18â20 FEBRUARY 2015 HANDBOOK
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AHRC AUSTRALASIAN HOUSING RESEARCHERS CONFERENCE 18-20 FEBRUARY 2015, HOBART-TASMANIA AUSTR ALASI AN H OUSIN G R ES EAR CHERS CONFER ENCE H ANDB OO K 18 — 2 0 FEB R UARY 2 015 ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... UNIV ERSIT Y O F TAS M ANI A Hosted by the Housing and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 1 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO NTENTS W ELCOM E 3 AB O UT THE H O USIN G AND COM MUNIT Y R ES EAR CH UNIT 4 INFO R M ATIO N FO R CH AIR PERSO N S AND PR ES ENTERS 5 GENER AL INFO R M ATIO N 7 UNIV ERSIT Y O F TAS M ANI A M AP 10 K EYN OTE SP EA K ERS 12 PR O GR A M 19 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 1 20 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 2 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 1 21 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 3 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 2 22 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 4 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 3 23 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 5 24 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 6 26 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 7 27 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 8 28 SO CI AL PR O GR A M 2 9 PR ES ENTER AB STR ACTS 3 0 SPO N SO RS 107 2 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 2 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... W ELCOM E Dear friends and colleagues, Welcome to the 8th Australasian Housing Researchers Conference. The conference has attracted a strong response from the national and international housing researcher community as well as from policy makers and service providers, and promises to be a valuable experience. We have been fortunate in attracting four outstanding keynote speakers, and have an engaging range of topics covering both established and emerging fields of interest. The three days of the conference will provide opportunities for debate and an exchange of ideas, as well as a chance to hear the latest findings from research being undertaken in Australasia, Europe, and the USA. Our keynote speakers will discuss areas of crucial interest to scholars and policy makers, including the policy implications of the increasingly tough housing affordability landscape, and some of the issues surrounding housing and climate change. This year the conference is being held in Hobart. Tasmania used to be described as Australia’s best kept secret but the arrival of MONA, and other developments, have increased its visibility on the national, and international stage. In some ways, Tasmania stands as an exemplar of a progressive state that embraces change. Yet the political and economic profile of Tasmania remains largely unchanged, with sharp political and social divisions, and significant areas of stagnation. The state is often described as a social laboratory, profoundly imbued with a sense of place and a microcosm of the forces of globalisation. It is a good place to hold a conference that invites us to think about the future of housing and how this shapes who we are, and how we live our lives. Housing researchers have a number of valuable national and international annual conferences to choose from. This conference is unique in its invitation to shift attention from industry and policy agendas to scholarly concerns. The conference provides a space for exploration of the theoretical and empirical issues that are often squeezed out by the strength of the policy and service delivery imperatives but which can afford new knowledge that changes the way we think about housing and the institutional forms that shape how it is delivered and managed. This focus is complemented by the size of the conference, which is large enough to ensure a good mix of participants, yet small enough to provide that sense of a productive community of interest. We hope that this will be your experience and that you will enjoy the social program as much as the academic one, so that when you leave Tasmania you will do so with a sense of time well spent. Associate Professor Daphne Habibis Conference Convenor Housing and Community Research Unit University of Tasmania 3 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 3 16/02/2015 9:23 am AB O UT THE H O USIN G AND COM MUNIT Y R ES EAR CH UNIT , UNIV ERSIT Y O F TAS M ANI A The Housing and Community Research Unit is located in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, and is affiliated with the University’s Institute for the Study of Social Change. It is an interdisciplinary research unit covering the areas of sociology, geography, demography, social work, architecture and criminology. It receives core funding from Housing Tasmania and the University of Tasmania, and grant and consultancy funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the Australian Research Council and non-government and philanthropic and organisations. The unit began in 2002 as a collaborative research venture between Housing Tasmania and the University of Tasmania with the goal of undertaking housing and community related research that would support the policy environment in which Housing Tasmania operates, and produce rigorous academic work of national and international standing. The research unit produces peer-reviewed articles, articles for the housing policy press, seminars for housing practitioners and government and non-government reports. The core work of the unit is centred on social housing issues but extends more broadly to a wide range of urban community issues including housing affordability, gentrification and neighbourhood change, Indigenous housing, community development, regional housing issues, community safety, the housing impacts of demographic change and housing sustainability in the context of climate change. ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... AHRC AUSTRALASIAN HOUSING RESEARCHERS CONFERENCE 18-20 FEBRUARY 2015, HOBART-TASMANIA Institute for the Study of Social Change 4 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 4 16/02/2015 9:23 am INFO R M ATIO N FO R CH AIR P ERSO N S AND PR ES ENTERS CONCURRENT SESSION CHAIR RESPONSIBILITIES As chair you have agreed to take on an important role which will prove critical to the smooth operation and success of the AHRC 2015 conference. An attentive chair can help ensure that the speakers are able to present their papers successfully and encourage discussion with the audience. The responsibilities of the chair include: • meeting presenters in the designated room ten minutes before the start of the session • introducing the session and the speakers to the audience • ensuring the session starts and ends on time and that the individual papers keep to their time of 20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes discussion. This should be done by providing ten, five and one minute signals to presenters as they reach the end of their allotted time. • Inviting questions from the audience, and being prepared to pose questions to encourage discussion and debate • closing the session by thanking presenters and the audience. PRESENTER RESPONSIBILITIES As presenter you should transfer the file for your presentation onto the computer in the designated room at least two hours before your session starts. To assist in uploading presentations, volunteers (look for the blue t-shirts) will be available in the rooms during morning and afternoon tea breaks. Please arrive for your presentation no later than ten minutes before the session is due to start. It is important for the smooth running of the session that you keep to your allotted time. As a way of stimulating audience discussion, it could be helpful if your concluding slide includes some questions raised by your presentation. SPEAKERS ROOM Social Sciences Room 210 is available for presenters requiring preparation facilities. 5 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 5 16/02/2015 9:23 am .... ......... .. ..... ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ LO CAL O R GANISIN G COM M ITTEE ........ ........ UNIV ERSIT Y O F TAS M ANI A ........ ........ Assoc Prof Daphne Habibis ........ Prof Keith Jacobs ........ ........ Verdouw ........ DrGinaJuliaZappia STEER IN G COM M ITTEE Assoc Prof Emma Baker, University of Adelaide Prof Scott Baum, Griffith University Assoc Prof Daphne Habibis, University of Tasmania Prof Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania Prof Steven Rowley, Curtin University Prof Hal Pawson, University of New South Wales Dr Will Sanders, Australian National University Dr Wendy Stone, Swinburne University of Technology Assoc Prof Deborah Warr, University of Melbourne CO NFER EN CE M AN AGERS Leishman Associates 113 Harrington Street, Hobart TAS 7000 Phone: 03 6234 7844 Fax: 03 6234 5958 Email: paula@leishman-associates.com.au Web: www.leishman-associates.com.au 6 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 6 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. ............. GENER AL INFO R M ATIO N REGISTRATION DESK On the morning of Day 1 of the AHRC, the registration desk will be located in the foyer of the Centenary Theatre. Afterwards the registration desk and staff from Leishman Associates will be located in the foyer of the Physics Building. The Registration Desk will be open: Wednesday 18 February 2015 – 8:00am – 5:00pm Thursday 19 February 2015 – 8:30am – 5:00pm Friday 20 February 2015 – 8:30am – 2:00pm The team from Leishman Associates will be available to assist with any enquiries. For urgent matters, please SMS or call Kate on 0418 325 927 | Emma on 0457 815 122 | Paula on 0412 875 390 CONFERENCE NAME BADGES All delegates, speakers and sponsors will be provided with a name badge, which must be worn at all times for access to Conference sessions within the Conference venue, and for social functions. INTERNET ACCESS Complimentary wireless internet access will be available throughout the Conference venue for the duration of the Conference. To gain access, please use the following network name and password: Network Name: UConference Password: Conf@UTAS_2015 If you have trouble connecting please see the staff from Leishman Associates or one of the volunteers. MOBILE PHONES As a courtesy to other delegates, please ensure that all mobile phones are switched off or put on silent mode during all sessions and social functions at the Conference. 7 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 7 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ACCOMMODATION If you have any queries relating to your accommodation booking please first contact the staff at your hotel, or alternatively ask one of the team from Leishman Associates. Your credit card details were supplied to the hotel you have selected, in order to secure your booking. If you have arrived 24 hours later than your indicated arrival day then you may find that you have been charged a fee. You will be responsible for all room and incidental charges on check out and may be asked for an impression of your credit card for security against these charges. This is a standard policy at many hotels. SPECIAL DIETS The caterers has been advised of any special dietary requirements you have indicated on your registration form. Please indicate this to the staff – they will be happy to assist in providing you with your appropriate food. EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE For any medical emergency please phone 000. The staff at your hotel will have information if you require details for doctors, dentists or other health professionals. SMOKING The University of Tasmania Sandy Bay Campus is a non smoking venue. PARKING There are many parking options on the Sandy Bay Campus, please see map on page 10. BOOKSHOP The Co-op Bookshop is a not-for-profit co-operative that sells textbooks, reference books, study guides, stationery and secondhand books. It is located next to the TUU Building off Churchill Avenue. DISCLAIMER The Australasian Housing Researchers Conference reserves the right to amend or alter any advertised details relating to dates, program and speakers if necessary, without notice, as a result of circumstances beyond their control. All attempts have been made to keep changes to an absolute minimum. 8 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 8 16/02/2015 9:23 am VENUE INFORMATION The AHRC will take place in these locations at the Sandy Bay Campus. Plenary sessions will occur in the Centenary Theatre, Centenary Building Concurrent Sessions will occur in either the Physics Building or Geology Building Arrival tea and coffee will be served in the foyer of the Centenary Building on Wednesday and Thursday. Lunch will be served in the University Club on Wednesday and Thursday. All other refreshment breaks and lunch on Friday will be served in the Physics Building. Please check the program for your room location; remember to ask one of the volunteers in blue for directions. FEDERAL MINISTER’S AWARD FOR EARLY CAREER HOUSING RESEARCHER The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) is committed to encouraging excellence in housing and urban research, and to supporting continuous professional development opportunities that sustain and grow Australia’s research capabilities in this field. The Federal Minister’s Award for Early Career Housing Researcher is sponsored by AHURI and awarded at each Australasian Housing Researchers Conference. The purpose of the Federal Minister’s Award for Early Career Housing Researcher is to recognise excellence among those beginning their careers in housing and urban research. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 9 . . . .............................. .......................... ............................... ............................. ................................. ................................ ............................. ............................... ............................. . ............................. .............................. .................................... . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . ............ . . . . .. 9 16/02/2015 9:23 am Campus Map 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 2 AA AB Sandy Bay AC AD No. AC06 AD07 BB39 AX33 AW21 BA22 AR15 AX16 AX17 AD07 AU28 AX33 BE20 AR15 AR19 AR19 AG10 AJ10 AX19 AS13 AY31 AX33 BB39 AH10 AR15 BE20 AK12 BF31 AX33 AW31 AQ18 AP16 AW31 BE26 AW21 BE20 AS13 AW21 AC06 AX24 BN25 BE20 AZ16 AW31 BE20 AJ13 AL14 AL14 AX19 AU19 AR15 BA22 BB26 AX33 AU14 AU14 AT15 AS25 AC06 BE26 AR20 AU14 BA22 AX14 AX17 BE20 AS25 AU28 AC06 AW31 AW21 1 2 47 41 22 34 10 27 26 2 38 41 32 10 17 17 3 53 25 12 42 41 47 52 10 32 5 45 41 40 11 8 40 44 22 32 12 22 1 36 15 32 29 40 32 49 6 6 25 23 10 34 35 41 13 13 14 21 1 44 20 13 34 28 26 32 21 38 1 40 22 24 hr Emergency Number 62267600 North 0 metres 50 Maps for other UTAS campuses are available at www.utas.edu.au/campuses/campus-maps AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 10 100 150 AE Grid Ref. AFClub Rugby Science, Engineering & Technology, Faculty of Security AG Social Sciences, School of Source AH Food Co-op Staff Development & Training Steps AIBuilding Student Centre Studio AJGallery Surveying & Spatial Sciences Building Tasmanian University Union (TUU) AK Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) Tasmanian Institute of Learning & Teaching (TILT) AL Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing TILES (Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies) AM TUU Building Unigym AN Uniprint University Centre AO Club University University Secretariat AP School of Zoology, AI08 AR15 AD07 AX17 AR29 BE20 BI21 AW21 AW20 AN16 AS25 BC24 AS25 AT15 AZ16 AS25 AI11 BD19 AX19 AO20 AW21 BA22 No. 50 10 2 26 55 32 51 22 24 9 21 16 21 14 29 21 4 31 25 18 22 34 AQ AR AS AT ch ren eet Str F AU AV 39 40 AW 41 AX AY 42 AZ BA BB 47 BC e Roa Colleg BD BE BF 45 BG BH BI UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA 301 Sandy Bay Road 6 Grace Street Accommodation Services Accounting & Corporate Governance, School of Administration Building Agricultural Science, School of Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems CRC Arts Lecture Theatre Arts, Faculty of Aus. Clearing House for Youth Studies Australian Innovation Research Centre Business, Faculty of Campus Services Centenary Building Central Science Laboratory Chemistry, School of Child Care Centre - Lady Gowrie Child Care Cottage Classics Museum, John Elliott CODES ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits Commerce Annex Commerce Building Commercial Services & Development Admin. Community Health Clinic Computing and Information Systems, School of Corporate Services Building Cricket Pavillion CSIRO Forestry Economics & Finance, School of Education, Faculty of Engineering Workshop Engineering, School of English Language Centre Environment, Centre for Events and Protocol Financial Services Geography & Environmental Studies, School of Governance & Legal Office Graduate Research Office Herbarium, Tasmanian Horticultural Research Centre Human Resources Humanities, School of Hytten Hall Information Technology Resources (ITR) Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) Law Reform Institute Law, Faculty of Lazenby's Library, Morris Miller Library, Science Life Sciences Building Life Sciences Glasshouse Management, School of Marine & Antarctic Futures Centre (MAFC), IMAS Mathematics & Physics, School of Mathematics Building National Tertiary Education Union (Tas. Div.) Office of Research Services Old Medical Sciences Building Pharmacy, School of Physics Building Plant Science, School of Psychology Research Centre Psychology, School of Records Management Unit Refectory Research House Research Office Commercialisation Unit Riawunna Risk Management & Audit Assurance Grid Ref. BJ BK BL BM BN Room codes - what they mean For example: SB AX33 L02 204 SB AX33 Campus (Sandy Bay) Grid Reference (Commerce Building) L02 Level in Building (Level 2) 204 Room 204 BO BP 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 2 This map was last updated 24.06.13 Commercial Services & Development www.utas.edu.au/csd 10 16/02/2015 9:23 am 4 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 AA Str eet AB AC y Ba S 1 54 dy ce n Sa York Gra treet AD AE d a Ro 2 AF View t Stree ity e Stre To C 50 10 2 26 55 32 51 22 24 9 21 16 21 14 29 21 4 31 25 18 22 34 r veno Gros No. 3 52 4 t 49 AG AI 53 Rege AJ AK et St rl 9 Gr ad os 18 Ro bs on AN no AP r 11 Do 10 Cr es ce AQ nt AR 20 17 eet 12 AS ad 21 55 AM AO ve 8 AL re t ree r St de xan Ea eet nt Str 5 6 Ale AU 14 tr hS AT nc 23 ur 22 24 ch 41 36 ill 13 26 25 Av 28 27 en AW AX Learning Hubs ue 42 AV rk Ch 40 Ro 38 Cla Fre AH 50 AY Car Parking 29 AZ Parking Voucher Machine 34 BA Information 35 e Colleg Bus Stops et 16 Road nn TT Fly e Str 31 BB BC Public Telephones BD Emergency Phones BE 44 BF 32 45 BG BH BI 51 BJ BK BL 204 BM BN Room 204 15 BO BP 4 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 11 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 11 16/02/2015 9:23 am K EYN OTE SP EA K ERS PR O FES SO R GEO FFR EY M EEN UNIV ERSIT Y O F R EADIN G , UNITED K IN GD OM 12 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 12 ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... Geoff Meen is Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Reading and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University. Until recently, he was Head of the School of Politics, Economics and International Relations at the first institution. He specialises in housing economics at different spatial levels and is currently working on a book on historical approaches to housing economics. 16/02/2015 9:23 am ......................... .............................. ... ... ...................................... ............................... .............................. .. ........................... ............................... .. ........................... ............................... ............................. ............................... .............................. .. ........................... ............................... ... .... ..................................... ............................... .............................. .............................. ............................ ....... that do not arise only because of the Global Financial Crisis. In terms of “what policies work” it is wellworthwhile examining what historical housing experience tells us. For example, the suggested international panacea for improving affordability and promoting home-ownership is to increase the number of new homes, but, internationally, there is little evidence that this is achievable on a sustained, long-term basis. A further problem for regulatory authorities is the appropriate policy response to rising ratios of mortgage debt to household incomes, which have fallen only modestly, if at all, in most European countries after the GFC. Policy has typically concentrated on the introduction of lending controls, which primarily affect potential future home owners rather than the current owners, who are the main source of the problem. AB STR ACT H O USIN G FUTUR E GENER ATIO N S IN EUR O PE : IS SUES FO R CUR R ENT PO LICY IN A LO N G - R UN CO NTEX T By its nature, housing is intergenerational; the decisions made by the current generation have longlasting effects on future generations and, indeed, the decisions made by past generations affect the current generation. Furthermore, the spatial structure of European cities still largely reflects construction activities carried out decades if not centuries ago. Housing might be considered as a process of long-run social progress interspersed with periodic episodes of major crisis, although the progress does not necessarily arise from housing policy. But given short-term memories, we tend to focus on the crises rather than the progress. Given these general issues, the presentation concentrates on two aspects; (i) Recent international trends in European and international housing and mortgage markets Most of the housing problems faced by current and future generations are not new; housing supply, affordability, the adequacy of housing finance and socio-economic segregation are prime examples of long-term problems (ii) A longer-term analysis of policy issues in the UK, concentrating on young households and their tenure/ location choices. In both cases, an attempt is made to draw lessons for Australia. 