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Setting parameters for the next generation of housing
ANYONE who can design an "affordable" low cost house that is environmentally friendly, comfortable to live in and yet capable of withstanding the worst that climate change can throw at it, should become an instant multi-millionaire.
As this scan on the future of housing shows, pressures on the way we design and build accommodation have rarely been greater - and together they point to the need for the type of "ideal house" described above. It is not simply that soaring costs are pricing thousands out of the housing market. It is that the average home and the way in which it is built have been identified as a major contributor to global warming.
The question now arises as to whether "affordability" can be equated with building homes with an extremely low CO2 footprint. In fact researchers have just discovered that of all measures that governments can take to reduce greenhouse emissions, those that can be applied to the building sector - housing included - will achieve the quickest, cheapest and most effective results.
The scan also shows:
Affordability declines
Western Australia is fast catching up with NSW as being the State with the most unaffordable houses, according to the latest report from AMP/NATSEM (University of Canberra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling) In fact Mandurah is rated as the country's main centre for overly expensive houses. Almost 90% of Mandurah's homes are described in the report as "severely unaffordable" putting it in sixth position in the world for high housing costs when set against median income. The burden falls heavily on the young. The report found that across the country, only one in 20 Gen-Ys could afford to buy their own home. "One of the most striking features revealed in the report was the generational impact of rising house prices," said Professor Ann Harding, NATSEM director and co-author of the report. "Older generations can afford to be much more complacent about rising house prices with about half of all baby boomers and three quarters of age 60 and over spending 10% or less of their income on their housing costs."
Green offerings
Will houses built to "green" specifications and designed to cause a minimum carbon footprint eventually attract premium prices? If what is happening in Australia's commercial real estate market is any guide then not only will there be a premium price but a two-tiered market could develop with non-green houses having to be sold at a discount. In a new study of how green buildings are affecting property values, the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) predicts that a tiered price structure could be in the offing. According to the study: " It is highly likely that a two-tiered market will emerge, with Green Star* buildings attracting premiums and/or existing assets being discounted. Non-Green Star buildings may suffer from lower rental rates, rental growth and higher long-term risk with greater potential capital expenditure requirements resulting in decreasing value. Many investors and owners/managers believe Green Star buildings are 'future proofed' against the risk of rising energy costs, market rejection of non-Green Star buildings and tightening regulations on building sustainability performance. Non-Green Star buildings may face the prospect of major capital works to meet future performance standards, which currently appears to be omitted from contemporary consideration of value &em; modeling shows that a fall from 3.5% rental growth to 2% rental growth would wipe off almost $13 million from the value of a $100 million property." Although "green buildings" have not attracted much public attention, they are taking up a rising percentage of Australia's stock. GBCA's study found that green buildings now comprise 30% of the new building market. The study points out that the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) found that energy efficiency alone could deliver savings of 30-35% across the country's whole building sector. It says a review of Green Star Certified buildings built so far showed that on average they achieved:
- An 85% reduction in energy use over equivalent conventional buildings;
- A 60% reduction in potable water consumption; and
- An average of 69% of construction waste being diverted from landfill.
Greener approvals?
Even at the best of times proposals for a housing development that cuts into an area of wild pristine beauty and disturbs the habitat of two endangered species†, would be expected to attract some degree of opposition. But such a proposal at Moosehead Lake near the US-Canadian border in Maine has erupted into an unprecedented environmental battle over urban development and future greenhouse gas emissions. In fact the case is described by US newspapers as the first in America in which a regulatory tribunal has been asked to consider a project's carbon footprint before granting planning approval. So far the developers, Plum Creek Timber Co - one of America's largest private landowners - have rejected the carbon complaint as "irrelevant". They have even accused Maine's environmental lobby of making an "opportunistic manoeuvre" that capitalises on "global warming fervour". What the developers are seeking to do is persuade Maine's Land Use Regulation Commission to rezone some 20,500 acres of forest so that it can be used for housing and commercial subdivisions. (Plum Creek Timber originally bought the land in 1998 as part of a 400,000-acre parcel released for timber harvesting. At the time the company is said to have paid just $US 200 an acre.) Now it wants to use the land to create 1000 housing lots including 236 by the lakeside, plus it wants the go ahead to build two holiday resorts with more than a thousand accommodation units, shops and entertainment facilities. Objections to the proposal are being led by a local lobby group, Environment Northeast. The group has researched the plan and found that clearing so much forest would create up to 501,081 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide - half would be emitted immediately, the rest over a 50 year period due to the loss of the carbon sink. Added to that, the development itself would emit 13,018 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year - the equivalent of adding 2525 extra cars to the State's roads. The Land Use Regulation Commission will announce its decision later this year.
House prints
San Francisco is considering a proposal to replace its building laws with a compulsory form of LEED - a building standard similar to Australia's voluntary Green Star system that is designed to cut the carbon footprint of commercial buildings. But San Francisco is not just looking to use LEED to make all new commercial buildings greener. Advocates also want to use LEED to cut the carbon footprint of new houses. City authorities have discovered that half of San Francisco's carbon footprint can be directly attributed to the construction industry and the type of buildings it builds. Advocates believe the footprint could be substantially reduced if builders were required to "earn credits" from a LEED checklist before approval is granted to start construction.
Home energy
Wind farms have long had their advocates in Western Australia, but Dr Ray Wills, lecturer in Earth and Geographical Sciences at the University of Western Australia as well as CEO for the State's Sustainable Energy Association, has calculated WA has more than enough wind resources to power every home in the State - and not just from coastal sites. He says in the southwest, wind is strong and relatively constant enough for wind farms to be built on cheaper sites inland. Dr Wills told an ABC interviewer that WA's "extraordinary wind resources" made it "the Saudi Arabia of Wind". But as WA's Greenhouse and Energy Taskforce pointed out in the report, "A cleaner energy future", the State would face problems of maintaining an electricity base load if more than 20% of the WA network relied on intermittent wind power.
Cheaper solar power?
Solar hot water systems have been a feature of Perth's suburban skyline for years but the photovoltaic panels they use are still relatively expensive to manufacture. What could persuade more households to install them is a substantial reduction in costs. In an effort to solve such problems research teams from eight universities in the UK are about to launch a four-year project to design cheaper solar panels. Part of the project will look at making thin-film cells that use only a fraction of the expensive metal indium that is used today.
Green China
Austrade is not normally the harbinger of change on the domestic front, but during January it was doing much to promote the business opportunities arising from China's new "green" building codes. What makes the codes so attractive from a business sense is that between now and 2020 China is expected to construct no less that half of the world's new homes and commercial buildings. Adapting to those codes can provide an important new market for Australian manufactures of environment-friendly building products and could bring prices here for similar products down. According to Austrade, Chinese authorities are concerned that the huge expansion in construction will lead to a doubling in building-related energy consumption. So they want energy cut back 50%. At the same time China has announced plans to retrofit a quarter of the country's existing public buildings to increase their energy efficiency by 2010 too
