There’s a common thread that runs through a number of current and proposed policies for the built environment right now.
They place the cost of change on those least likely to afford it and those who are already hardest hit.
It’s as if we’re now done with trying to remedy inequality and pushing for the trickle down effect. It might have worked for a bit – post war, maybe, when the world (or west) was still fresh with the joy of peace, new technology and abundant cheap but dirty energy.
Many politicians from both sides of the fence embraced the noble pursuit of lifting people out of poverty, providing health, medical and housing needs, not to mention education. Their main point of difference often being the intensity of their commitment or their methods to get there.
Today things have changed.
There’s a growing blindness to the consequences of a new breed of economic and political policies that’s emerged and is now intensifying. Wilful or not. And sadly it’s in the built environment that this is most strongly evident. Sadly because our homes and the places where we live are such powerful determinants of so much that matters.
We’ve seen it as South Australia goes backward on the National Construction Code, to the 2019 version, specifically targeting the outer area of Mt Barker where the lowest income people are likely to end up.
We’ve seen it as opposition leader Peter Dutton goes one further and says he will freeze the NCC nationally for 10 years because times are tough. He also announced he would spend $500 million on infrastructure for urban sprawl if elected.
The better off among us won’t notice these changes. We’ll ensure we’re protected by good insulation, double glazing and maybe even Passive House design, and that we live close to work and so on. Those less well-resourced will be forced to wear the hidden costs of poor housing and remote locations.
The point was made by a 4Corners report this week that showed a woman facing tolls of $150 a week to get to work from her outer Sydney suburb was forced to give up her job.
To keep the economy and society going well we need people to be able to live near their work especially if their jobs are low paid. If we can build massive freeways we can build homes – and the benefits will be even greater.
Unfortunately, this ideological bent towards short-term thinking was also evidenced in the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission’s recent report that called for a halt to building reforms because times are tough.
Maybe the commission was reading the tea leaves. In New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has refused to ban gas.
At Wolli Creek just south of the Sydney CBD Carolin Wenzel tells us there are 3500 residents who can’t get induction stoves or EV charging because the 13 towers they live in were built for gas and there is not enough electricity capacity for the buildings to electrify.
But while Wenzel and her supporters struggle with retrofits the Australian Building Codes Board budgets for energy efficiency and resilience work have been slashed. If the energy efficiency departments around the country want to houses to be more energy efficient they should fund the work themselves, we heard this week.
In the UK we see how the dumbing down of regulations contributed to the Grenfell disaster.
And hitting our desks today was a new paper from the highly regarded academic from Western Sydney University, Sebastian Pfautsch, warning that the social and affordable housing in the pipeline needs to be built with regard to thermal safety.
“The issue with thermal safety is that as ambient air temperature rises, so does the core body temperature. Extreme heat claims more lives in Australia annually, than all other natural disasters combined,” he points out.
“Extreme heat events have disproportionate and devastating effects on the very young, the elderly, those with existing medical conditions, women at risk of maternal and neonatal complications, and those living with low incomes.
“People who live in SAH are more likely to be exposed to energy hardship that makes the use of electrical cooling and heating (e.g., using reverse cycle air conditioning) unaffordable. The life, health and wellbeing of those most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society is already today most affected by increased heat and will be even more so in the future.”
In each of these cases, it is the people who have the least means to protect themselves who are targeted to bear the brunt of these decisions.
The rest of society pays in the end – though higher taxes that pick up the cost of the failures in health, education, mental health, and self harm – perhaps even expensive prison incarceration.
But we know all this. And we know the benefits of better planning, better design and resilience.
Who benefits
To unpack what’s going on and why, we need to ask another question – who benefits?
So who are the pollies listening to? And why isn’t there a strong voice to counter these decisions to marginalise the already marginalised?
Every time we ask, we get the same answers, Master Builders Australia, the Housing Industry Association, and the Urban Development Institute of Australia.
Not all the people in these groups are as nutty as the extremists we’ve spoken to from time to time. We’ve met some wonderful proponents of sustainability within these groups. We invited the executive director of the MBA in NSW to be part of our Let’s Hack Housing event. And we suspect many of these people are privately on our side.
But it’s the herd mentality that is dumping concern for renewables, energy saving, quality control and programs to bring greater equality to our society. Sadly it’s a global pattern right now and it’s intensifying.
At the commercial end of town there are grown ups who try their best to achieve the most sustainable and energy efficient buildings they can and who will soon be working on a nature positive agenda.
They see it’s in their interest. They get the direct link from action to benefit.
They know what side their bread is buttered on and big financial players continually emphasise what good performance needs to look like.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the residential sector ,which affects so many more millions of people in this country than does the commercial sector, could benefit from the same system?
Our residential buildings, homes, urban planning and transport systems that drives our world needs a new model.
It can learn a lot from the commercial sector.
Now here’s the big question – how do we change tack?
We’re listening. Solutions only please.
Editorial@thefifthestate.com.au
Thank you for writing about the bleeding obvious. As an advocate and long time citizen campaigner for the Livable Housing Standard we see that ageing in place is going to be just a dream because our homes are not fit for purpose. Is this deliberate? Do the lobbyists think we are all going to go to a retirement village where they can milk the residents for all they have? No. We will end up as a cost to government in hospitals and aged care. Those who can afford to renovate will be the lobbyists and their privileged mates. Ordinary house builders are happy with the 2022 NCC requirements. I fear for QLD now that LNP says it will go the same way as SA.