13 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 13 16/02/2015 9:23 am .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ PR O FES SO R LAUR EN CE MUR PH Y UNIV ERSIT Y O F AU CK LAND , NEW ZEALAND Laurence Murphy is Professor of Property at The University of Auckland Business School and had held posts at Trinity College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast and the London School of Economics. He has published widely on property topics including home ownership, social rental housing, mortgage securitisation, office development, the institutional evolution of listed property trusts, finance capital and entrepreneurial urban governance. macro-prudential regulatory guidelines holds significant implications for the creation of new housing futures. In this paper I address issues relating to the dynamics of housing policy formation paying particular attention to international policy transfer and the rise of ‘fast policy’ circuits. AB STR ACT PO LICY DYN A M ICS AND H O USIN G FUTUR ES In the wake of the US subprime mortgage market crisis, governments and regulatory authorities have struggled to address issues relating to housing supply, housing affordability and possible asset price bubbles. The search for appropriate ‘evidence based’ policies and effective central bank 14 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 14 16/02/2015 9:23 am . .. .. .. . . .. . ................................ . . ........... ................ ........ ... ....... ... ... . .............................. .............................. ................................ ................................. . ... ... ................... .................................... . ............... ... ........ ................................ . . ........... ................ ....................................... . . . . . .......... ......... . . .......... . . . ... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... PR O FES SO R B R ENDAN GLEESO N UNIV ERSIT Y O F M ELB O UR NE , AUSTR ALI A Brendan Gleeson joined Melbourne University in January 2012 as Professor of Urban Policy Studies and then took on the directorship of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute in early 2013. Professor Gleeson came from the position of Deputy Director of the National University of Ireland’s National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis. Prior to that he set up the Urban Research Program at Griffith University and was its inaugural Director. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, three of which have won national and international prizes, and numerous journal articles. His research interests include urban planning and governance, urban social policy, disability studies, and environmental theory and policy. His recent work has focused on sociospatial analysis of suburbs, their vulnerability to oil shocks and the need for better public transport options. Professor Gleeson has made significant scholarly contributions in urban and social policy, environmental theory and policy, and is a regular commentator in newspapers, television and radio. He has qualifications in geography and urban planning, including a masters degree from the University of Southern California and a PhD from the University of Melbourne. Professor Gleeson is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. 15 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 15 16/02/2015 9:23 am central concern surely to urbanists must be the increased decoupling of urbanisation from its modernist impulses; notably to create human life spaces where basic needs are met, broad aspirations are pursued and freedom cultivated. (To be sure, impulses rarely satisfied.) More and more it seems urbanisation is shackled to the imperatives of accumulation, not species improvement, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the production of housing. The compact city ideal of progressive urbanism has been redeployed to the work of (vertical) accumulation. In western cities, a hypertrophied but strangely impoverished urbanism abounds. Much of the rest is consigned to a Planet of Slums (Davis). What can stop these dangerous trends? A revivified planning would be a start. Planning must first, however, acknowledge that it has been the handmaiden not the victim of disaster-borne urbanism. Positive not just regulatory planning must stem the tide of destructive urban accumulation. Direct intervention in urban land markets is needed to improve the affordability, quality and location of housing. This is, of course, anathema to the dominant neo-liberal order. Can it be done? AB STR ACT THE UR BAN AGE AND ITS DISCO NTENTS An urban age has been declared and honked by global institutions and in expert commentary. Triumphalism abounds. A rapidly increasing majority of humanity now resides in urban settings, especially the fast growing ‘meso-cities’ of the developing world. Glaeser (Triumph of the City) casts it as a new epoch of human achievement and opportunity. Brugmann stages a Welcome to the Urban Revolution. Hollis insists that Cities are Good for You. To be sure, the urbanisation project that has been central to modernisation and has reached a new ebb of species’ significance. It cannot be denied that urbanisation has been the Long March of human improvement (with all of the pitfalls suggested by the metaphor). And yet, despite the insouciance of expertise, the new urban preponderance also marks a dangerous unravelling of human prospect. The testimonies of manifest environmental, social and economic defaults struggle to be heard above the chorusing of the urban age. ‘The Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (Žižek) are the unheeded town criers of an endangered modernity. Of 16 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 16 16/02/2015 9:23 am AS SO CI ATE PR O FES SO R HEATHER LOV EL L THE UNIV ERSIT Y O F TAS M ANI A , AUSTR ALI A Associate Professor Lovell is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), Australia. Formerly an Associate Professor in Geography at the University of Edinburgh, UK, in early 2015 she moved to UTAS and is a member of the Housing and Community Research Unit (HACRU), within the School of Social Sciences. Her ARC Future Fellowship is investigating the societal and policy drivers for smart grids, and assessing how smart grid implementation varies from place-toplace, and the implications of this for theories of innovation and learning. More generally, her research analyses processes of innovation catalysed by climate change, playing close attention to the policies, practices and politics of change. It has focused empirically on housing, for instance through recent work on a UK Research Council Energy Programme grant assessing district heating in urban areas - ‘Heat and the City’, and a second study working with computer scientists to implement smart sensors within homes to better understand energy behaviours. These two projects build on previous research she has done looking at the role of pioneering low energy ‘zero carbon’ housing in catalysing policy change in the UK. Associate Professor Lovell is the author of over 20 academic papers and has recently published a book with Routledge ‘The making of low carbon economies’. 17 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 17 16/02/2015 9:23 am AB STR ACT THE M A K IN G O F LOW CAR B O N ECO N OM IES : CO N CEPTUALISIN G THE R O LE O F H O USIN G AR E YO U STAYIN G THE W EEK END IN H O BART ? Salamanca Market opens at 8am till 3pm on Saturday. If you enjoyed your visit to MONA at the Welcome Reception and want to spend more time, you can catch the ferry. There is a $20 entry fee. The paper draws on a book recently published by Associate Professor Lovell ‘The making of low carbon economies’ (Routledge, 2015) to explore the role of housing in responding to the problem of climate change. It examines the diversity of practices and objects that have been enrolled into, and framed as, low carbon economies. Economies and markets are defined using a mixed Foucauldian and Science and Technology Studies conceptual framing as something integral to society, rather than a separate sphere of activity, and as necessarily involving heterogeneous actors (technologies, texts, people, standards and so on) (Caliskan & Callon, 2010; MacKenzie, 2008; Foucault, 2007). The paper draws on two UK housing case studies – district heating in the city of Edinburgh, and the UK’s zero carbon homes policy – to demonstrate the diverse ways in which climate change as a policy issue has manifested and been understood within the housing sector. Get a bird’s eye view of Hobart; and travel to Mt Wellington. If you don’t have your own vehicle that’s OK, you can travel to the mountain via the Hobart Shuttle Service. On Saturday it departs from the Tasmanian Visitors Centre, Davey Street at 1.30pm. Bookings are essential. For further information visit: http://www.hobartshuttlebus. com/mt-wellington.html If you want more information on Tasmania visit www.discovertasmania.com.au 18 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 18 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... PR O GR A M TUESDAY 17 FEB R UARY 2 015 6.00 – 7.00pm Government House Reception, 7 Lower Domain Road, Hobart Tasmania 7000 Her Excellency Kate Warner has invited participants of the AHRC to a reception at Government House. The reception will take place from 6pm-7pm. Drinks and canapés will be served. Dress Code Applies: No denim jeans, thongs or singlets. COACH TRANSFER TO GOVERNMENT HOUSE Transport is provided for delegates to and from Hobart city to Government House. If you wish to catch the bus, please meet at the Cnr of Davey & Campbell Streets Hobart at 5.40pm. The coach will depart at 5.45pm W EDNESDAY 18 FEB R UARY 2 015 8.00am – 5.00pm Registration desk open - Day 1 only - Centenary Lecture Theatre, Centenary Building Arrival tea and coffee will be served. Please join us. For enquiries on site, please contact, Kate on 0418 325 927 or Emma on 0457 815 122 Centenary Lecture Theatre, Centenary Building 8.30 - 8.40am Welcome Associate Professor Daphne Habibis; Conference Convenor 8.40 – 8.50am Welcome to Country Kartanya Maynard 8.50 – 9.00am Introduction Professor Susan Dodds, Dean, Faculty of Arts; University of Tasmania 9.00 – 9.20am Opening Address Peter White, Director, Housing Tasmania 9.20 – 10.30am Keynote Presentations Professor Geoffrey Meen, University of Reading Professor Laurence Murphy, University of Auckland Chair: Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania 10.30 – 11.00am Morning Refreshments to be served at the Physics Building 19 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 19 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 1 11.00am – 12.30pm Location Chair Housing & Planning Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Physics room 333 Drivers of Transforming Homelessness Neighbourhoods Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Centenary Lecture Theatre Housing Governance and Policy Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Steven Rowley Maree Petersen Cameron Parsell Michael Darcy Dallas Rogers Peter Walsh, Swinburne University of Technology Planning reform for fairer housing outcomes? A new conceptual framework using transitions theory. Laurence Murphy, University of Auckland Home ownership and ageing: Examining house price dynamics and downsizing in NZ Deb Batterham, Hanover Welfare Services Structural drivers of homelessness in Australia 2001-2011 Peter Phibbs, University of Sydney Reviewing nation building innovation: the Lakewood project, Melbourne Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania Understanding Neoliberalism and its Influence on housing policy Anitra Nelson, RMIT University When the ‘fringe’ is the future: land development for housing in Melbourne’s growth areas Dianne Johnson, Griffith University Building a new housing equity withdrawal aspirations of Australian retirees Anna Ritson, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Vulnerability to homelessness and its impact on housing outcomes Jennifer Borrell, Yarra Community Housing Terry Burke, Swinburne University of Technology Using a holistic and integrated approach to social housing Julia Lawson, RMIT Context, comparison and the differing roles of social entrepreneurs in Australia and Austria Daniel Attard, La Trobe University How can the housing market and the homelessness sector identify and address the growing demand for housing caused by household breakdown? Glen Williams, Housing SA Connecting people to place: the missing piece in the housing sustainability puzzle Marcus Spiller, SGS Economics and Planning Revisiting the economics of inclusionary zoning 12.30 – 1.30pm Housing & Population Ageing Lunch to be served at the University Club 20 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 20 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 2 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 1 1:30pm – 3:00pm Housing & Planning: Infill Housing Development Energy Efficient Rental Housing PANEL: Housing New Australians Policy Tools and Evaluation International Housing Markets Location Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Physics room 333 Centenary Lecture Theatre Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Chair Andrea Sharam Heather Lovell Deborah Warr Anne Badenhorst Tony Dalton Alison Reid, Auckland Council A grounded analysis of small scale residential developers’ operations in the Auckland housing market Phillipa Watson, Michelle Gabriel, University of Tasmania The thermal comfort and energy performance of low cost housing Hazel Easthope, University of NSW The challenge of private housing market settlement for newly arrived migrants Judy Sutherland, Housing Choices Measuring the social return on investment of public housing transfers Dallas Rogers, University of Western Sydney Enabling individual foreign investment in residential real estate: on becoming a foreign real estate investor Heather MacDonald, University of Technology, Sydney Discrimination in the multi-ethnic metropolis: evidence from Sydney Judy Kraatz, Griffith University Rethinking social housing: effective, efficient and equitable Sha Liu, University of Sydney Chinese foreign investment in Australian housing markets: understanding investor and developer motivations Wendy Stone, Swinburne University of Technology The lived experience of recently arrived and longerterm migrants: how housing is reshaping opportunity Angela Ballard, Griffith University Transforming methodologies: an emergent approach in support of policy, planning, practice and evaluation Sandra Moye, RMIT University From housing futures to professionalisation household of strata title futures: A managers: case study What are the in changing implications for aspirations and governance? energy efficiency in social housing in Chile Erika Altmann, University of Tasmania Industry 3.00 – 3.30pm Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Afternoon Refreshments to be served at the Physics Building 21 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 21 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 3 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 2 3.30 – 5.00pm Location Chair Housing Affordability & Multigenerational Living Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Housing Design: Australian & International Experiences Physics room 333 PANEL: Indigenous Housing & Welfare Conditionality Housing for Low-income Households Housing Markets & Planning Centenary Lecture Theatre Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Marcus Spiller Paul Burton Anitra Nelson Ralph Horne Angela Spinney Terry Burke, Swinburne University of Technology Generational change in home purchase opportunity in Australia Esther Chew, Mulloway Studio Architects PARK(ed): a $30k single occupancy housing strategy. The great Australian dream? Rhonda Phillips, University of Queensland Emma Baker, David Pevalin, University of Adelaide Changes in Inclusion or low-income assimilation? A critical examination households in South Australia of social housing 2008-2013 mainstreaming Alan Peters, University of NSW Edgar Liu, University of NSW “I’m never alone and lonely”: Multigenerational living in Brisbane, QLD Heather Shearer, Griffith University The “tiny house” movement: its implications for housing affordability and urban sustainability Daphne Habibis, University of Tasmania Welfare conditionality and Aboriginal lifeworlds: establishing recognition as a policy principle Kath Hulse, Swinburne University of Technology Investor-led activity in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage Shanaka Herath, Macquarie University Identifying urban planning priorities through a house price model Daphne Nash, University of Queensland Do you want to change your life? Conditionality and innovation for Indigenous tenants in Tennant Creek, NT Craig Cosier, Sydney University of Technology Pernille Christensen, University of Technology Penny Lysnar, University of Auckland Enriched and enabled or desperate and despairing? The experiences of multigenerational households in New-Zealand cities policy agendas Developing urban sustainability: A proposal for expanding current Australian affordable housing assessment methods using international case studies Current housing price trends and future population trends: what do they imply about the future of density? Investigating alternative solutions to the affordable housing supply challenges in Sydney, Australia: lessons from three global case studies 5.15pm Coach transfer from UTAS to Brooke Street Pier – will depart at 5.15pm promptly from the University Club If for some reason you are not able to catch the ferry, the cost of a taxi to MONA is $30. We will be returning to the city by coach. 5:30 – 9:00pm Welcome Reception - Museum of Old & New Art Participants are invited to join with other conference attendees at Tasmania’s number one visitor attraction and one of the world’s best privately owned museums. Attendees will board the MR1 at Brooke Street Pier, promptly at 5.30pm to enjoy a ferry trip up the Derwent River to MONA. Upon arrival attendees will be given a private viewing of the museum, followed by the reception in The Void. Food and beverage will be served on board MR1 and at the reception. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 22 16/02/2015 9:23 am THURSDAY 19 FEB R UARY 2 015 8.30am – 5.00pm Registration desk open, Physics Building Centenary Building 9.00 – 10.30 am Keynote Presentations Professor Brendan Gleeson, University of Melbourne Associate Professor Heather Lovell, University of Tasmania Chair: Professor Richard Eccleston, University of Tasmania 10.30 – 11.00am Morning Refreshments to be served in the Physics Building CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 4 AND PANEL S ES SIO N 3 11.00 – 12.30pm PANEL Housing, Apartments: Theory, Health & Wellbeing Practice & Innovation Location Centenary Lecture Theatre Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Physics Lecture Theatre 3 Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Peter Phibbs Emma Baker Jennifer Borrell Nicole Gurran Lyndall Bryant, Queensland University of Technology Rebecca Bentley, University of Queensland Chair Apartments: Development practice and the implications for affordability Deborah Warr, University of Melbourne Using art to Melbourne School of Population And Global challenge placebased stigma Health Moving beyond association: Developing causal explanations of housing and health Katy Osborne, Andrea Sharam, Swinburne University of Torrens University Technology Precarious housing Apartments: Theory led transformation Creating Communities and the impacts on health and participation in social and economic life among unemployed South Australians Gina Zappia, University of Tasmania Understanding how seniors negotiate the construction of place-based stigma Affordable Housing Supply Margaret Reynolds Swinburne University of Technology Technology Nowhere to rent: the growing shortage of affordable private rental housing in Australia 2006-2011 Emma Greenhalgh, Griffith University The influence of institutions and organisations in establishing affordable housing targets 23 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 23 16/02/2015 9:23 am Tom Alves, Government of Victoria Michelle Gabriel, University of Tasmania Housing priorities of people with memory loss: security, continuity and support Apartments: ‘Deliberative’ development, innovation to improve supply, affordability, quality & design Francesca Perugia, Julie Lawson, University of Western RMIT University Australia Guaranteeing social Resisting assimilation: Migrants reading of Australian housing and alternative design opportunities housing’s future? International experience and an Australian proposal Jasmine Palmer, University of Adelaide Slicing, dicing and reconstituting ‘The Dream’: seeking pathways to more sustainable and affordable residential urban form with occupant input 12.30 – 1.30pm Lunch to be served in the University Club CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 5 1.30 – 3.00pm Residential Mobility Housing and Population Ageing Housing Service Provision for Indigenous People Managing Tenancies in Social Housing Housing Supply Location Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Physics Lecture Theatre 3 Centenary Lecture Theatre Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Chair Ilan Wiesel Caryl Bosman Rhonda Phillips Hazel Easthope Kathy Hulse Geoffrey Meen, University of Readingy Population mobility in Melbourne: evidence from panel data: 1903-1980 Maree Petersen, University of Queensland Retirement villages: the last housing decision? Fiona Proudfoot, University of Tasmania Jennifer Borrell, Yarra Community Housing Design, context and tenant characteristics: are there any rules for harmonious social housing arrangements Julian Szafraniec, SGS Economics and Planning Understanding cultural differences at the frontline Does transport investment boost potential housing supply in metropolitan areas? 