, then they become land managers in Nyungar country. A lot of it is freehold, so to get it back they have to buy it, and if they are a large family wanting to buy farms back, then they will be able to get accreditation in farming and agribusiness,” Collard says.

“We are also looking at environmental services contracts.”

eXPAnD the eCOnOmiC bAse, CAre FOr COuntry

Fundamentally, the goal is to expand the economic base of the Nyungar people while also caring for country, maintaining connection to country and keeping the traditional knowledge alive. Collard says it will also get the young people “earning and learning, and tick those boxes” and enable Nyungar people to contribute to food security, and also to climate change mitigation

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“We need to invest in capacity building. My elders always say, ‘To heal the people we have to heal the land,’ so that is where we are heading,” Collard says.

The Single Nyungar Claim is currently proceeding through the various authorities. Once it is finalised, Mr Collard said the plan is to establish six separate body corporates and commence a demonstration NRM project.

“We want to show the government that if they invest in our way of doing things they will get more bang for the buck,” Collard says.

”And we are hoping the demonstration project in the South West will be replicated in other regions, and support the Aboriginal economy.”

In addition to NRM, agricultural, bush tucker and bush medicine projects on Nyungar land, Collard says there are plans to carry out research and development on renewable energy, and develop renewable energy projects that can also be replicated in other Aboriginal communities.

“All of this ties the people back to their cultural responsibility, and means they can also create an income too,” Collard says.

“As Nyungars we want to get land back, and fix the land.”

All of this ties the people back to their cultural responsibility, and means they can also create an income too.

Orchids found in Nyungar Country during a vegetation survey. Photo by Brendan Moore.

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The Pilbara, taking up 502,000 square kilometres in the north of Western Australia, has won the lottery twice, according to Jemma Green from Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute.

First through the discovery of iron ore in the 1950s then with the plentiful natural gas resources discovered in 1971.

But with any lottery win comes the need for long-term planning. The Pilbara needs to start planning for the future now, as the boom has outstripped the ability to develop infrastructure to service the region.

“History shows that this classic mine-and-boom phase is either followed by an evolution into multiple but related industries, or a decline into ghost town and tumble weed,” Green says.

The difference between ghost town and thriving region is forward thinking and sound planning. A CUSP report, Pilbara 2050: Ensuring the longterm viability of the Pilbara, written by

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Green, along with CUSP head Peter Newman and Johanna Mitchell, aims to provide just that.

Pilbara 2050 finds that while iron ore and natural gas are the dominant sectors of the Pilbara, there is much scope for economic diversification that would ensure the long-term economic viability of the region.

It argues that the region has yet to determine a comprehensive economic vision that quantifies the economic size of opportunities and targets, along with pathways to get there.

The paper develops a “wish list” of what needs to happen in the Pilbara to ensure a “Californian style evolution into multiple but related industries”.

Green says major diversification opportunities exist around tourism, industrials, technology and agriculture.

“There are also opportunities to rationalise major infrastructure such as power generation and transmission, develop renewable energy generation, and consolidate and electrify rail transportation,” she says.

The long-term economic viability framework outlined in Pilbara 2050 (pictured) provides a pathway to creating an economically and socially resilient Pilbara for the future.

Government needs to play a direct and ongoing role.

“The government should steer infrastructure development in the region and ensure that private sector-led developments favour infrastructure, representing the best interests of the region, rather than those that have the most political appeal,” Green says.

“The Pilbara has the potential to become a resilient economy and community. However, this will greatly depend on whether the political will exists to do so.

“We think that with proper execution of the plan we outline, the Pilbara can become a sustainable and economically diverse region, creating an intergenerational legacy to benefit the Australians of today and tomorrow.”

THE FIFTH ESTATE'SGREENING THE WESTPART 2

NOVEMBER 2014

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