Over the next few months, OUTinPerth will be looking at some of the major living styles that exist in Australian cities. Last issue, we examined the foundations behind the suburban style of living and its tie-in to what has become the ‘Australian Dream’. However, in the current climate of housing stress, and with serious questions being posed as to the future viability of the suburb as an urban form, there are some who are rethinking the way we live in Australia.
Perth is essentially a suburban city, with relatively few people living in the CBD and inner city areas. However, it’s recognised that we can’t continually expand the ‘metro area’ unless towns such as Lancelin and Bunbury are swallowed up into the one suburban mass. With the expectation of population increases in the future, solutions to the traffic and ‘social distance’ issues that come with a more expansive city must be considered – rather than simply accepting our ‘West Coast’ fate as ‘just another Los Angeles’.
The population of Perth is projected to grow by 750,000 over the next twenty years, putting us well on the way to becoming the size of Melbourne. In response to this, government, the planning and architectural professions, and members of the wider business community are entering into serious debate as to the future of Perth.
The major issues that are coming out of this debate are ‘sustainability’ and ‘vibrancy’. That is, a need to rethink the suburbs of the future from a design, rather than a commercial development perspective; and a recognition that the central Perth area needs to become more diverse and start thinking as a city, rather than as suburbs that ‘happen to have lots of people in them’.
From the sustainability perspective, Perth is a city undergoing a once-in-a-generation boom. It has expanded to take in a whole 160kms of the coastline, and ‘McMansions’ appear to be the order of the day. But are these housing types to be celebrated as evidence of our economic success, or are they symbols of over-consumption? In a recent Monument opinion piece architect and RMIT professor Norman Day mentioned that current Australian housing stock requires ‘wholesale replacement each 50 or 60 years, which consumes precious materials and labour’. This contrasts with the 400-500 year lifespan of some Japanese and European cities.
A Fork in the Road
In the past, basic architectural commonsense – such as correct orientation of houses, proper roofing, and the size of houses relative to their blocks – has been alien to much of the property development industry in Australia. The ‘build ‘em cheap, build ‘em quick’, or ‘throw on another air conditioner’ philosophies have been all-pervasive.
Even new luxury developments in Northbridge that provide space (in the plans) for energy saving rooftop gardens have been constructed with no access to the roof at all – stairs are at the cost of the owners.
For several years, homebuilders and renovators in New South Wales have had to conform to BASIX legislation, which requires new builders to install rainwater tanks and solar panels and employ passive design techniques to reduce energy consumption by around 40%. A WA version of the plan was proposed last year, and had the support of the Master Builders Association and the Urban Development Institute of Australia. However, this was dropped in favour of the 5 Star Plus framework preferred by the Housing Industry Association.
According to staff at the Department for Planning and Infrastructure, WA BASIX was a more comprehensive and effective road to a sustainable construction industry due to its quantitative, performance-based framework and its non-prescriptive nature (a range of options would have been available for builders). The HIA maintained that the plan was ill thought-out, and lobbied in support of 5 Star Plus, established under the Building Regulations. HIA representative Martin Beel cited a lack of transparency with BASIX, maintaining that sustainability legislation of this type should be controlled through building, not planning legislation
Future Action
There are some developments that are tackling the planning issues we face head-on. Villages at Ellenbrook have ‘solar passive’ designs from the layout of the streets to the home sites themselves. However, according to Peter Newman, Professor of City Policy at Murdoch University, this is more of an exception, adding that ‘the HIA just don’t want to change their mass produced products which contractors produce in their sleep.’ Clearly, the economies of scale enjoyed by developers on our city fringe mean closer planning scrutiny will be required in the future to combat energy, traffic, and quality of life issues that we have so far avoided.
An important consideration is the proliferation of segregated single-use spaces: the office park, the residential ‘dormitory suburb’, and the shopping mall. These were born out of the nature of the land market, where farmland or bush on the fringes was bought out by developers, then repackaged as ‘retail’, ‘commercial’ or ‘residential’ zoning.
Large-scale ‘dormitory communities’ of residents who commute long distances to work foster excessive land use and pollution generating vehicle dependence. In response, a range of alternatives have been suggested by various sources. Many solutions centre on the redesign of suburban centres to make housing more compact and of higher density (thereby increasing the effectiveness of public transport); and to include more medium-to-high density businesses (locating work closer to home).
While solutions to our city’s future problems are still under consideration, it is clear that action must be taken at a range of levels. From legislative approaches such as 5 Star Plus, to East Perth style mixed-use developments, innovative transport solutions and broad-scale planning legislation, the suburbs of Perth can enter into a more sustainable future.
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