24 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 24 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 5 CO NTINUED 1.30 – 3.00pm Location Chair 3.00 – 3.30pm Residential Mobility Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Housing and Population Ageing Housing Service Provision for Indigenous People Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Managing Tenancies in Social Housing Housing Supply Physics Lecture Theatre 3 Centenary Lecture Theatre Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Hazel Easthope Kathy Hulse Ilan Wiesel Caryl Bosman Rhonda Phillips Hal Pawson, University of NSW Sinks of social exclusion or springboards for social mobility? Analysing the roles of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in urban Australia Deborah Oxlade, University of Queensland A secure future? The housing circumstances of retired ex-service households of Qld Melanie Andersen, University of NSW Megan Nethercote, RMIT A governmentality perspective on residential mobility Cynthia Townley, Shelter Tasmania Deb Lewis, COTA Towards age friendly solutions for landlords and renters Lynda Cheshire, University of Queensland Anti-social “There’s a housing and intensively sociable: The crisis going local context on in Sydney of neighbour for Aboriginal disputes and people”: Focus complaints group accounts among social of housing housing tenants experiences Ian McShane, RMIT Repurposing community sector land assets for affordable housing and their health associations for Aboriginal people in Western Sydney. Kathleen Flanagan, University of Tasmania How to house the hard to house: the discourse of the ‘problem tenant’ in Tasmanian housing policy Greg Costello, Curtin University Vacant land transactionbased indexes: A Western Australian case study Afternoon Refreshments to be served in the Physics Building 25 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 25 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 6 3.30 – 5.00pm Mortgages & the Economy Housing for Vulnerable Populations Homelessness Tenant Perspectives Housing Finance Location Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Physics Lecture Theatre 3 Centenary Lecture Theatre Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Chair Lyndall Bryant Rebecca Bentley Deborah Batterham Kathy Hulse Greg Costello Maria Yanotti, University of Tasmania Builder borrower typologies in the mortgage market: evidence in Australia Ceridwen Owen, University of Tasmania An exploration of the principles and practices of inclusive design and universal design through the lens of autism spectrum disorder Hal Pawson, University of NSW Rae DuftyJones, University of Western Sydney The mobility aspirations of Australia’s public housing tenants Steven Rowley, Curtin University Benjamin Liu, Eduardo Roca, Griffith University International funding costs, mortgage interest rates and cash rate cycle relationships. Evidence in the context of Australia Margaret Ward, Griffith University The failure of a voluntary code for universally designed housing Cameron Parsell, University of Queensland Brisbane Common Ground: How do tenants view single site supportive housing? Angela Nunn, Southern Cross University Against the grain: Towards a critical genealogy of resident resistance to public and social housing policy change Chyi Lee, University of Western Sydney Australian institutional investors’ attitudes regarding residential property investment Ashton De Silva, RMIT University The regulation, mortgage innovation and house price nexus Michael Bullock, ARC Researching the housing futures of minority groups: Gypsies and Travellers in England Lynne Keevers, University of Wollongong Helen Backhouse, Southern Youth and Family Services Gabrielle Drake, University of Western Sydney The evaluation of the Boarding Houses Act 2012 (NSW) Muyiwa Elijah Agunbiade, University of Melbourne Integrated data infrastructure platform as a tool to inform sustainable housing affordability analysis in Melbourne 6.30 – 10.30pm The dog that didn’t bark? The homelessness consequences of UK economic recession and welfare reform It’s more than a bed for the night: Practices effective for assisting young people to avoid or exit homelessness Residential development finance and dwelling supply Conference Dinner University Club Participants to make their own way to and from the dinner venue 26 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 26 16/02/2015 9:23 am FR IDAY 2 0 FEB R UARY 2 015 8.30am – 2.00pm Registration desk open, Physics Building CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 7 9.00 – 10.30am Location Chair Housing & Planning Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Environmentally Sustainable Housing Housing & Family Violence Tenant Exits from Social Housing Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Centenary Lecture Theatre Hal Pawson Michelle Gabriel Susan Goodwin Kathleen Flanagan Paul Burton, Griffith University The Australian suburban dream: alive but not kicking Srimin Perera, Curtin University of Technology Evolution of the Australian housing market and its influence on environmentally responsive housing Beatriz Cristina Maturana, Universidad de Chile Form and conviviality: observations from the morphological transformations experienced in two key housing projects aiming for social integration. Michael Darcy, Hazel Blunden, University of Western Sydney Alison Reid, Auckland Council Housing choices and trade offs in Auckland Helen Cameron, University of South Australia A house without a verandah is like a face without eyebrows Angela Spinney, Swinburne University of Technology Ilan Wiesel, University of NSW When do tenants leave social housing? Keeping safe and staying independent: exploring the potential of ‘staying at home’ schemes for women with disabilities who have experienced family violence Kuntal Goswami, Charles Darwin Viability of social housing University Sirisena Herath, University of NSW partnerships between government and notfor-profit sectors - the relationship between neo-liberal macro agenda and Australian policy toolkit 10.30 – 11.00am Housing as a sustainability issue in South Australia: A case study ‘We just can’t get ahead’: work disincentives and social housing Tegan Bergan, University of Western Sydney Mobility motivations of public housing tenants Morning Refreshments to be served in the Physics Building 27 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 27 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 8 11.00am– 12.30pm Location Chair New Models of Home Ownership Affordable Accommodation Policy Tools and Evaluation Geology Lecture Theatre 211 Centenary Lecture Theatre Physics Lecture Theatre 2 Physics Lecture Theatre 1 Julie Lawson Ceridwen Owen Gina Zappia Tamlin Gorter Andrea Blake, Queensland University of Technology Caryl Bosman, Griffith University Producing suburban residential social capital Steven Rowley, Curtin University Emma Baker, University of Adelaide Questioning the cumulative effect of time spent in unaffordable housing Damian Sammon, Queensland Department of Housing and Public Works David Bunce, Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Adelaide How people in residential parks can form co-operatives, buy the land beneath their homes and run their park Trivess Moore, RMIT Occupant feedback from an exemplar sustainable, mixed-tenure, mixed-use apartment development in Melbourne Nnenne Ike, University of the Sunshine Coast Yung Yau, City University of Hong Kong Rachel Bills, University of Adelaide Ben Faulkner, Australian Bureau of Statistics Exploring models for accessible collective home ownership in Australia Socio-economic and institutional determinants of efficacy beliefs in multi-owned housing management 12.30 - 1.30pm Improving Home Environments Healthy housing for an ageing population: examining thermal comfort and affordability from the inside out The cost and availability of student accommodation Julie Considine, WA Department of Housing Sustainable neighbours: Estimating unmet housing demand growth in student and priority population and areas for public declining housing affordability in Australia and affordable housing at the local government area level: a housing practitioners’ approach Trends in housing affordability indicators in Australia Debbie Georgopoulos, NSW Department of Family and Community Services Waiting for social housing - international approaches to prioritisation policy and management arrangements for social housing waiting lists Lunch and Conference Close – Physics Building 28 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 28 16/02/2015 9:23 am SO CI AL PR O GR A M GOV ER N M ENT H O US E R ECEPTIO N Date: Tuesday 17 February 2015 Venue: Government House Time: 6.00pm – 7.00pm. Transfer departing from Cnr Davey & Campbell Streets Hobart at 5.45pm Cost: Included in Full & Student Registrations Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AM will host a reception for delegates at Government House to mark the conference. Tasmania’s Government House is regarded as one of the best Vice-Regal residences in the Commonwealth and is one of the largest in Australia. Invitations for the Reception are issued by Government House. There is a limit to the number Government House can accommodate, and delegates who register early will be given preference. CO NFER EN CE W ELCOM E R ECEPTIO N Date: Wednesday 18 February 2015 Venue: MONA - Museum of Old & New Art Cost: Included in Full & Student Registrations, additional tickets may be purchased at $55 per person – subject to availability The welcome reception will be held at the truly unique and world renowned MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). Coach transfer from University Club to Brooke Street Pier –will depart at 5.15pm promptly If for some reason you are not able to catch the ferry, the cost of a taxi to MONA is $30. We will be returning to the city by coach. CO NFER EN CE DINNER Date: Thursday 19 February 2015 Time: 6:30pm – 10:30pm Venue: University Club, University of Tasmania Cost: Included in the cost of a full Conference registration. Guest and Student tickets can be purchased at an additional cost of $100, subject to availability. Participants to make their own way to and from the dinner venue. 29 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 29 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 1 H O USIN G AND PLANNIN G CH AIR : STEV EN R OW LEY PLANNING REFORM FOR FAIRER HOUSING OUTCOMES? A NEW CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK USING TRANSITIONS THEORY P ETER WALSH Swinburne University of Technology Despite “ceaseless” efforts at reforming our urban planning systems, housing and other planning-related problems in our major cities (say, traffic congestion, concentrated social disadvantage and the inter-related economic consequences), are not only persistent but worsening. Planning scholarship is good at explaining these problems and how a better, fairer system might operate. But there is less clarity on the means of arriving there. Mindful of Forester’s (optimistic) thought that “when stuck” practice will actually turn to scholarship for a new way of paying attention to a problem, this research introduces sustainability transitions studies into the planning system reform practice domain. Transitions is an emerging literature, with links to complexity theory and sociology. It is entirely focused on the governance (or means) of achieving long term change in major societal systems. In particular, this research links transitions studies to planning’s relational-institutionalist thinking to help in the “openingup” of embedded planning system institutions to innovation, and what this means in practical terms. This presentation is an outline of doctorate research which has developed a new logic for planning system reform. The researcher is a long term practitioner and advisor in government-mandated planning system reform episodes. The NSW government’s planning system reform project of 2012-14 is the main empirical domain under study. W HEN THE ‘ FR IN GE ’ IS THE FUTUR E : LAND DEV ELO PM ENT FO R H O USIN G IN M ELB O UR NE ’ S GR OW TH AR EAS ANITR A NELSO N1 , TO N Y DALTO N 2 Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, Global Cities Research Institute, RMIT University, Melbourney 1 2 Current housing policy concerns focus on sustainability, affordability and accessibility. We report on preliminary research to inform policymaking on urban growth boundaries, residential zoning and infrastructure planning in Melbourne’s growth areas, that Plan Melbourne (pp. 61–62) estimates will account for two in every five of 1.6mn new houses required as its population more than doubles by 2051. 30 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 30 16/02/2015 9:23 am Here the traditional great suburban sprawl endures, large single and double-story detached houses appearing on ever-smaller lots in poorly serviced growth areas such as Wyndham. Australia’s third-fastest growing municipality expects more than 245,000 residents by 2021. Residents are attracted by lower house prices but heavy and rising energy costs mean less affordable outer suburban living. This type of property development is so entrenched that Wyndham City Council (2014, 1160 Sayers Road Implementation Plan, pp. 7, 10, 15) recently bought land to supervise a model development where compact designs and planning promise more environmentally sustainable housing, well serviced by basic infrastructure, including public transport, as characteristic of inner Melbourne living. This begs the question: Do inappropriate private commercial housing developments persist due to deep supply-factors? We hypothesise that financial and policy constraints in land purchase, infrastructure development, and relationships between developers and building companies have contributed to this conundrum. Growth areas are opened by land developers who, typically, acquire land from, say retiring farmers, then collaboratively plan and construct subdivisions with volume house building companies who, in turn, build on subdivided and serviced lots. Developer–builder collaborations move from design and construction of display villages through to staged releases of land and house packages to home-purchasers. We report on a desktop review of qualitative and quantitative literature and interviews with major actors on their distinctive property ownership and land development models, financial strategies and types of builder relationships. R EV ISITIN G THE ECO N OM ICS O F IN CLUSIO N ARY ZO NIN G M AR CUS SPIL LER , M ITR A ANDERSO N - O LIV ER SGS Economics and Planning Inclusionary zoning (IZ) for affordable housing is widely practiced in international jurisdictions but the take up of this tool in Australia has been patchy. Typically, proposals for the adoption of IZ in Australian cities is met with scepticism or outright opposition on a variety of grounds including adverse market impacts and the lack of a sound enabling rationale within statutory planning systems. Against this background, this paper will revisit the planning mandate for IZ, with reference to arguments related to social mix being a statutorily recognised attribute of ‘environmental sustainability’, as well as the broader requirement for planning to have regard for the efficient use and allocation of land, including the externalities associated with affordable housing provision. In particular, this paper will discuss the claim that diverse, affordable and well-located housing contributes to productive and socially cohesive city, and that IZ can play a ‘planning legitimate’ role in securing this outcome. By way of introduction, the paper will recount the principal policy critique of IZ (adding to affordability problems, displacing responsibilities, not a comprehensive solution etc), before introducing a case study involving the ill-fated proposal by inner metropolitan councils to implement an IZ scheme in Melbourne in 2010. The case study will be used to both test the robustness of the conventional 31 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 31 16/02/2015 9:23 am economic critique of IZ and explore whether such an initiative is likely to generate a net community benefit, taking into account the externalities mentioned earlier. The paper will conclude with a discussion of barriers to the adoption of IZ in an Australian institutional context. H O USIN G AND PO PULATIO N AGEIN G CH AIR : M AR EE PETERS EN H OM E OW NERSHIP AND AGEIN G : EX A M ININ G H O US E PR ICE DYN A M ICS AND D OW N SIZIN G IS SUES IN NEW ZEALAND LAUR EN CE MUR PH Y1 , M ICH A EL R EH M 2 Department of Property, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand, Department of Property, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand 1 2 Homeownership has long held a significant position in the New Zealand housing system and housing represents the single most important component of household wealth in the country. The liberalisation of mortgage markets and the growing fungibility of housing as an asset have meant that housing is increasingly viewed as a key component in the development of asset-based welfare programmes and is viewed as particularly important for ageing populations. Outright homeownership reduces the prospect of poverty in old age and is popularly believed to offer the opportunity for ageing homeowners to downsize (i.e. move to a smaller or lower value dwelling) and release equity. Notwithstanding the power of the ‘ideology of homeownership’ to shape housing policy and individual household decisionmaking, the opportunities for in-situ ageing or downsizing are constrained by the nature of the housing stock and the dynamics of house prices. In this paper we examine issues relating to downsizing and house price dynamics in New Zealand at a variety of spatial scales. In particular, we examine the regional and intra-urban geographies of house price appreciation and how these geographies shape downsizing opportunities. BUILDING A NEW HOUSING EQUITY WITHDRAWAL ASPIRATION FOR AUSTRALIAN RETIREES DI ANNE J O HN SO N , ANDR EW WO RTHIN GTO N , M AR K B R I M B LE Griffith University The incidence of poverty among older Australians, with income pressures often worsening in the later stages of retirement, sets a number of challenges for policymakers and industry to reshape policies and create innovative financial products for Australian retirees. A key problem is that some retirees do not have sufficient asset liquidity to finance post-retirement consumption, including medical expenses, particularly in the later stages of retirement. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for new financial products that draw primarily on housing equity 32 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 32 16/02/2015 9:23 am and that match the risk profiles, needs, and cultural aspirations of Australian retirees. To assist, we employ data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine the asset holdings of older Australians and the levels of financial stress found among retirees. The analysis considers the high levels of homeownership prevailing among older Australians and highlights recent developments and research in housing supply bonds internationally and in Australia. In addition, we consider the extent to which Australian retirees are currently decumulating their housing equity and the mechanisms retirees are presently using to access housing equity. We use this to illustrate the current and potential role of housing equity in Australian portfolio composition and contribute to a case for new financial product development targeted at Australian retirees. The new products are differentiated from existing products by being government-backed and the provision of higher quality planning for those retirees with lower net worth than those who typically engage a financial planner. The case suggests a safer, supported mechanism that enables later retirees to relieve financial stress and meet their health and aged care needs by efficiently and safely decumulating housing equity. The results of this research have important implications for social policy and financial products designed to increase the financial wellbeing of retirees. DR IV ERS OF HOM ELES SNESS CHAIR: CAMERO N PARSELL THE STR U CTUR AL DR IV ERS O F H OM ELES SNES S IN AUSTR ALI A 2 0 01 - 2 011 DEB BATTER H A M1 , GAV IN WOO D 2 , M ELEK CIGDEM 3 , SHEL LEY M AL LETT4 Hanover Welfare Services, 2Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, RMIT University, 3Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, RMIT University, 4 Brotherhood of St Laurence 1 The homelessness sector and Australian governments often contend that there is a direct link between homelessness and housing market conditions. However, there is little direct research to support this claim. This project addresses this evidence gap. This research interrogates a panel dataset of 328 regions encompassing all of Australia with data covering the decade 2001-2011. The paper presents results of modelling work investigating the role that structural drivers such as area-wide housing, labour market, demographic factors, service availability, climate and income inequality play in shaping the incidence of homelessness across Australia and over time. Policy implications and directions for future research will also be discussed. 