LIVABLE HOUSING

Image Source: Livable Housing Australia

Designing a new dwelling to meet the Livable Housing Design Guidelines started on voluntary basis in the hope that industry and the public would recognise the benefits of doing so. However, with this moving very slowly, and Livable Housing Australia’s targets for voluntary uptake remaining unmet, there has been a significant legislative change, along with some other incentives introduced.

In NSW, SEPP 65 now refers in its associated Apartment Design Guide to 20% of residential apartments being designed to silver level. This is in addition to the requirement of many local councils to include adaptable dwellings with reference to AS 4299. The livable and adaptable units could be the same units, providing the numbers are achieved accordingly and that the different requirements are able to be incorporated. Note that the livable housing elements are required in the initial construction, unlike some adaptable elements which are able to be achieved through modification.

While we have provided design advice for new apartment buildings with dwellings to silver level locally, our involvement in design and construction stage assessments of platinum level dwellings has extended from the Hunter, Central Coast and Sydney to Victoria. Many of these have been at the request of community or disability housing providers or have been a funding requirement for the same. There are also other incentives offered by specialist disability funding schemes such as the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) to build new dwellings to platinum level.

There is no turning back now! The Livable Housing Design Guidelines are on their way to being more widely implemented and we must all become more familiar with their content. Contact us if you would like to talk through what they involve.