Finding Leverage

Australian cities face unprecedented challenges. They’re continuing to grow but display the symptoms of chronic underinvestment in mass transit infrastructure. They operate under fragmented governance and are among the least affordable in the world. In the face of terrifying climate change acceleration in 2016, they continue an upward trajectory of carbon emissions. The urban sustainability movement has never been as important to our future prosperity as it is right now.

The narrative for urban sustainability has reinforced a compelling message for the past decade: incentivise the construction of higher quality buildings and the refurbishing of old buildings and we will materially address the sustainability challenges faced by our cities. This narrative has been applied broadly and successfully – green building rating tools are now fairly standard in the higher end of commercial property, mandatory disclosure has triggered building upgrades in CBDs across the country and energy efficiency is a regulatory consideration in both residential and commercial sectors.

But has it materially changed the trajectory of urban development to enable the competitive, equitable, resilient and sustainable cities that are so critical to our shared future?

The research presented by ASBEC and Climateworks in the Low Carbon High Performance report – showing only marginal carbon emissions intensity reductions across commercial and residential sectors over the past decade (2% and 5% respectively) – would suggest not. It is only one indicator, but it points to a growing malaise within the sustainability community that our efforts are not bringing about the change we hope for and need. Our efforts do not appear to be of a scale or speed to meaningfully shift our cities to be the places we need.

Transforming our cities requires net reduction in emissions (ultimately to zero). Marginal improvements in emissions intensity do not cut the mustard. Our movement has targeted the top quartile of the industry, and this trickle-down approach to sustainability has not worked to transform the market across the board.

We need a sustainability discourse that seeks levers to accelerate our progress. This piece discusses three emerging opportunities to reframe the urban sustainability narrative: how we transition to a clean urban grid, an amenity-based approach to affordable density and a metropolitan approach to enhancing our urban biodiversity.

Zero-Carbon | Grid Transformation

Progressing toward zero-carbon is a core compact between global green building councils in response to the Paris Agreement of COP21.

There are fundamental reasons why buildings cannot achieve this on their own terms – through efficiency and on-site generation. At current business as usual consumption, the ratio of solar generation footprint to building area is approximately 1:1. Even with deep cuts in efficiency (60-70%) – those same cuts we have failed to achieve universally in a decade of trying – the ratio only improves to about 3:1. We simply cannot resolve our challenges for in-fill development, transport connectivity, affordable housing and a high quality public realm at that level of density.

Our only hope to achieve a zero-carbon built environment is to transform our grid. And fast.

Right now there are substantial barriers to achieving a zero-carbon built environment. On-site generation is insufficient to meet demand. Selling power across site boundaries is difficult (and often impossible) under the current regulations. Power Purchase Agreements don’t alleviate the infrastructure burden on tariffs (which can make up more than half the costs for building owners). Regulatory change is slow and complex – as the recent efforts for rule changes for distributed generation with the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) attest. Transitioning to zero carbon is urgent.

Private and embedded networks present the best current opportunity to by-pass some of the challenges of current energy regulation. By increasing the scale and diversity of demand on the private side of the meter, the ability for embedded generation to be fully utilised is substantially increased. And broadly our cities need flexible intermediate frameworks for generating renewable energy, distributing it over short distances and selling it across property boundaries.

If we’re serious about zero carbon cities, this is a current and urgent need. It demands our collective effort – lobbyist, advocates, designers, engineers, planners – to the building of a national consensus for a transformed urban grid.

Density, Amenity and Affordability

We need to have a compact connected city. People need to live close to where they work. People need to be able to afford a home. These two issues – proximity and affordability – are imperatives for a competitive city that demand greater density. But there is a social licence battle to be fought about our requisite density and the balance of private and public amenity. NIMBYism is rife and vested interests hold massive sway over planning and development outcomes – either refusing development altogether or pursuing density without addressing either public amenity or affordability.

At present, private amenity is addressed through SEPP 65 and the Apartment Design Guide in NSW. However, responsibility for public amenity is held by a fragmented local government structure. Uniquely for a rich, progressive country, housing affordability doesn’t seem to be held by anyone.

Asa result densification beyond current planning allowances is an ad hoc affair of hastily negotiated voluntary planning agreements and financial contributions that seldom deliver the public amenity or social infrastructure needed to support the urban intensification.

There remains a huge gap in our industry in developing planning guidelines for the quantity and quality of accessible public space, private space and social infrastructure needed to support the substantial densification of parts of our cities. Coupled with requirements for affordable housing, an innovative planning framework to enable density on the basis of amenity and social infrastructure is one of our biggest unrealised opportunities.

We need to fight the NIMBYs, fight FOR urban amenity (our parks, our trees, our sunny squares) and we need to make a case for high quality, affordable, compact development.

Urban Habitat and Biodiversity

Finally, we must address urban ecology – we cannot afford to have a city dead to the natural world.

Habitat functionality is not just a function of it being big. Or green. Or even native.  But rather it’s a complex arrangement of size, level of degradation, and perhaps most critically – connection to other high quality habitat.