33 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 33 16/02/2015 9:23 am V ULNER AB ILIT Y TO H OM ELES SNES S AND ITS I M PACT O N H O USIN G O UTCOM ES . ANN A R ITSO N , GEO FF NEIDECK , DEB O R AH FO ULCHER , SANDR A R ABJ O HN S Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Research into homelessness has identified that some life stages, personal situations and experiences make some individuals more vulnerable to homelessness than others. Women and children escaping domestic and family violence, those who have drug and alcohol problems, people experiencing mental health issues and young people are four groups known to be vulnerable to homelessness. However like the homeless population in general, these groups are not homogenous. Within these broad categories some people will be better equipped than others to transcend homelessness. This research looks at 94,000 clients of Specialist Homelessness Services agencies who were identified as falling into one or more of these groups. The research looks at their housing situation when they first sought support, their engagement with homelessness services, and their housing situation at the end of their support. The research found that across all four vulnerable groups those who were more likely to lose their housing or fail to obtain housing, were clients who were more socially and economically disadvantaged. They were more likely to be: • • • • Unemployed Have no income or had a government payment as their only source of income Had a past history of homelessness Had more complex presenting issues such as drug and alcohol, or mental health issues. The poorest housing outcomes were seen among those who had problematic drug and alcohol use. These clients had the highest rates of homelessness at both the start and finish of support compared to other groups. We also found that homelessness services put considerable effort into preventing housed clients from losing their housing – these clients had almost twice the median days of support than those who maintained their housing. It also appears to take significant support by homelessness services to assist a person into housing. Clients who presented homeless and became housed were supported for the greatest median number of days. We also found that many clients who remained homeless appeared less ‘housing ready’ than other clients. They often sought only basic services, such as meals, medical treatment and emergency accommodation. As result, this group had relatively short periods of support on average. 34 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 34 16/02/2015 9:23 am H OW CAN THE H O USIN G M AR K ET AND THE H OM ELES SNES S S ECTO R IDENTIFY AND ADDR ES S THE GR OW IN G DEM AND FO R H O USIN G CAUS ED BY H O US EH O LD B R EA K D OW N ? DANIEL ATTAR D La Trobe University How can the housing market and the homelessness sector identify and address the growing demand for housing caused by household breakdown? Household breakdown is a leading cause of housing risk (mortgage and rental) and homelessness in Australia. Due to the reduce financial capacity of household members once separated, household breakdown is one of the earliest and most common of life-events that triggers housing risk; however, household breakdown is often considered and subsequently treated as an effect rather than a cause of housing risk and homelessness. The additional demand for housing resulting from household breakdown has an inflationary effect on local housing markets due to additional dwellings required for individual household members. Additionally, there is increasing pressure on the homelessness sector for services as a consequence of mortgage defaults and tenancy failures often resulting from household breakdown. To minimise housing risk and potential entrenchment in the homelessness sector, household breakdown requires early identification and intervention as a priority to address the housing and associated needs for all household members (adults and dependents). An outcomes spectrum would range from preventing household breakdown (including possible reunification) to addressing the needs of all household members shortly after breakdown, thereby minimising the impact of adverse life experiences for: 1.Adults – increased levels of long-term unemployment, alcohol and other drug abuse, physical and mental health issues and social exclusion. 2.Children – increased levels of adverse behavioural, health, social, educational and vocational outcomes. Research comprises of: 1.Quantitative and qualitative research into the socio-economic costs of household breakdown on households and local communities. 2.The subsequent and consequential impacts on governments, the housing market and homelessness sector. Data from the research components will be utilised to develop an evidence-base for a policy framework and service provision platform to guide government and sector agencies to provide tailored and targeted assistance to households at housing risk resulting from household breakdown. 35 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 35 16/02/2015 9:23 am TR AN SFO R M IN G NEIGHB O UR H OO DS CHAIR: MICHAEL DARCY R EV IEW IN G N ATIO N B UILDIN G INN OVATIO N THE LA K EWOO D PR OJ ECT , M EL B O UR NE PETER PHIB B S1 R OB IN GOODM AN 2 University of Sydney, 2RMIT 1 The Nation Building Housing program provided a much needed injection of new social housing into the Australian housing system. It also sponsored some innovative projects which trialled new combinations of housing and social support. The Lakewood project – a high rise residential tower in a middle ring suburb of Melbourne is an example of such a project. The newly built ten story tower consists of 84 1 and two bedroom apartments and operates using a co-operative housing model managed by Common Equity, a large Victorian Community Housing Provider. The authors are part of a research team commissioned by VicHealth (through AHURI) to evaluate the effect that secure housing has on the residents of the Lakewood residential community over time. In particular this research is interested in non-shelter health outcomes for people within this high-rise residential tower in Ringwood, Melbourne. Residents at Lakewood generally come from other social housing or marginal housing arrangements and tend to have complex needs. The paper reports on the results of a series of interviews with residents, housing managers and support service providers. The main findings of the research is that whilst the secure housing has generated significant positive outcome for residents, the design of the building and the management and support arrangements have generated some significant challenges for residents which suggests that differences in building design and management may have led to better housing outcomes. USIN G A H O LISTIC AND INTEGR ATED APPR OACH TO SO CI AL H O USIN G J ENNIFER B O R R EL L1 , TER RY B UR K E 2 Yarra Community Housing, 2Swinburne University 1 The provision of social housing for many marginalised households and individuals now goes beyond the provision of shelter which is appropriate and affordable; housing now has also to be a stepping stone to non shelter outcomes of health, general wellbeing, independence and positive inter-dependence. How this is to be achieved requires an approach to social housing provision that is integrated and holistic and not just the adding on of support to existing social housing management practices. Yarra Community Housing is a Melbourne based Affordable Housing Association, with 1000 housing units and some 1700 tenancies with a strong vision of what social housing should be. Building on this vision, and the actual practice, of Yarra Community Housing’s adaptive Social Housing Model, this paper outlines a theoretical 36 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 36 16/02/2015 9:23 am framework, in line with public health and ecological approaches, which creates the potential for a holistic social housing approach. The framework involves consideration of tenants and service users as whole people beyond perceived ‘deficits’ and their ‘commercial’ status as client or consumer. It also provides guidance for supporting tenants and service users through multi-level action, including individual support; stable housing, social, economic and organisational participation and systemic advocacy. The paper outlines the implications of the framework for worker-tenant relationships and relationships between staff, agency partners and between individuals and their communities and discusses the challenges in translating from a theoretical framework to organisational practice. CO NNECTIN G P EO PLE TO PLACE : THE M IS SIN G PIECE IN THE H O USIN G SUSTAIN AB ILIT Y PUZZLE K ER RY B ECK , TER ESA K EO GH Housing SA “Home is more than shelter; home is our centre of gravity.” Jeanette Winterson, 2013. The importance of housing sustainability is often discussed in terms of critical elements like affordability, built form and sustainable design; but less often in terms of the experiences of the people who inhabit the houses and make them a home. Yet home is essential to a person’s ability to function as an individual and within a wider community. Indeed, housing is considered a fundamental human right and a universal determinant of health that relates to a person’s sense of well-being and belonging. Housing SA is implementing a new way of working with people that positions the needs of people to connect meaningfully with their community as a critical element of housing sustainability. It is doing so through the delivery of a practice framework linked to assessed levels of experienced risk and vulnerability of tenants. On a conceptual level, the Housing SA Practice Framework outlines an approach that includes: supportive interventions, a rights-based orientation, community engagement and development; quality social housing management; and values driven practice – all aimed at connecting people to place in order to support sustainability and improved wellbeing. On a practical level, the theoretical approaches are applied to day-to-day operations, which include a new service delivery model with specialised support roles, management via a practice supervision framework and assessment and referral processes that target resources for people based on need. This presentation will consider the idea that “Connecting People to Place” via the delivery of services through a clearly articulated practice framework could offer the missing piece in the housing sustainability puzzle and fits neatly alongside traditional understandings of the need for affordability, sustainable design, and quality built form. Indeed “Connecting People to Place” could play a pivotal role in our housing futures… it could transform living and change lives. 37 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 37 16/02/2015 9:23 am H O USIN G GOV ER N AN CE AND PO LICY ....................... ............................... ........................... ................................ .......................... ................................ .............................. ............................ ............................... ............................. ...................... .... CH AIR : DAL LAS R O GERS UNDERSTANDIN G NEO LIB ER ALIS M AND ITS INFLUEN CE O N H O USIN G PO LICY K EITH JACO B S , TI M WOO LLEY University of Tasmania The dominant narrative amongst housing academics is that neoliberalism is a dysfunctional ideology that operates as a barrier or constraint on those policymakers seeking to advance a progressive housing reform agenda. As such, much of the corpus of contemporary housing scholarship is expended on highlighting the contradictions and inconsistences that surface when neoliberal inspired policies are implemented. Whilst not wishing to disparage this critique of neoliberalism, we suggest that housing scholarship has not paid sufficient attention to the ways that elites and corporate groupings have been able to utilise neoliberal ideology as a cover to sustain fiscal and governmental arrangements that privileges their interests over and above other groupings. To address this gap in knowledge, our paper offers a different vantage point to understand the impact of neoliberal ideology on the Australian housing system. We propose that in the context of housing neoliberalism is best understood as a hugely successful rationale for perpetuating an iniquitous and unjust system. A reorientation in housing research is required so that we foreground, in more detail, how neoliberalism performs as a rationale to justify, amongst other things, profiteering from non-productive and rentier practices. CO NTEX T , COM PAR ISO N AND THE DIFFER IN G R O LE O F SO CI AL ENTR EPR ENEURS IN AUSTR ALI A AND AUSTR I A JULIE LAWSO N RMIT, Centre for Urban Research This paper aims to contribute theoretically and empirically to the comparative study of social housing systems (Lawson et al, 2010). How we perceive these systems, influences how we go about comparing them, what we compare and also delimits the realm of social housing policy exchange. This work is informed by Critical Realist ontology (Lawson, 2006) and builds on previous comparative and historical research by the author investigating housing systems present in Amsterdam and Melbourne 2014, Vienna and Zurich, 2009, 2010 and Seoul, 2008. This paper proposes how to investigate causal mechanisms generating difference and change. It does so by examining the differing social structures, institutions, organisational processes mediating not for profit (NFP) rental housing provision in Austria and Australia. In particular, the cumulative evolution of property, finance and welfare relations are important when researching why social housing differs from place to place, over time and is more or less ‘social’. These powerful relations, derived from concrete historical research, go beyond 38 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 38 16/02/2015 9:23 am highly aggregated tenure outcomes and simple notions of supply and demand side ‘market interventions’. Rather than provide two detailed historical trajectories (which have been published elsewhere, see above) this paper puts forward a contrastive model of differently defined and packaged social relations, which is empirically tested, and finally, explores potential areas for policy learning and exchange between the established Austrian system and the evolving NFP sector in Australia. Lawson, J. (2006/14). Critical Realism & Housing Studies, London, UK, Routledge (new in paperback) Lawson, J. (2010). Path dependency and emergent relations: explaining the different role of limited profit housing in the dynamic urban regimes of Vienna and Zurich, Housing Theory and Society, First Article in special issue on path dependency, 27 (3) 204220 Lawson, J., Haffner, M., Oxley, M. (2010). Plenary - Comparative housing research in the new millennium: methodological and theoretical contributions from the first decade, Refereed Conference proceedings, APNHR/AHRC, Sydney 5-7 August Lawson, J. (2009). The transformation of social housing provision in Switzerland mediated by federalism, direct democracy and the urban/rural divide, European Journal of Housing Policy, 9 (1) :45-67 Lawson, J. (2008). Transformation in and challenges to the Korean housing solution, Asian Public Policy, 1 (2) :313-327 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 2 H O USIN G AND PLANNIN G : INFILL H O USIN G CH AIR : ANDR EA SH AR A M A GR O UNDED THEO RY AN ALYSIS O F S M AL L SCALE R ESIDENTI AL DEV ELO P ERS ’ O P ER ATIO N S IN THE AU CK LAND H O USIN G M AR K ET MO H S EN MOHAMMADZADEH 1 , R EGAN SO LOMO N 2 , K IELY MCFAR LANE3 Auckland Council, 2Auckland Council, 3Water Governance 1 Infill development is increasingly identified as one of main planning strategies in accommodating housing growth. Understanding the actors and their functions that contribute housing market is essential part of working towards providing homes for residents. In the housing literature considerable attention has been given to examining the role and characteristics of large size developers in providing accommodation, but less attention has been directed to understanding the role of actors who develop small size parcels. By investigating Auckland’s housing market as an example, this research explores the types of actors operating in small size residential development projects, the types and the locations of developments they are developing, the impacts of the Global Finical Crisis (GFC) on their functions, their tendency to interact with Auckland Council in an effort to gain development approval (consenting), and the impacts of the urban plans and policies on their operations. 39 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 39 16/02/2015 9:23 am Grounded theory is used to study the actors and their functions in the Auckland housing market, twenty two semi-structured interviews with actors who were working on residential development projects in the Auckland region between 2012 and 2013 were conducted. The investigation demonstrates that various actors paly role in developing small size parcels, in some cases an actor plays several roles such as owner, builder, and financer in developing a project. Market demand determines types of projects and location of the projects. However, these actors generally relinquished the housing market following the GFC; the current housing inflation lures the actors to revert to the market. The effective interaction between the actors and local government is crucial for mitigating the production costs and for protecting actors’ profit margins. The interviewees generally support Auckland Council urban development plans, such as the Auckland Unitary Plan. H O USIN G AND PLANNIN G : INFILL H O USIN G CH AIR : ANDR EA SH AR A M A GR O UNDED THEO RY AN ALYSIS O F S M AL L SCALE R ESIDENTI AL DEV ELO P ERS ’ O P ER ATIO N S IN THE AU CK LAND H O USIN G M AR K ET MO H S EN MOHAMMADZADEH 1 , R EGAN SO LOMO N 2 , K IELY MCFAR LANE3 Auckland Council, 2Auckland Council, 3Water Governance 1 Infill development is increasingly identified as one of main planning strategies in accommodating housing growth. Understanding the actors and their functions that contribute housing market is essential part of working towards providing homes for residents. In the housing literature considerable attention has been given to examining the role and characteristics of large size developers in providing accommodation, but less attention has been directed to understanding the role of actors who develop small size parcels. By investigating Auckland’s housing market as an example, this research explores the types of actors operating in small size residential development projects, the types and the locations of developments they are developing, the impacts of the Global Finical Crisis (GFC) on their functions, their tendency to interact with Auckland Council in an effort to gain development approval (consenting), and the impacts of the urban plans and policies on their operations. Grounded theory is used to study the actors and their functions in the Auckland housing market, twenty two semi-structured interviews with actors who were working on residential development projects in the Auckland region between 2012 and 2013 were conducted. The investigation demonstrates that various actors paly role in developing small size parcels, in some cases an actor plays several roles such as owner, builder, and financer in developing a project. Market demand determines types of projects and location of the projects. However, these actors generally relinquished the housing market following the GFC; the current housing inflation lures the actors to revert to the market. The effective interaction between the actors 40 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 40 16/02/2015 9:23 am and local government is crucial for mitigating the production costs and for protecting actors’ profit margins. The interviewees generally support Auckland Council urban development plans, such as the Auckland Unitary Plan. INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALISATION OF STRATA TITLE MANAGERS: WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNANCE? ER IK A ALTM ANN University of Tasmania The aim of this paper is to explore the rise of strata manager as a newly emergent profession and note their impact on the governance within medium and high density, strata titled housing. The impact of this new profession and their requirements in terms of expertise has not been fully considered within existing academic literature. This research presents finding from a small scale, qualitative research project focussed on the interaction between the owner committee of management and strata managers. A larger study will need to be undertaken to confirm these results. The introduction of mandatory certification is championed by industry bodies. Strata managers considered they demonstrated valuable attributes desired by committees of management. These differed to the attributes targeted by the new training regime and the attributes valued by the committees of management. There is a disjunct between the training and what strata managers consider relevant to undertaking their duties. This has significance for the on-going governance of these properties and industry professionalization. The resilience of Australia’s densification policies will depend on how learning will translate into better governance outcomes for owners. The increasing number of strata managers and professionalization within their industry has the ability to impact an increasing number of people. ENER GY EFFICIENT R ENTAL H O USIN G CH AIR : HEATHER LOV ELL THE THER M AL COM FO RT AND ENER GY P ER FO R M AN CE O F LOW COST H O USIN G M ICHELLE GAB R IEL , PHILLIPA WATSO N , M IL LIE R OO NEY University of Tasmania National data on housing stock conditions is relatively limited in Australia. This can be attributed to the assumption that the quality of Australian housing is high relative to other nations and the belief that standards are protected by a strong regulatory environment and government support for housing investment. However, we argue that housing conditions are becoming increasingly problematized with rising concerns about climate change and energy costs. Moreover, there is a growing awareness of the significance of housing quality and indoor temperature to household 41 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 41 16/02/2015 9:23 am health and well-being. Thermal comfort and energy performance are both important here as low performing homes impact on people’s health and financial security. Despite this shift, we have little understanding of how post-war housing stock, particularly low cost housing stock, performs on these measures. ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... Over the past year, we have been evaluating an energy saving program, Get Bill Smart. As part of this project, we have collected comprehensive data on the thermal and energy performance of 60 low cost dwellings in Hobart. While the problems encountered with this housing are not generalizable to Australian housing stock, our methods for measuring this are (i.e. home observation, data logging and energy audits). We have also collected data on occupant understandings of the performance of their dwellings and their home energy practices. In addition, we have gained insight into occupants’ understanding of energy use in their home and their capacity to undertake home improvements for energy efficiency. Our project has the capacity to shed new light on housing quality and occupant-dwelling relations. Drawing on our physical-social data mix we propose a schema of energy-housing types. This is valuable in targeting resources towards behaviour change or physical adaptation. FROM HOUSING FUTURES TO HOUSEHOLD FUTURES: A CASE STUDY IN CHANGING ASPIRATIONS AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN SOCIAL HOUSING IN CHILE. SANDR A MOY E1 , R AL PH H O R NE 2 , 3 RMIT University 2Cities Programme, United Nations Global Compact 1 Chile is one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America. Housing energy prices have increased by an average 3.2% increase over the last decade and there is growing pressure on the energy system both in responding to climate change and due to growing energy scarcity. Chile also has a growing housing affordability crisis and an ambitious program to transform informal settlements by providing formal housing through collaborations between the private and social sectors in housing development. If we expect such households to increase their wealth and access to comfort over coming decades, there is a case for designing housing accordingly. Such ‘future-proofing’ comes at a cost in today’s money, so what is the optimal approach to energy efficient social housing design? In this paper, data from two communities are used to inform a cost-benefit analysis of the through-life costs and benefits of energy efficient social housing. In parallel, we report on a set of interviews with householders in their homes, where we explore their retrofit activities, aspirations, and future plans. We argue that the outcomes of attempts to implement energy efficiency measures in housing will be shaped by, and in turn shape, householders’ domestic practices. 42 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 42 16/02/2015 9:23 am Taking the energy efficiency cost-benefit analyses, contemporary policy approaches to the provision of formalized housing, and the accounts of the lived experiences of this housing as recounted by householders, we speculate on housing design and policy innovations that may assist in shaping a transition towards more ‘future-proofed’ housing. We also reflect on the mixed methods approach and earlier work in Australia, and propose directions for future research. PANEL S ES SIO N : H O USIN G NEW AUSTR ALI AN S CH AIR : DEB O R AH WAR R PANEL M EM B ERS : H AZEL EASTH O P E , HEATHER M ACD O N ALD AND W ENDY STO NE The Housing New Australians Panel focuses on the experience of migrants in the Australian housing system. Three papers will be presented on: the changing fortunes of migrant gateway suburbs; the lived experience of newly arrived migrants renting privately; and housing discrimination. This will be followed by a discussion of the current and future housing needs of migrants in the context of broader shifts in the Australian housing landscape. THE CHALLENGE OF PRIVATE HOUSING MARKET SETTLEMENT FOR NEWLY ARRIVED MIGRANTS H AZEL EASTH O P E1 , W ENDY STO NE 2 1 UNSW Australia, 2 Swinburne University Throughout twentieth century Australia, a defining feature of successful migrant settlement – in terms of enabling wellbeing and opportunity for those settling in Australia as well as for an enriching contribution to Australian society – has been the geographic clustering and cohesion of migrant enclaves. The capacity of recent migrant groups to emulate these settlement patterns is now significantly undermined by the combination of (i) withdrawal of state sponsored social housing for new arrivals and (ii) the affordability problems associated with the housing market more generally. This paper examines the changing nature of shelter and non-shelter opportunity for migrants in Australia via a focus on two metropolitan locations, Auburn (Sydney) and Springvale (Melbourne). Each site is known for its high degree of multiculturalism and has historically provided a target for new arrivals to Australia, beyond those housed in social housing. The focus of this paper is on the housing experiences and outcomes of migrants in private housing, rather than migrant hostels, or public housing where recently arrived migrants were traditionally housed. While the shift to private-market based housing (rented and owned) for migrants is in many ways reasonably successful, there are challenges of affordability for new migrants. This qualitative, location-based paper explores these challenges and their implications. 43 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 43 16/02/2015 9:23 am DISCR I M IN ATIO N IN THE MULTI - ETHNIC M ETR O PO LIS : EV IDEN CE FR OM SYDNEY HEATHER M ACD O N ALD1 , K EV IN DUNN 2 , JACQ UELINE NELSO N 2 , R A E DUFT Y - J O NES 2 , YIN PAR ADIES 3 UTS, 2UWS, 3Deakin University 1 Sydney is a diverse global city with immigrants from approximately 240 languages, but little evidence of the rigid racial / ethnic segregation typical of societies with fewer but larger minority groups. However, Sydney has a very tight rental market (metropolitan wide vacancy rates are typically less than 2%), which may make discrimination more likely. Previous studies of experiences of racism have uncovered anecdotal evidence that some minorities perceive they are discriminated against in the housing market. No systematic investigations of housing discrimination have been completed in Australia. This paper reports on Australia’s first study of housing discrimination using a paired tester methodology. The study is based on a sample of approximately 537 paired tests conducted across the Sydney metropolitan area during 2013. We study the rental housing experiences of people from three ethnic groups (Anglo, Indian, and Muslim Middle-Eastern). A series of bivariate statistical analyses provides the basis for conclusions about how rental market experiences differ by ethnicity. We conclude by reflecting on the implications these findings may have for public policy, and for the practices of industry associations. THE LIV ED EX P ER IEN CE O F R ECENTLY AR R IV ED AND LO N GER - TER M M IGR ANTS : H OW H O USIN G IS R ESH APIN G O PPO RTUNIT Y W ENDY STO NE , ANDR EA SH AR A M Swinburne University of Technology A total of 190,000 migration places have been allocated to individuals settling in Australia in the 2014/15 year. Sixty-eight per cent of places are allocated to skilled entrants and the remainder available to family migration (32 per cent) (DIBP 2015a). Additionally, in the 2012-2013 year a further 20,019 individuals arrived within refugee or humanitarian categories (DIBP 2015b). Appropriate and affordable housing is an important backdrop to the achievement of economic participation and social integration for newly arrived migrants (Beer and Foley 2003; Shepley 2007) while in turn the impact of migration to Australia upon the housing system, including its role in affecting overall housing demand and that of specific tenures, is also important (National Housing Supply Council 2010). In recent years the private rental sector (PRS) has played an important role in the arrival and early settlement transitions of many recent migrants (Khoo et al 2012). A large majority of Family and Skilled migrants reside in private rental housing at least initially, with transitions into in home ownership by some migrant households related to longer term settlement (Khoo et al; NHSC 44 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 44 16/02/2015 9:23 am 2013). Supported accommodation plays a critical role for Humanitarian Visa holders upon arrival and can facilitate access to the private rental market for some households (Beer and Foley 2003). Fundamental changes within Australia’s housing system over the last 30 years including record low affordability of home purchase and a declining social housing sector mean that the private rental sector (PRS) is likely to feature even more significantly in migrant pathways in future. For many migrants who cannot afford to purchase a home, the private rental sector appears to be increasingly likely to be a long-term home (Stone et al 2013). In contrast with the ‘golden era’ of government assisted housing settlement of newly arrived migrants, migrants attempting to settle in the contemporary Australian housing market face a range of barriers, obstacles and difficulties likely to affect their longer term settlement and prosperity. In this paper the voices, views and experiences of 40 migrant households living in the cities of Melbourne, Perth and Sydney are presented. Twenty two of these are recent arrivals to Australia, with a further 18 having arrived 10 years ago or earlier. Critically, the findings of this study illuminate the creep of housing disadvantage up the income spectrum such that migrants with a range of Visa and settlement types face difficulties in settling. Focusing on the experience of migrants in the private rental sector, the analysis illuminates the significance of the relationships between ‘housing ‘shocks’ (rental increases, forced/unwanted mobility, poor housing standards), critical life events (economic, demographic and health) and household ‘insurances’ (personal resources, social capital, market and social insurances) among recently arrived migrants. Policy and practice challenges posed by this ‘new’ scenario, as well as the opportunity for housing assistance innovation, are discussed – building on insights gained via in-depth interviews with housing and related practitioners and policy makers. PO LICY TOO LS AND EVALUATIO N CH AIR : ANNE BADENH O RST M EASUR IN G THE SO CI AL R ETUR N O N IN V ESTM ENT O F PUB LIC H O USIN G TR AN SFERS JUDY SUTHER LAND Housing Choices Australia A number of State Governments are considering substantial transfer of public housing to community housing providers (CHPs), as a means of maintaining housing affordability into the future. Revenue maximisation and asset management have been long standing policy drivers for transfers. In the case of large public housing estate transfers, service improvement and community renewal drivers are coming increasingly to the fore. To date there is paucity in the measurement of tenant and community outcomes attributed to transfers. Concurrently the social housing sector in Australia in general has relatively little impact measurement experience, compared to the UK. 45 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 45 16/02/2015 9:23 am Social Return on Investment (SROI) is an analytical framework for measuring environmental, economic and social change relative to the resources invested and it is based on stakeholders’ views and values non-monetary impacts. SROI is increasingly being used in the UK and Australia to gauge the value of activities, improve operations and accountability. In 2014 the Tasmanian Government transferred the management of 1,174 tenancies across five housing estates to Housing Choices Tasmania (HCT), a CHP. HCT is co-delivering a SROI with Ernst & Young to assess the future value of this large scale transfer beyond its financial returns. Building on an extensive set of interviews with tenants, service providers, staff, and government agencies, this paper presents results from a survey of tenants and stakeholders. The findings give an understanding of tenants’ and the community’s perception of public housing transfers. Amongst other observations it highlights that transfers directly affects tenants’ sense of selfworth and peace of mind. This innovative research adds value to the debate on how tenants could benefit for public housing transfers and the role of evaluation from a housing practitioner’s point of view. RETHINKING SOCIAL HOUSING: EFFECTIVE, EFFICIENT AND EQUITABLE JUDY K R A ATZ1 , J O H ANN A M ITCHEL L 2 , ANNIE M ATAN 2 Urban Research Program, Griffith University, 2Curtin University Sustainability Program (CUSP), Curtin University 1 Particularly since the global financial crisis, governments around the world have been forced to rethink the role, capacity and limits of publicly subsidised housing. In many countries increasingly constrained supplies of social housing has led to longer waiting lists, priority given only for those most in need and lower financial return on existing housing, which has in turn constrained supply further. In this context, governments across the developed world are seeking innovative, financially sustainable models for delivering good quality affordable housing across the spectrum, for low income key workers through to those with complex, high needs. Current research through the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) is addressing the need for a Strategic Evaluation Framework to assess options for providing social housing that quantify cost-effective program delivery and affordable housing products. The aim of this framework is to provide a robust, accurate and comprehensive method to demonstrate the value and productivity benefits of the effective delivery of social housing across Australia. This research has the active participation the WA Department of Housing, the National Affordable Housing Consortium (NAHC) and Access Housing Australia. This paper will provide early findings of an initial review of literature and desk top research intended to inform the development of the Strategic Evaluation Framework. Additionally it 46 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 46 16/02/2015 9:23 am will provide an overview of the next steps including: (i) the development of specific criteria for evaluation (both housing and non-housing related); (ii) proposed investigations including test case studies to be undertaken in 2015 in Logan City, Queensland and Stirling City, Western Australia; and (iii) a future proposed step adopting a systems dynamic approach to address the complexity of interactions which present when evaluating social housing outcomes (both direct housing outcomes and externalities such as health, employment, education and place-making outcomes. TRANSFORMING METHODOLOGIES: AN EMERGENT APPROACH IN SUPPORT OF POLICY, PLANNING, PRACTICE AND EVALUATION AN GELA BALLAR D Griffith University Urban Research Program, 2Planning Institute of Austalia In considering research geared to understanding and changing large housing systems and sectors within those systems, current methods that inform policy and practice and evaluate these things often follow a well established path; quantitative studies based on existing census or other survey data followed by small numbers of focus groups and one on one interviews to collect and draw out qualitative data. This paper revisits a longstanding methodological conundrum. It asks how do we meaningfully (and economically) capture and honour the lived experience of substantial numbers of end users in housing and urban systems and how might these experiences be used in support of decisions for planning and action - at various scales of such systems? In responding to this question this paper introduces a new methodological approach to housing and urban research, policy, practice and evaluation based in the mass capture of naturalistic micro-narratives and participatory sense making. The initial discussion is grounded in a doctoral study currently underway involving the capture of urban renters’ experiences of home and participatory processes with both renters and housing professionals from within different sectors across the broad Australian rental housing system. The paper then explores potential applications for transformative and adaptive action at various scales emerging from the ‘Renters at Home’ project. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on real time data collection and on-going collaborative analysis using Sensemaker Suite™. INTER N ATIO N AL H O USIN G M AR K ETS CH AIR : TO N Y DALTO N ENABLING INDIVIDUAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE: ON BECOMING A FOREIGN REAL ESTATE INVESTOR DALLAS R O GERS University of Western Sydney Instead of conceptualising individual foreign real estate investors as a coherent group this paper takes a step back to question the seemingly coherent identity of the foreign investor. I inquire about the processes involved in becoming a foreign real estate investor and analyse 47 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 47 16/02/2015 9:23 am how investors are constituted through international real estate practice. This study identifies the different groups of people and institutions that need to come together to constitute foreign investors. I demonstrate how this constituted identity is appropriated and performed by different groups of mildly rich, rich and super rich (High Net Worth) real estate investors. Conceptually, I draw on assemblage theories (Deleuze and Guattari, and De Landa), assemblage analytical tactics (Sassen and Ong) and discursive media theories (Kittler and Foucault) to analyse the different cohorts of real estate investors and professionals. Empirically, the analysis is based on semi-structured interviews conduced with real estate professionals and foreign investors in Australia, China and Singapore, along with a traditional and new media analysis. The focus of this paper is on the new electronic technologies and industry events that increasingly link real estate professionals and foreign investors across nation-state boundaries. The findings challenge the idea that foreign investors are invasive, as is occasionally presented in media discourse and public debate in Australia, Canada, United States and United Kingdom. This study shows foreign investors are constituted by real estate, financial and other professionals and given authority by governments through the policy spaces that link individual foreign investors with globalising notions of local real estate. I conclude by floating some of the early policy observations emerging from the study. CHINESE FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN AUSTRALIAN HOUSING MARKETS: UNDERSTANDING INVESTOR AND DEVELOPER MOTIVATIONS SH A LIU , NICO LE GUR R AN Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney Increasing levels of international investment in real estate has raised a number of concerns about the housing market implications for receiving nations. Chinese foreign investment in particular is perceived to exacerbate existing affordability pressures in recipient nations, including the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, Canada and some European countries. While broad explanations for the phenomenon have been posited (financial safe havens, study, accommodation for multi-national firms, international second home ownership), little is known about the underlying drivers of Chinese foreign investment in real estate or the motivations of individual Chinese investors and development firms. This paper examines the reasons why Chinese developers and individual investors have decided to develop and/or purchase property in foreign countries, focusing in particular on the impacts of China’s changing housing policies. It uses the ‘purchase restriction’ policy, ratified in 46 large Chinese cities in 2011 as a specific point of focus, and reports on the results of 15 in-depth interviews conducted with Chinese developers who have developed/purchased projects in overseas markets, senior staff working in real estate consultancy and investment firms in China and abroad, Chinese local government officials, and Chinese sales agents working in Sydney, Australia. The interviews, conducted between July-November 2014 canvas 1) the main types of investors and developers likely to seek international investment 48 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 48 16/02/2015 9:23 am opportunities; 2) the preferred international markets and housing products; 3) mechanisms for financing purchases and the intended duration and purpose of foreign purchase (self use, family member, corporate use, rent on the local market, or short term capital gain); and 4) potential implications for patterns of housing investment and development in China under the current policy framework. The paper concludes by highlighting wider research and policy implications of the growing interactions between domestic housing policies and international housing markets. INVESTIGATING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING SUPPLY CHALLENGES IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: LESSONS FROM THREE GLOBAL CASE STUDIES. P ER NILLE CHR ISTEN S EN University of Technology, Sydney Background: The challenges associated with creating and offering affordable housing to a growing population is an issue facing cities around the world. Australia’s cities are not immune to this challenge - many have set ambitious targets to help alleviate the current lack of affordable housing in their urban areas. The City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 Community Strategic Plan (2014) identifies key target areas for Sydney; Target 4 states that “7.5% of all city housing … will be affordable housing, delivered by not-for-profit or other providers.” How to achieve this target without controlling the production of the product is a challenge facing not only Sydney, but other Australian cities as well. Aim & Purpose: Failing to reach the affordable housing goal is a real risk which has been identified by key staff within the Council as there is little jurisdictional control to influence this outcome. This study draws on approaches used by other cities in achieving affordable housing to find possible solutions for the City of Sydney. Design & Methodology: The case study investigates three international cities struggling with this issue and investigates how affordable housing is being achieved through innovative policies and programs. The cities are Amsterdam, Vancouver and San Francisco. Key Findings: In contrast to programs currently utilised in Sydney which predominately create housing of a single type, in a single location with only one ownership model, the case cities programs offer a diversity of housing type, location and ownership. Originality: Australian local governments are inhibited by the state in their ability to create policies that will help attain social and affordable housing targets. The case studies investigated have similar political challenges but have been able to implement creative solutions to involve third party providers. These solutions may assist Australian cities in achieving their own affordable housing targets. 