The environmental sustainability of Australia's private rental housing stock

This AHURI-funded project will examine, with colleagues from RMIT and Monash Universities, the potential opportunities for and barriers to improving the environmental sustainability of Australia's private rental stock. The project's focus on private rental housing reflects: the growing significance of this tenure in the Australian housing system; the vulnerability of private rental tenants to higher energy prices; and the relative lack of environmentally sustainable policy initiatives directed towards private rental housing stock to date. In particular, the project will examine the impact of the Australian Government's proposed Carbon Emissions Trading (CET) scheme on private rental tenancies. The scheme poses particular challenges for private rental tenants who are constrained in their adoption of low-emission substitutes as they do not have the right to adapt their homes without landlord acquiescence. Moreover, as the landlord does not reap the immediate benefits of investment in alternative energy efficient equipment, the financial incentives motivating such investment is weaker than those of homeowners. The project will outline the state government budgetary implications of higher energy rebates due to CET and provide policy makers with estimates of the effectiveness of state energy rebates in cushioning the impacts of CET on private renters. In addition, we will provide policymakers with insight into strategies that can encourage providers and consumers of rental housing to adopt more energy efficient practices, whilst ensuring that such policies do not exacerbate existing socio-spatial inequalities in Australian cities. Contact: Michelle.Gabriel@utas.edu.au.

Regulatory frameworks and their utility for the not for profit housing sector

There has been considerable interest in Australian social housing in expanding the small ‘not for profit' sector, within a regulatory framework that makes it possible for governments to give financial support. A number of states have introduced different schemes, and a new National Regulatory Code is about to be introduced. This AHURI project will investigate the usefulness of regulatory frameworks for the ‘not for profit' housing sector in Australia , through conducting case studies in three states. The research will be conducted by Max Travers from the University of Tasmania, Vivienne Milligan and Bill Randolph from UNSW, and Rhonda Philips from the UQ. Additional research on regulation in the UK, the Netherlands, Austria and the USA will be conducted by Keith Jacobs (UTAS), Heather MacDonald (UWS) and Julie Lawson (University of Delft). The project will be completed by September 2010.

The future of Australian public housing: A critical analysis

Keith Jacobs and colleagues from RMIT are currently working on an AHURI funded project that considers the question of the future of state managed public housing and its capacity to address household need and community sustainability in the 21st century. The overall aim of this project is to consider the long-term, strategic issues that confront State Housing Authorities (SHAs) by focusing on a number of core questions about the viability of the sector. The project works with an explicitly historical perspective, drawing upon the international and Australian literature on public housing policy and its role within our broader housing system. The research will be completed by April 2010.

Stigma

The capacity of art to enable us to imagine new ways of seeing how we live and the world we inhabit was explored in a recent essay for a catalogue that accompanied an exhibiton that focussed on neighbourhood stigma. The catalogue for the exhibition, along with photographs of the exhibits can be viewed here (pdf).

An abridged version of the essay features on the ABC Unleashed website. This, as well as comments from readers, can be accessed from this link: www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2595449.htm

You can also listen to a radio interview with ABC Hobart featuring John Vella (one of the contributing artists) and Keith Jacobs from HACRU, at the following link: http://eprints.utas.edu.au/8745/

Urban 45: New Ideas for Australia's Cities

The Urban 45 initiative crosses 15 themes with 3 proposals each (hence the ‘45' of the title) for public intervention in each area, to ensure that our nation's cities are given a central place in efforts to ensure prosperity for all and to revitalise our community and physical infrastructure. The culminating analysis (freely downloadable from the link below) was produced by leading academics across Australia to produce concise policy-relevant statements that will be relevant to ongoing pre-election debates, and beyond. Urban 45: New Ideas for Australia's Cities , now available at www.rmit.edu.au/urban45

ARC Discovery project: Privatising neighbourhoods? Governance and social life in master-planned residential estates
Rowland Atkinson, Robyn Dowling (Macquarie University) and Pauline McGuirk (Newcastle University)

Fear, privatism and prestige increasingly mark the form, management and daily life in new neighbourhoods across the world's major cities. However, recognition and analysis of these developments and daily life within such neighbourhoods in the Australian context has been muted. This research is looking at the radical transformation in social and governmental relations at the local neighbourhood and urban scales. While some commentators have interpreted master-planned communities as offering new opportunities for community engagement, others have critiqued them for increasing social exclusivity and segregation.

The research will:

1. Trace the strategies and institutional form of private and public governance of new residential environments in order to contribute to theories of urban governance;
2. Analyse social interaction within these new residential environments to assess contemporary models of urban social exclusion and the nature of sociability in privately governed and managed neighbourhoods, and;
3. Provide a distinctive and empirically-informed analysis of Australian master-planned residential estates in the context of international debates about private urban governance and its effects.

Improving housing policy responses to indigenous patterns of mobility
Many indigenous individuals and families are highly reliant on the social housing sector because of barriers to private markets. Yet indigenous populations also face difficulties in accessing and sustaining tenancies in housing programs provided by mainstream commonwealth and state and territory housing authorities. One reason for this is that mainstream social housing occurs within a paradigm based on the needs of a sedentary population, involving permanent residence in a single, fixed location. This fails to accommodate the forms of mobility that many Indigenous individuals and families engage in, which reflect attachment to customary practices. This difference between indigenous and non-indigenous lifestyles is one of the reasons for the poor housing outcomes experienced by indigenous peoples in Australia.

The question of how social housing providers should respond to this difference is a vexed one, involving issues of whether alternative and better models of service delivery can, or should, be found. How governments address this question carries implications for the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia because of its impact on Indigenous aspirations for cultural integrity and cultural survival. This study examines this question through a case study approach conducted in locations in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. Contact: Daphne Habibis