If we’re serious about creating cities that are resilient, attractive and competitive, we need to enable coexistence with the life systems that underpin our human existence. We ignore them at our peril. This means establishing green corridors across our cities, connecting nodes of parks and gardens. It means re-purposing the veins of our cities – our roads and transport corridors – and rewilding our urban spaces.

Conclusion

The sustainable design movement has won important ground this last decade. We have made consideration of environment, social and governance factors a fundamental part of property investment. We have enabled new low-impact products to find and consolidate a market. We have introduced a common language for urban sustainability. These initiatives, and many others, have transformed the discourse on sustainability in the property industry.

But let’s not pretend the wellness of bankers and lawyers, the rental premiums and returns in commercial property or the latest air conditioning system or fancy façade are material to the big environmental challenges of our day.

We need a zero carbon grid.

We need a substantial injection of affordable, amenable housing.

We need enabled biodiversity and amenity to supports living city.

Our industry must get its hands dirty with the (AEMC). We must engage with the planning profession and the Greater Sydney Commission on housing, density and the public domain. We must build capacity in supporting urban ecology and highly functional, connected habitat.

Addressing these key sectors and systems within the built environment offers us real leverage in transforming our cities. So let’s get our industry fighting these battles with everything they’ve got.

*This post first appeared in an edited form in The Urban Developer: http://www.theurbandeveloper.com/urban-sustainability-its-time-to-lift-our-game/

Navigating the complexity of urban precincts

Current investment in urban precincts and infrastructure across NSW showcases the importance of an integrated planning and delivery approach across vertical and horizontal infrastructure (buildings integrated with transport and utilities) in support of the drive to create more liveable, sustainable and resilient cities.

A new Plan for Growing Sydney, the Greater Sydney Commission established with real regulatory power to see it effected and an emerging political willingness to engage pro-actively with urban renewal are all positive signs. But it also requires the design and construction sectors to deliver buildings, infrastructure and our shared public spaces in an integrated manner.

In the case of Sydney the Government’s vision for a strong global city, a great place to live will be achieved through:

• -a competitive economy with world-class services and transport;
•  a city of housing choice with homes that meet our needs and lifestyles;
•  a great place to live with communities that are strong, healthy and well connected; and
•  a sustainable and resilient city that protects the natural environment and has a balanced approach to the use of land and resources.

-        A Plan for Growing Sydney, 2015

These goals cannot even be successfully contemplated, let alone achieved, without joined-up thinking in design and engineering.

The challenges

Our urban world is undergoing rapid change. Faced with substantial challenges to our environmental, social and economic systems, we are being forced to adapt quickly and our cities provide clear proof of this.

Addressing climate change  both in terms of mitigating and being resilient to its effects, delivering prosperity, supporting biodiversity, reducing resource consumption and enabling human health are urgent priorities for our cities, as they compete for global investment and for an increasing urban dweller base.

The COP21 climate talks and the subsequent agreement reached, received unprecedented support from civic and administrative city leaders from across the globe as urban renewal has come to play an increasingly strategic role in planning policy for development, housing and infrastructure.

In the area of urban renewal, precincts provide a rare combination of commercial, technical and social attributes that can balance social and environmental requirements with the need to maintain a prosperous and competitive cityscape. In order to create precincts that will power our future cities, planners, designers and engineers must first successfully navigate the complexity of integrating vertical and horizontal infrastructure.

City needs

In broad terms, we understand a lot about what our cities need for a successful future.

We know that our cities need to be more dense, enabled by multi-modal public transit systems. We know that this will provide better commercial outcomes by increasing land value, and if done appropriately can also qualitatively improve housing through increased accessibility and an improved public amenity.

We know that ecological systems and biodiversity are critical to both amenity and resilience. High quality green space and a renewed urban habitat can support ecological, social and economic outcomes.

We know that we cannot rely on fossil fuels forever or continue to deplete non-renewable resources. We need to transition to a zero-carbon economy. Abundant recycled water is central to mitigating climate-related heatwaves and to supporting urban amenity.

We know that development, transit, amenity, public space, water, biodiversity, carbon, energy, investment, politics and planning policy are intricately linked. 

Managing the complexity of all these issues requires integration of our services to a degree that has never proven necessary until now.

Our response

The transformation of our cities demands an integrated approach to urban renewal in focused development precincts – effectively enabling complimentary development of property, public domain, utilities and transport infrastructure.

Our move to connected, amenable, future-focused cities can be supported by planning reform, equitable housing policy and through innovative, value capture models for infrastructure project finance. All of this calls for visionary thinking across the project lifecycle to inform feasibility, planning, design, construction, operation and end-of-life across a wide range of asset classes.

Our approach to design must inhabit this space integrating multidisciplinary services across environment and planning; transport and utilities engineering; building engineering and sustainability across the built environment. It must be stitched together with collaborative governance – bringing a range of stakeholders into the creative delivery and occupation of our new places.