49 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 49 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 3 H O USIN G AFFO R DAB ILIT Y AND MULTI GENER ATIO N AL LIV IN G CH AIR : ANITR A NELSO N GENERATIONAL CHANGE IN HOME PURCHASE OPPORTUNITY IN AUSTRALIA TER RY B UR K E , W ENDY STO NE Swinburne University There has been considerable media exposure in recent years to the contracting opportunities for younger generations to become home owners. The language of crisis often accompanies such commentary and is typically linked with a juxtaposition of the problematic housing future of the young with the more favourable environment faced by their parents, the baby boomers. This paper uses ABS Census and Income and Housing Survey data to assess the degree to which ‘real issues’ underpin the media hype. Specifically the paper addresses three topics. 1. The degree to which younger households, particularly the cohorts aged 25-44 years, have experienced a contraction in home purchase over the last thirty years; 2. The adaptive responses this generation has made to circumvent obstacles to ownership, particularly that of declining housing affordability; and 3. Which younger households have been most disadvantaged in terms of home purchase opportunity – and whether factors such as income and household type, have been influential in this regard? The broad argument is that that media concern with contraction in younger household’s home purchase has been overdone. Home purchase is a highly resilient force in Australia and in the face of major structural barriers to ownership younger households (with the exception of the period 1981-1991) have kept up the home purchase rate largely via a set of adaptive responses. This is not reason for complacency however as the adaptive responses are in themselves highly problematic. “I’M NEVER ALONE AND LONELY”: MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING IN BRISBANE, QLD ED GAR LIU1 , H AZEL EASTH O P E 2 , B R U CE JUDD 3 , I AN B UR NLEY4 City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 2City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 3Australian School of Architecture and Design, University of New South Wales, 4City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales 1 50 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 50 16/02/2015 9:23 am Multigenerational households – where two or more generations of related adults cohabit in the same dwelling – is recognised as a traditional practice amongst many African, Asian, and Eastern and Southern European cultures, yet they are also a significant sub-group of the population in the western world, including Australia. Much of the existing research into multigenerational households in Australia has focussed on the economic factors that contribute to (and sustain) multigenerational living, including intergenerational wealth transfers, the effect of global economic crises and the retraction of social welfare in many western countries. Little attention, however, has been paid to the lived, everyday experiences of such a living arrangement. This is an important omission as family structure and living arrangements can have a significant impact on individual wellbeing and quality of life. This paper draws upon the results of a web-based survey (133 responses), 16 diaries and 18 indepth interviews with multigenerational household members in one major Australian city – Brisbane, QLD – to report on the benefits and challenges experienced by people living in multigenerational households. With the fastest growing multigenerational household population of all of the Australian cities, Brisbane serves as an excellent case study for wider, national considerations. The paper reveals that the benefits and drawbacks of multigenerational living experienced by household members appear to differ depending on the pathways through which they came to live together and the form of their multigenerational living arrangement (adult children yet to leave home, boomeranging post-relationship breakdown, older parents moving in for care etc.). It concludes with a discussion about the implications of these findings for housing and related policies that impact on the quality of life of multigenerational households. ENRICHED AND ENABLED OR DESPERATE AND DESPAIRING? THE EXPERIENCES OF MULTI-GENERATIONAL HOUSEHOLDS IN NEW ZEALAND CITIES. P ENN Y LYSN AR1 , ANN DUPUIS 2 Transforming Cities, University of Auckland, 2School of People, Environment & Planning, Massey University 1 Much of New Zealand’s recent housing-related research has focussed on the increase in single person and smaller households and on the endeavours of local authorities, especially Auckland and Christchurch, to deliver more intensive urban living and smaller dwelling units. This research focus tends to divert attention away from the significant diversity of housing forms and household types in New Zealand’s major cities. One under-researched household type is the multigenerational household, defined as a household where more than one generation of related adults live together, with or without children. The significance of multi-generational households is a trend beginning to be documented in a number of countries which have similar socio-economic and demographic characteristics to New Zealand. For example, research shows that approximately 20 percent of Australians and 16 percent of Americans live in multi-generational households. Explanations for this rise include: 51 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 51 16/02/2015 9:23 am cultural expectation of new migrants to live in multi-generational households; younger adults leaving their parents’ home later; adult children returning to their parents’ homes; and elderly parents living with their adult children. ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... ............... These explanations also pertain to New Zealand’s multi-generational households, but differences are also evident, especially with respect to multi-generational households in Auckland and Christchurch. Auckland has a higher number of Māori, Pasifika and new migrant households than do other major cities in New Zealand. The consequences of the Canterbury earthquakes have also seen short-term, multi-generational household arrangements occurring in Christchurch. This paper reports on findings from a research project on multi-generational households in Auckland and Christchurch. Drawing on Statistics New Zealand data we document the incidence and makeup of these households. From interview data we examine the drivers for multigenerational living arrangements, the economic, social and cultural factors that shape the positive or negative aspects of multi-generational living, and the trade-offs and compromises that occur. We also focus on the extent to which the physical and design aspects of multi-generational dwellings meet the needs of household members. H O USIN G DESIGN : AUSTR ALI AN AND INTER N ATIO N AL EX PER IEN CES CH AIR : R AL PH H O R NE PARK(ED), A $30K SINGLE OCCUPANCY HOUSING STRATEGY. THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN DREAM? ESTHER CHEW , ANDR EW B R ACK M AN Mulloway Studio Architects The Great Australian Dream: A detached single story family home, a quarter acre block surrounded by garden, Hills Hoist and a barbeque. The rise of the post-war suburban home shaped the lifestyles of Australians; the summer holiday by the beach, the nuclear family, cutting the lawn and washing the Holden on a Saturday morning. However, the increase in singleperson households, urban infill and the lack of quality small scale housing in developed countries prompts us to reflect on the suitability and sustainability of post-war suburban housing stock, to re-imagine our approach to home and place making. In 2012, Mulloway Studio designed PARK(ed), a $30K single occupancy house contextualized to meet Adelaide’s urban conditions and particular social needs: an increase in single person households, housing affordability, homelessness, vulnerable youth and the abundance of inner city car parks. Measuring 12.5sqm, the design explores opportunities for micro living by creating a highly efficient home within the constraints of a car park and construction budget of $30K. 52 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 52 16/02/2015 9:23 am PARK(ed) represents a specific typology of housing that is presented by some as a housing solution. But more often than not, this typology remains an idea, or and ideology, that is difficult to be executed in the context of a developed economy. Despite PARK(ed) attracting international attention, industry accolades, interest from several housing providers, prefabricated building companies, several community organizations and housing providers, the projects remain on the shelf. This paper will explore how the complexities of the planning and political environment constrain experimentation and reinforce a environment of risk aversion. “Social sustainability cannot be delivered by one authority, or profession alone. It requires an integrated, multidisciplinary approach with a range of policy supports to both determine the desired outcomes and then commit to their implementation.” (Palich & Edmonds, 2013). THE “TINY HOUSE” MOVEMENT: ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR HOUSING AFFORDABILITY AND URBAN SUSTAINABILITY HEATHER SHEAR ER Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Queensland The tiny house movement is an emergent trend towards building very small houses (under 40m2). It originated in the USA in the late 1990s, largely in response to housing affordability issues and the desire to live more sustainably. Somewhat perversely, the tiny house movement is most active in those OECD countries with the largest mean house sizes, such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Larger houses consume more resources at all stages of the housing lifecycle, from their construction, day to day operation and eventual demolition. As well as having very large houses, these countries also have some of the most unaffordable urban housing markets in the OECD. This paper reports the preliminary results of a study investigating the tiny house movement, as very little scholarly research has been conducted on its potential to improve affordable and sustainable housing outcomes. The research method for the study used an online questionnaire and interviews to collect data from tiny house enthusiasts in Australia. Preliminary results indicate that a wide range of actors are interested in building tiny houses, mostly for economic and environmental reasons. These drivers however, are countered by a number of structural and other barriers, such as the inflexibility of local government planning schemes and building codes, the inability to source finance, and social norms for larger houses. The trend towards smaller houses, if sustained and supported by planning policy, may potentially address some aspects of housing affordability, by allowing more flexible housing choices within urban or peri-urban areas. It also has the potential to improve urban sustainability, by reducing urban sprawl, and to improve energy and water efficiency. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research, including expanding the study to the USA, Canada and New Zealand. 53 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 53 16/02/2015 9:23 am PANEL : INDIGEN O US H O USIN G AND W ELFAR E CO NDITIO N ALIT Y CH AIR : AN GELA SPINNEY PANEL MEMBERS: RHONDA PHILLIPS, DAPHNE HABIBIS AND DAPHNE NASH In this session, Daphne Habibis, Daphne Nash and Rhonda Phillips will draw on their empirical research to examine the changing Indigenous housing policy landscape in Australia and the implications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Based on policy analysis and case studies in remote and urban communities, the panelists will discuss the influence and limits of dominant housing and welfare policy approaches that emphasise conditionality and mainstream cultural values. Following brief presentations by the panelists, they will respond to questions and enter into a dialogue with workshop participants. INCLUSION OR ASSIMILATION: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL HOUSING MAINSTREAMING POLICY AGENDAS. RHONDA PHILLIPS University of Queensland This presentation will critically examine reforms in Indigenous social housing policy and service delivery approaches over the past decade as they affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households and communities in urban and remote areas of Australia. Key characteristics of the reforms will be analysed including their alignment and coordination with other policy arenas such as recognition, health and employment. Social housing is widely acknowledged as critical in “Closing the Gap’ on Indigenous disadvantage because a third of all Indigenous households live in this tenure and in many remote communities social housing is the only option available. Drawing on public policy literature as well as empirical research the presentation will explore the dilemmas, ambiguities and contradictions inherent in social housing policy. The presentation will present findings from recent and current research studies conducted in both urban and remote Indigenous communities across Australia that examine policy and service delivery reforms that promote ‘mainstreaming’ of Indigenous social housing provision. This research was informed by views expressed by a wide range of policy makers, service providers, tenants and indigenous community stakeholders. The key question posed in the presentation is how are these ‘mainstreaming’ policy agendas understood and experienced by key stakeholders and how are they transforming social housing provision for Indigenous Australians. 54 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 54 16/02/2015 9:23 am WELFARE CONDITIONALITY AND ABORIGINAL LIFEWORDS: ESTABLISHING RECOGNITION AS A POLICY PRINCIPLE DAPHNE HABIBIS University of Tasmania Welfare conditionality refers to a form of contractualism in which state benefits are tied to demands that recipients conform to a range of behavioural requirements. But forms of contractualism with Aboriginal people have existed since the earliest times of settler colonialism in Australia, with housing a critical area of engagement. This paper draws on research undertaken as part of a number of Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute investigations which raise questions about whether, and how conditionality in Aboriginal housing can be used to promote positive outcomes for Aboriginal people. It provides insights into how housing access and tenancy sustainment are influenced by the alignment between different forms of conditionality and Indigenous cultural norms and lifestyles. DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE?’: CONDITIONALITY AND INNOVATION FOR INDIGENOUS TENANTS IN TENNANT CREEK, NORTHERN TERRITORY (NT). DAPHNE NASH, PAUL MEMMOTT University of Queensland Conditionality, with its emphasis on the obligations and responsibility of welfare recipients is a well-established subject of debate regarding change management in the context of social housing (e.g. Deacon 2004). Through its regional office in Tennant Creek, the NT Department of Housing administers a policy which applies to the tenancies of most Aboriginal residents, who must comply with a set of rules to remain eligible for social housing. The severe shortage of social housing, the expense of maintaining the current stock and the issues with tenants over damage to houses have been significant sources of tension between tenants, managers and Aboriginal service providers. While the shortage of housing is the most significant issue, complex and multi-faceted aspects of social disadvantage are operating, such as crowding, alcoholism and family violence that exacerbate the housing problem. This paper focuses on two providers in the town, namely the Tennant Creek Transitional Accommodation Project and Anyinginyi Health Corporation who operate their own tenancy model for clients and employees respectively, in an effort to reduce the effects of social exclusion. Both draw on aspects of conditionality regarding training, work and behaviour of tenants. In a landmark partnership agreement, local businesses initiated the transitional accommodation project for Aboriginal people, particularly those with young children, to assist also with employment and training and the progression to social housing or private rental. With similar family histories, the Aboriginal employees at Anyinginyi have experienced unstable tenancies. As staff they can apply for the residential tenancy program that provides them with a safe and secure environment to be responsible tenants with a view to potential home ownership. The successes and challenges of these innovative tenancy models for Aboriginal residents of Tennant Creek demonstrate how locally developed and locally administered housing programs can begin to transform people’s lives. 55 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 55 16/02/2015 9:23 am H O USIN G FO R LOW - IN COM E H O US EH O LDS CH AIR : M AR CUS SPILLER CHANGES IN LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA 2008-2013 EMMA BAKER2, DAVID PEVALIN1, REBECCA BENTLEY3 School of Health and Human Sciences, University of Essex, UK, 2Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, 3Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne 1 The longitudinal South Australian Housing and Wellbeing Survey (SAHWS) has been conducted over two waves (2008 and 2013). Funded by the Australian Research Council, 1700 low-income households were surveyed in 2008. The 1200 who volunteered to participate in a second wave were contacted for a second wave survey in 2013. A booster sample of 160 households living in poor condition dwellings in regional areas of concentrated disadvantage (using the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ SEIFA Index) was also undertaken. Reflecting a renewed research interest in housing conditions, this was a particular focus in the second wave survey. This paper uses the newly created SAHWS dataset to describe the housing conditions and related characteristics of the study population in 2013 and an initial analysis of the changes between 2008 and 2013. Following an initial description of the sample and data collection process, the paper will present initial findings of the contemporary housing conditions for this sample of low-income households with a focus on the demographic characteristics of those in the poorest housing. The paper concludes with a discussion of the degree to which housing conditions among low income households may act to protect or further disadvantage such households. INVESTOR-LED ACTIVITY IN AREAS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE KATH HULSE, MARGARET REYNOLDS Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia There have been hotly contested debates in the literature on the merit or otherwise of policies to ‘improve’ housing markets in areas characterised by low prices and rents, which are home to residents with attributes associated with low socio-economic status, including low income, low occupational status and low education levels. This paper seeks to add a different perspective to these debates through presenting the findings of detailed empirical research into the changes in housing markets and the socio-economic profile of residents in disadvantaged suburbs in Australia’s three largest cities: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, 2001-2011. The findings indicate something of a paradox: ‘improving housing markets’ with sales prices and rents increasing above city-wide rates along with a continuing low socio-economic profile of residents. A key explanatory factor appears to be high levels of rental investment activity in such suburbs resulting in continuing low socio-economic status of residents who are faced 56 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 56 16/02/2015 9:23 am with paying higher rents than previously. This Australian experience of market–led rental investment in disadvantaged suburbs is in contrast the extensive literature on gentrification whereby ‘improving’ housing markets are the result of higher income households buying into lower price, disadvantaged areas displacing lower income residents. DEVELOPING URBAN SUSTAINABILITY: A PROPOSAL FOR EXPANDING CURRENT AUSTRALIAN AFFORDABLE HOUSING ASSESSMENT METHODS USING INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDIES CRAIG COSIER, PERNILLE CHRISTENSEN University of Technology, Sydney Much of the Australian Government discussion related to housing affordability is focused on immediate monetary value. This has created a national perception that affordability means cheap, however this includes little consideration of long-term costs associated with housing. This research investigates the housing affordability crisis in Australia, focusing on the current expectations related to affordability, the methodologies used to achieve affordability, and the need to apparent need to establish a collective identity of ‘affordable sustainable housing’. Current rhetoric focuses on the affordable housing ‘crisis’ and the need to ‘deliver’ in terms of economic viability. Particularly in Sydney, a rush to provide homes to meet demand has overlooked the need to build sustainable communities and homes designed and built to achieve energy efficiency. To improve the affordability of housing, the issue of sustainability must not only be assessed in terms of monetary values but must include a multi-faceted methodology which assesses affordability through the lens of sustainability by evaluating a combination of economic, environmental and social benchmarks. There is a need to move away from ratios measured by ‘price’, ‘household income’ and ‘the cost and availability of finance’, all of which fail to capture anything about the construction quality, energy efficiency, neighbourhood characteristics, infrastructure and amenities, or the proximity to jobs and transport. Due to the focus on economic aspects of ‘housing affordability’, the establishment of a collective identity of affordable sustainable housing within the government is virtually impossible. Despite economic tendencies, a collective identity is needed to produce effective societal results. This is not merely a concept, but an assessment method that can assist stakeholders in assessing affordability more accurately and comprehensively as well as pushing forth a national policy for affordable sustainable housing. HOUSING MARKET AND PLANNING CHAIR: PAUL BURTON CURRENT HOUSING PRICES TRENDS AND FUTURE POPULATION TRENDS: WHAT DO THEY IMPLY ABOUT THE FUTURE OF DENSITY? ALAN PETERS1, JI YU2 UNSW Australia, 2UNSW Australia 1 At this point we have a number of hedonic and repeat sales models for housing prices across Australia and also for individual capital cities. There are also a number of overtly spatial models 57 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 57 16/02/2015 9:23 am looking for trends in the geographical patterning of housing prices. The purpose of these models varies greatly, as do their results. For our purposes Sydney is something of an outlier, not only because of the role of access to water, but also because of housing sub-market segregation, the particular difficulty NSW has had building new infrastructure, and the role of the city as the primary destination of new immigrants. Moreover, it is possible if not likely that the relative importance of one central element of both hedonic and repeat sales models, accessibility, may have changed dramatically over the past decade. This latter change may itself be the result of demographic shifts, immigration and congestion. Separately there are Planning Support Systems that distribute the next 10, 20 or 25 year’s expected population growth across the metro areas LGAs. One of these distributes on the basis of fairly simple algorithms of population growth and available land; others are more complex simulations of land markets and environmental consequences. All of these models suggest increasing densification of Sydney. Density and accessibility (and therefore the relative cost of housing) are intimately connected. There is a clear need to talk about the spatial distribution of future population growth in the context of drivers of the housing market. This paper does three things. (1) It considers what we know from the hedonic, repeat sales and spatial models of housing prices; (2) It considers the possible population distribution shifts for the next 20 years; (3) It looks at the potential consequences of those shifts on housing value and thus affordability. IDENTIFYING URBAN PLANNING PRIORITIES THROUGH A HOUSE PRICE MODEL SHANAKA HERATH City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Australia In honouring their spatial planning responsibilities, Governments must constantly monitor the adequacy of infrastructure and urban amenities particularly in rapidly evolving metropolitan areas such as Sydney. In this way, areas in need of particular facilities and areas vulnerable to over-development can be recognized and action taken accordingly. This paper analyses the spatial patterns of amenities and disamenities in Sydney based on a hedonic house price model that controls for property size and quality. Spatial dependence among house prices is tested and the model is improved using spatial econometric techniques. The estimates of marginal values of bundles of amenities in specific areas can confirm or invalidate a priori knowledge on the prime locations of the city and hence shed light on potential directions of urban growth processes. Though there are many studies explaining local spatial disparities within housing markets based on ‘global’ hedonic models, local regression methods are intuitively preferred particularly when location specific information is required for planning purposes. These local estimates mapped demonstrate detailed small-area differences of amenities. This research could thus inform urban policy by identifying areas with amenities and capacity for increased population, and areas with dis-amenities needing improvements, leading to efficient housing allocation and urban planning. 58 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 58 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 4 PANEL S ES SIO N : THEO RY , PR ACTICE & INN OVATIO N CH AIR : PETER PHIB B S PANEL MEMBERS: LYNDALL BRYANT, ANDREA SHARAM TOM ALVES AND JASMINE PALMER This panel focuses on the structure of provision for apartments in Australia outlining why current provision is antithetical to affordable supply, quality design and sustainability. An alterative structure of provision is proposed that takes understandings gained from ‘market design’, an off-shoot of game theory and the benefits of ‘deliberative’ or ‘ self-build’ development arguing that multiunit development needs to fundamentally change in order to deliver policy objectives aiming at urban consolidation, sustainability and housing affordability. APARTMENTS: DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR AFFORDABILITY LYNDALL BRYANT1, ANDREA SHARAM2, TOM ALVES3 Queensland University of Technology, 2Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Office of the Victorian Government Architect and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research 1 3 Housing price inflation, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne has contributed to a serious decline in the number of low and middle income households able to purchase housing. In part asset inflation reflects housing supply lagging well behind demand. The promotion of medium density housing, as a component of urban consolidation policies, however has delivered less supply than required and has failed to be affordable. It is also often criticised for poor design and quality. Planning and other regulation is often cited as a significant cost driver for medium density infill housing. The response in Melbourne has been a laissez-faire approach to planning in the central city and the frequent use of the Minister for Planning’s call in powers to expedite development proposals, with approval for considerable increases in height and/or density. In this paper, we adopt Ball’s (2003) ‘structure of building provision’ approach, providing an outline of the apartment development process as it is typically undertaken in Australia. Again following Ball we use a mainstream economics frame to critique this delivery model highlighting: • Risk profile of vertical sub-division of land versus horizontal sub-division of airspace (thinking of MDH in terms of development typology rather than build form typologies) • The role of costs in determining project viability, but not market price • Project margins • The role of planning in fostering land speculation thus contributing to declining housing affordability 59 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 59 16/02/2015 9:23 am • The costs associated with obtaining sales and the risk associated with uncertain demand and the inadequacy of pre-sale contracts in fully mitigating settlement risk. We argue that a significant problem for supply and affordability of apartments relates to the current inability of the market to efficiently match supply and demand in order to progress an orderly and de-risked development process. APARTMENTS: THEORY LED TRANSFORMATION ANDREA SHARAM1, LYNDALL BRYANT2, TOM ALVES3 Swinburne Institute for Social Research, 2Queensland University of Technology Office of the Victorian Government Architect and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research 1 3 This presentation highlights the lack of the critical literature and scarcity of empirical data on residential development in Australia, and argues policy debates are skewed by a focus on selected elements of the existing structure of provision without being aware of how apartments are provided and thus miss crucial barriers to affordability and quality, and increasing supply. The application of ‘market design’, an offshoot of the game theory branch of economics, is proposed as a theoretical approach enabling a better understanding of the apartment development process. As with game theory, market design examines how collaboration rather than competition can enhance efficiency. Market design focuses on transaction costs, exchange mechanisms and allocation processes, and can take account of both market and non-market contexts. A major insight of market design, is that aggregation of buyers and sellers into two pools rather than trades being conducted on a bi-lateral basis (that is between a single buyer and single seller), can reduce transaction costs and promote better allocation. Real life examples abound across many market and non-market settings, ranging from electricity wholesaling and native vegetation offsets to human kidney donation. Applying market design to apartment development highlights the anachronism of the traditional presales campaign: each developer spends up to 10% of project costs on finding a very limited number of buyers with final settlement reliant on an inadequate legal mechanism (the pre-sale contract). High search and transaction costs however can be reduced by utilising the capacity of the internet to aggregate potential buyers and sellers. This capacity and the assumption of savings underpin buyer aggregator service Citiniche. However, while aggregation generates efficiencies, the oligopolistic structure of the industry means production savings are almost inevitably captured by the developer. In order to realise the savings potential of market design, competition is needed. Housing supply innovation requires economic actors who are able to commit to the supply of affordable housing and the most obvious candidates are consumers themselves. 60 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 60 16/02/2015 9:23 am ‘DELIBERATIVE’ DEVELOPMENT, INNOVATION TO IMPROVE APARTMENTS: SUPPLY, AFFORDABILITY, QUALITY & DESIGN TOM ALVES1, ANDREA SHARAM2 Office of the Victorian Government Architect and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, 2Swinburne Institute for Social Research 1 Apartment developers commence projects assuming buyers will be found and are as such ‘speculative’. Given the demand-side risk speculative developers accordingly produce generic product, with intending owner-occupiers able to exert little influence over the market in terms of design, amenity or quality unless at the luxury end of the market. However, where consumers themselves have collectively assumed the role of the developer they have been able to internalise the developer margin thus making significant cost savings and achieving other collective ambitions, such as higher environmental performance. This ‘deliberative’ development model, increasingly popular in Western Europe and not without precedence in Australia, typically delivers cost savings of 25-30% compared to speculative development. This compares extremely well to existing policy measures aimed at improving supply and affordability. Given the savings and other benefits could deliberative development become a new, competitive force for housing innovation in Australia? We tested the feasibility of deliberative development in the Australian context by applying by the same criteria that speculative development is tested: could deliberative development obtain development finance? To answer this question we sought the views of residential development financiers. ‘Deliberative developers’ require approval of both mortgage lenders (as the long term financiers of housing), and of short-term development financiers as a means of getting a new project developed. Residential development financiers are in a privileged position of having detailed understanding of, and deep experience with, the entire development process, often across a number of regional markets and asset classes. SLICING, DICING AND RECONSTITUTING ‘THE DREAM’: SEEKING PATHWAYS TO MORE SUSTAINABLE AND AFFORDABLE RESIDENTIAL URBAN FORM WITH OCCUPANT INPUT. JASMINE PALMER Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning. University of Adelaide The musings of an Australian Householder: “The ‘average’ household. That’s us. Two adults, a child, a dog, a fondness for outdoor activities, barbequing and gardening, and an ‘average’ income. We are the household targeted by the advertisements in the weekend papers selling ‘The Great Australian Dream’, but that is not our dream. We desire a more sustainable and affordable housing option and applaud our nation’s strategists for promoting ‘infill’ housing in existing urban area. Still, we are left frustrated as the ‘average’ infill dwelling doesn’t suit our ‘average household’ needs. To realise our ‘dream’ we need to take the suburban ‘Great Australian Dream’, slice it, dice it, trim the excesses, and reconstitute the essential ingredients 61 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 61 16/02/2015 9:23 am together with other dwellings on a medium density site. In short, we need someone to listen to us and help us design an infill solution to our needs. Such individual design is possible (even normal) in low density houses but is not offered for infill housing. It’s a shame, if infill housing was designed to suit peoples’ needs a more sustainable urban ‘dream’ could be realised. I know I want to live in the future proposed by our urban strategists – if only higherdensity housing was designed for use by people, not for profit.” This paper presents the current state of medium-density housing provision in Australia identifying, through interviews with key industry stakeholders, the perceived barriers to occupant input in infill housing design. The current medium-density housing system encourages a supply-led provision system at the same time as other nations are recognising the limitations of such a system and promoting demand-led, custom designed housing through financial incentives and policy requirements. Current UK policies are discussed, with particular reference to innovative projects increasing user input in infill housing design, both completed and in progress. H O USIN G , HEALTH AND W ELLB EIN G CH AIR : EM M A BA K ER MOVING BEYOND ASSOCIATION: DEVELOPING CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS OF HOUSING AND HEALTH REBECCA BENTLEY1, EMMA BAKER2 Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, 2School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide 1 It is widely acknowledged that there are strong associations between economic factors and inequalities in health status or disease states. However, most of these associations are correlations and do not provide information about the causal relationships between economic factors and health. Housing is a key driver of ecomomic circumstances given it is a primary expenditure for most people and is a source of wealth and intergenerational transfer of assests. The longitudinal Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey enables examination of causal aspects of the important relationship beween housing and mental health. We present findings from a body of research utlising longitudinal data that describes how housing affordability and and tenure impact on changes in mental health over time. Specifically, we overview research evidence suggesting that the exeprience of being in unaffordable housing has a negative impact on people’s mental health if they are in the lower end of the income distribution. Further, we will present evidence that this relationship is modified by tenure such that owers, as compared to private renters, may be protected from the mental health effects of unaffordable housing in Australia. We will discuss the implications for policy, practice and research. PRECARIOUS HOUSING AND THE IMPACTS ON HEALTH AND PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE AMONG UNEMPLOYED SOUTH AUSTRALIANS 62 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 62 16/02/2015 9:23 am KATY OSBORNE1 RUTH WALKER2 KATHY ARTHURSON3 KATHERINE PATEL3 Torrens University Australia and Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University of South Australia 2Disability and Community Inclusion, Flinders University of South Australia 3Southgate Institute for Health, Society & Equity, Flinders University of South Australia 1 Precarious housing is commonly defined as consisting of the following dimensions: unaffordable (high housing costs relative to income), unsuitable (overcrowded, poor condition, unsafe), and insecure (insecure tenure, subject to forced moves). Living in precarious housing often accompanies other forms of social and economic disadvantage. In this paper we present the findings of a study that explored the links between precarious housing, health, and participation in activities such as employment, education and training, and volunteering. In order to gain nuanced understandings of some of the obstacles to successful participation, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 unemployed individuals (17 women and 8 men) living in family households in two disadvantaged areas of South Australia: a metropolitan area and a regional town. Participants described their ‘lived experiences’ of precarious housing (both private and public rental tenures) and how this influenced their ability to participate in social and economic activities. Participants also identified specific dimensions of precarious housing including insecurity of tenure, overcrowding, inadequate and unsafe living conditions and unsafe neighborhoods, as having negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families. They also identified how living in precarious housing restricts participation in economic and social life, including activities such as job seeking, pursuing education and training, and volunteering. In many cases, participants had long personal histories of living in precarious housing, including episodes of homelessness, which were linked to physical and mental health problems for themselves and their families. Living in precarious housing was also related to a lack of adequate transport available locally and demands to travel long distances for employment, issues particularly acute in the regional town. We conclude that reducing precarious housing should be a priority across policy areas including employment, education and health. HOUSING PRIORITIES OF PEOPLE WITH MEMORY LOSS: SECURITY, CONTINUITY, AND SUPPORT MICHELLE GABRIEL, DEBBIE FAULKNER, CHRISTINE STIRLING University of Tasmania There has been a significant shift in our understanding of dementia and memory loss within the community over the past two decades. In the past, a diagnosis of dementia was associated with rapid decline in cognitive function and a direct transition to residential care. Today, however, there is growing recognition of the importance of brain health within the community and the advantages of enabling people who are experiencing memory loss to remain in a familiar environment. This study examines the role of housing in enabling people with memory loss to maintain quality of life. We found that several aspects of housing were 63 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 63 16/02/2015 9:23 am critical to supporting people with memory loss: continuity and security in access to housing; quality, design and adaptability of the home; and a home that is embedded in a network of community care and support. We reflect on the extent to which this ideal, supportive home environment can be achieved by low income individuals and families within the current policy and funding climate. Key barriers include: declining housing affordability; lack of funds to support appropriate home design and modifications, but also lack of knowledge of the benefits; disparities in community services across regions, including transport and respite care; gaps in home care service provision (e.g. medication prompting, overnight stays to prevent wandering); and reductions in the regularity of management and tenant interactions. Critically, the study also sheds light on the value of raising awareness of brain health in the homelessness sector and facilitating access to assessments of dementia. It also highlighted the lack of appropriate housing options and community services for people with younger onset dementia. CR EATIN G COM MUNITIES CH AIR : J ENNIFER B O R R ELL USING ART TO CHALLENGE PLACE-BASED STIGMA DEBORAH WARR, GRETEL TAYLOR University of Melbourne The negative stereotyping of situations of poverty and place-based disadvantage is a pressing social issue that has intensified over recent years as processes of sociospatial polarisation diminish opportunities for encounters and interactions across socioeconomic circumstances. In this paper we bring sociological and artistic perspectives together to discuss the initial outcomes of a multi-sited project that aims to explore and challenge place stigma through arts-based practice. Significantly, the project focuses on emerging sites of socioeconomic marginalisation in outer suburban settings. The project has interrelated methodological, empirical and representational aims to generate nuanced insights into the effects of, and potential strategies for, challenging place-based stigma. Community-based and participatory arts projects are commonly vehicles for fostering local engagement, however, the potential to generate robust research data and contribute to transformatory social practice, remain underexplored. These aims involve linking sociological insights into issues of place-based and poverty stigma with theories of aesthetic practice that have developed following the ‘social turn’ in contemporary arts since the 1990s and, in particular, Bourriaud’s influential text, Relational Aesthetics (1998). A further important aim of the project is to minimise what Bourdieu referred as the ‘reality effects of research’. Reality effects are generated when negative depictions of vulnerable places and populations through research (unintentionally) serve to reinforce stigma. We discuss how the project is generating empirical insights into local situations and creative outcomes (for example, exhibitions, installations or performances) that can be used for engaging local and wider publics in the issues that are explored. We suggest how these projects are exploring new approaches to community-based art that support participants to use/experience art in more generative ways that may serve to challenge situations of social, economic and cultural marginalisation. 64 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 64 16/02/2015 9:23 am UNDERSTANDING HOW SENIORS NEGOTIATE THE CONSTRUCTION OF PLACE-BASED STIGMA GINA ZAPPIA University of Tasmania – School of Social Sciences A reputation can be good or bad. When a bad reputation is associated with a neighbourhood or suburb, residents can experience the impacts of place-based stigma. By associating discrediting stereotypes with the characteristics specific to a neighbourhood, suburb or place, a negative reputation is attached to the location. One example of this relationship between stereotype and characteristic is the assumption that areas with concentrations of social housing stock will inevitably experience high levels of crime and anti-social behaviour. The processes that sustain place-based stigma include media representations of place; government policy targeted at addressing the health, social and economic deficiencies of residents that frame the area as in need of intervention and the people in need of fixing; and internal narratives of social pathology that reinforce the negative stereotypes associated with the place. Utilising Erving Goffman’s (1963) sociological concept of stigma this research aimed to understand how seniors who live in Logan City respond to the negative reputation of Logan. This paper presents the analysis of their narratives of place as expressed through focus group participation to determine if the seniors reject, justify or sustain the negative reputation and, accordingly, the place-based stigma. Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New Jersey: Penguin Books RESISTING ASSIMILATION. MIGRANTS’ READING OF AUSTRALIAN HOUSES AND ‘ALTERNATIVE’ HOUSING DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES. FRANCESCA PERUGIA University of Western Australia, 2AHURI Scholar 1 The current Australian housing crisis highlights several aspects in relation to which the market is failing to provide housing for the Australian population. The most discussed by the general public as well as by current research is the availability and affordability of existing and future housing stock. However implementing policies and strategies targeting these issues cannot be considered the single conclusive answer when, in addition, there is the need to respond to the social challenges being faced by those seeking housing today. While The Western Australian housing crisis underlines the central importance of demographic issues when discussing the housing market and its affordability, the production of new housing stock needs to take into account not only demographics in terms of number of people but also contemplate its intrinsic characteristic by increasing the variety of housing types offered on the market. The current housing stock is offering essentially a single solution, the detached dwelling as response to many different housing demands. The ‘one size fits all’ approach has shown to be inappropriate in meeting the different housing needs of the Australian population; housing needs derived also from the increasing variety of people with different cultural backgrounds. 65 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 65 16/02/2015 9:23 am This paper proposes taking into consideration the cultural richness of the Australian population when developing housing design by exploring the design opportunities that arise from culturally and linguistically diverse migrants’ perception and use of typical Australian Houses. It emphasises the pivotal role of the house in migrancy experience as mediator between maintaining the home country culture and assimilating the new one. AFFO R DAB LE H O USIN G SUPPLY CH AIR : NICO LE GUR R AN NOWHERE TO RENT: THE GROWING SHORTAGE OF AFFORDABLE PRIVATE RENTAL HOUSING IN AUSTRALIA, 2006-2011 MARGARET REYNOLDS, KATH HULSE, Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Almost one in four Australian households is a private renter, including many lower income households. Government housing policies, both federal and state/territory, rely on the private sector rather than social housing to accommodate lower income households and offer various forms of assistance to help them to access and remain in the sector. For these initiatives to be successful an adequate supply of rental dwellings affordable to lower income households is essential. This paper presents results from the latest in a series of four studies that investigated the supply of, and demand for, private rental dwellings that are affordable to lower income households, and the extent of inter-censal change, particularly 2006-2011. The research approach replicates that developed in the earlier projects and involved a detailed analysis of customised Census data to calculate the supply of private rental dwellings that are ‘affordable’ to lower income households and, importantly, that are also ‘available’ to such households (ie not occupied by higher income households), as well as the percentage of households in unaffordable rental, using the 30 per cent of household income benchmark. The results showed that the situation for lowest (Q1) and second lowest quintile (Q2) households deteriorated on these three measures of shortage and that shortages moved further up the income scale affecting more Q2 households. Shortages of affordable rentals for Q1 and Q2 households are greatest numerically in Sydney and Melbourne but also increased markedly in larger regional centres in states affected by resources boom (Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory). These findings are despite an 18 per cent increase in private rental dwellings 20062011, twice the rate of household growth, and suggest that a combination of untargeted tax concessions to private rental investors allied with cash transfers to lower income private renters do not result in good social outcomes. THE INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANISATIONS IN ESTABLISHING AFFORDABLE HOUSING TARGETS EMMA GREENHALGH Urban Research Program, Griffith University 66 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 66 16/02/2015 9:23 am Affordable housing, housing affordability, affordable housing targets, statutory land authorities, Urban Land Development Authority, There has been renewed interest in statutory land authorities in recent years and how such organisations can deliver a revised urban agenda, particularly in the fields of sustainability and affordable housing. The introduction of the ULDA was the first time there had been a statutory planning authority in Queensland, and the first time that there had been specific planning legislation focused on affordable housing. In July 2007, the then Queensland Government introduced the Queensland Housing Affordability Strategy. A key plank of this strategy was the formation of the Urban Land Development Authority (ULDA); a planning and development authority with a specified legislative mandate to achieve ongoing affordability options for low to moderate income households, and to provide a range of housing options to address diverse community needs. One of the ways that the ULDA sought to achieve this was through explicit affordable housing targets; the overall target for the ULDA was 15 per cent of housing to be affordable to household on low to moderate income households. Previous research into the ULDA has focused on aspects of governance and public policy, as well as power and community consultation. There has been some research into the affordable housing outcomes of the organisation, but this focused on the urban renewal areas. It found that the potential of the ULDA in relation to affordable housing, in urban renewal areas, was not being fully realised. This paper will present on the doctoral research being undertaken on the affordable housing approaches and outcomes of the ULDA. It specifically utilises an institutional analysis approach to the formation of affordable housing targets and the ideas, interest and institutions that influenced the establishment and implementation of these targets across the ULDA’s areas of activities. GUARANTEEING SOCIAL HOUSING’S FUTURE? INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE AND AN AUSTRALIAN PROPOSAL JULIE LAWSON1, MIKE BERRY1, HAL PAWSON2 Centre for Urban Research, RMIT, 2City Futures, UNSW 1 The withdrawal of direct government investment in social housing necessitates greater reliance on private finance to ensure the growth of the sector. Yet adequate finance still requires a range of public support measures to ensure sufficient lower cost finance is available and that housing provided remains ‘social’. Within the realm of infrastructure finance, government and sector based guarantees are an emerging public policy tool. Guarantees are used to reduce reliance on public funds, build market confidence amongst new investor segments and accelerate investment in required social and economic infrastructure, including social housing. However, guarantees remain a contested realm of public policy, with implications for government accounts, and of course of cost and volume of social housing investment. This paper explores these differing views and investigates the actual experience of guarantees and intermediaries across six social housing finance systems in Europe and the US. Key design principles are distilled and two models a singled out for their effectiveness in raising funds and efficiency in providing lower cost loans to housing providers: the UK’s Housing Finance 67 Corporation and Switzerland’s Bond Issuing Co-operative. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 67 16/02/2015 9:23 am Learning from their experience and bearing in mind the Australian context, the paper’s goes on to outline a proposal for lifting investment in affordable rental housing in Australia via a specifically designed guarantee and not for profit financial intermediary: the Affordable Housing Finance Corporation. The paper draws on recently completed AHURI funded research, concerning the role of government guarantees and specialist not for profit financial intermediaries in financing affordable rental housing provision (Lawson, 2014, Lawson, Berry, Hamilton, Pawson, 2014). Lawson, J., Berry, M., Hamilton, C. and Pawson, H. (2014) Enhancing affordable rental housing investment via an intermediary and guarantee, AHURI Final Report No.220. Melbourne: AHURI pp. 1-112 http://www.ahuri.edu.au/ publications/projects/p53019 Lawson, J (2014) The use of guarantees in Affordable Housing Investment – a selective international review, RMIT AHURI Research Centre, Melbourne: AHURI pp. 1-93 CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 5 R ESIDENTI AL MO B ILIT Y CH AIR : ILAN W IES EL POPULATION MOBILITY IN MELBOURNE: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA 1903-1980 GEOFFREY MEEN University of Reading Economic and social change in urban systems typically takes place only slowly, although structural persistence may be interspersed with infrequent periods of very rapid change. Therefore, empirical studies of city dynamics may require local samples over long time periods. But there are very few examples across the world where micro panels covering long periods have been constructed. This paper presents initial results from a new panel data set covering the period 1903-1980, derived from electoral rolls. This complements a further study which is concerned with changes in individual property usage and ownership in Melbourne since the 19th century. Compared to most countries, Australian electoral data has the advantage of high coverage, as voting is compulsory, and universal suffrage since the first federal elections. In addition, electors were required to state their occupations, allowing the construction of social status measures for fine spatial areas. Using separate longitudinal data sets for the periods 1903-1914 and 19491980, the paper considers mobility and location patterns in Melbourne over these periods. It discusses how appropriate data can be constructed from individual, to street, to sub-district to city-wide levels on a consistent basis. It considers moving and location probabilities for different socio-economic groups over long periods of time. The paper also conducts formal empirical tests to examine the consistency of moving patterns with economic theory. 68 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 68 16/02/2015 9:23 am SINKS OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION OR SPRINGBOARDS FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY? ANALYSING THE ROLES OF DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBOURHOODS IN URBAN AUSTRALIA HAL PAWSON, SHANAKA HERATH City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, For two decades analysts have drawn attention to significant and growing levels of sociospatial polarisation in Australia’s cities (Raskall, 1995; Hunter & Gregory, 1996; Stimson, 2001; Pawson & Herath, 2014). The dominant policy narrative around ‘poverty neighbourhoods’ (e.g. Vinson, 2009) has stressed the hypothesis that residence in such an areas can compound the disadvantage affecting the individual resident – via so-called ‘neighbourhood effects’ (Galster, 2012). Inherent here are concerns that localities of this kind will be characterised by high rates of social exclusion, that is ‘the relational processes that contribute to inequality, such as impoverished social networks that lead to material and cultural poverty’ (Arthurson & Jacobs 2003, p24). However, as demonstrated in Australian research (e.g. Peel, 2003; Stubbs, 2005) social life in disadvantaged places can have substantial positive as well as negative features. Similarly, while housing market processes may act to ensnare some residing locally through necessity rather than choice, for others the availability of relatively affordable housing may provide a welcome foothold from which to ‘progress’ in the wider urban housing market. Hence, Galster’s (2013) comment that ‘‘Areas of concentrated disadvantage’… may operate as poverty traps…But others may operate as springboards launching residents into improving life trajectories’ (p324). Historically, however, research on the experience of living in disadvantaged places in urban Australia has been relatively scant. In an attempt to address this deficit, recent research by the authors included a household survey of 800 local residents in four disadvantaged suburbs of Sydney. Drawing on this, we analyse the nature and incidence of social exclusion in the study areas. Here, we build on the work of Randolph et al (2010) in defining distinct ‘dimensions of exclusion’ extending well beyond deprivation associated with income poverty. Through analysis of recent and prospective house moves, we go on to investigate the role of disadvantaged area housing market processes in constraining or facilitating geographical and social mobility. REFERENCES: Arthurson, K. & Jacobs, K. (2003) Social exclusion and housing; Melbourne: AHURI Galster, G. (2012) The mechanism(s) of neighbourhood effects: Theory, evidence, and policy implications; pp. 23–56 in: van Ham, M., Manley, D., Bailey, N., Simpson, L. & Maclennan, D. (eds), Neighbourhood effects research: Newperspectives, Dordrecht, NL: Springer Galster, G. (2013) Neighbourhood Social Mix: Theory, Evidence and Implications for Policy and Planning; in: Carmon, N. & Fainstein, S. (eds) Policy, Planning and People: Promoting justice in urban development; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Hunter, B. & Gregory, R. (1996) An exploration of the relationship between changing inequality of individual, household and regional inequality in Australian cities; Urban Policy and Research Vol 14(3), pp. 171–182 Pawson, H. & Herath, S. (2014) Developing a Typology of Socio-spatial Disadvantage for Urban Australia; Paper presented at: European Network for Housing Research conference, Edinburgh 1-4 July 2014 69 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 69 16/02/2015 9:23 am Peel, M. (2003) The lowest rung: Voices of Australian poverty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Randolph, B., Ruming, K.J. & Murray, D. (2010) Unpacking social exclusion in western Sydney: Exploring the role of place and tenure; Geographical Research, Vol 48(2), pp197–214 Raskall, P. (1995) Who gets what, where?: Spatial inequality between and within Australian cities, Paper prepared for seminar on spatial inequality, Commonwealth Department of Housing and Regional Development, Canberra. Stimson, R. (2001) Dividing societies: The socio-political spatial implications of restructuring in Australia; Australian Geographical Studies, Vol. 39(2), pp198–216 Stubbs, J. (2005) ‘What a difference participation makes: Learnings from the Minto redevelopment’, Housing Works,Vol. 3(2), pp. 6–12. Vinson, T. (2009) Markedly disadvantaged localities in Australia: Their nature and possible remediation; Canberra: Dept for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations A GOVERNMENTALITY PERSPECTIVE ON RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY: A MELBOURNE CASE STUDY MEGAN NETHERCOTE Residential mobilities operate at two scales: each individual move is at once highly personal— in its logic and in its effects—yet it also forms part of a collective sequence of movements, the sum of which transforms the very fabric of our cities. Given increasing inequalities across our cities and the role attributed to mobilities in reproducing these, there is a need for more nuanced understandings of how issues of housing liveability and affordability intersect with the complex flow or people into and out of our cities’ dwellings. Engaging with the nascent ‘mobilities turn’ in housing studies, this paper reports on qualitative research on the residential moves made by Melbournian householders to highlight the local outcomes and experiences of macro-scale policy engagement around urban affordability and liveability. Based on interviews with Melbourne householders, this paper reveals the subjective dimensions of residential mobility processes in the heterogeneous decisions that householders make about the housing they consume. Applying a post-structural governmentality analytics to residential mobility, the paper tracks the power and politics of discourse on homeowners, renters and welfare recipients under neoliberalism through households’ micro-level practices of mobility. By framing mobility as governmentality, the paper engages with, and develops, the mobilities paradigm in housing studies, and forges new understandings of the role of power in the dynamic between urban housing affordability and residential mobilities. H O USIN G AND PO PULATIO N AGEIN G CH AIR : CARYL B OS M AN RETIREMENT VILLAGES: THE LAST HOUSING DECISION? MAREE PETERSEN1, CHERYL TILSE2, TINA COCKBURN3 Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland 2School of Social Work and Human Services, University of Queensland 3Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology 1 70 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 70 16/02/2015 9:23 am Increasing numbers of older Australians live in retirement villages. As a specialised form of senior’s housing they are seen by many as a place that will respond to older people’s accommodation and care needs in their later years. There is often an underlying assumption moving to a retirement village will be the last relocation. However, older people continue to manage significant life transitions as they age including loss of a partner, ill health, frailty, fewer resources and thereby seek to move. Whilst there has been research on retirement village life the focus has been on quality of life, satisfaction and social networks. We know little about how residents manage important decisions whilst living in retirement villages, how the financial and contractual obligations assist or impede their life decisions. This presentation examines these issues through a life course lens and in the context of Queensland retirement villages. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from a survey undertaken with retirement village residents this presentation focuses on how the varied financial and legal structures associated with retirement villages are experienced by residents. The findings raises important questions about retirement village living and the impact it has on older people’s life transitions as they age. A SECURE FUTURE? THE HOUSING CIRCUMSTANCE OF RETIRED EX-SERVICE HOUSEHOLDS OF QUEENSLAND DEBORAH OXLADE PhD Candidate, Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland This research addresses an important and surprising gap in our knowledge of housing security in later life and the housing outcomes of the ex-service households in receipt of Department of Veteran’s Affairs benefits. While limited administrative data available on this group suggests that home ownership rates are lower than in the general aged community, very little consideration has been given to addressing this gap in knowledge and more importantly better understanding those at risk of housing insecurity. To address this gap, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in May 2012. The systematic random sample of 3000 ex-service households of Queensland was extracted from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) beneficiary database with a final sample size of 729. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from the questionnaire this presentation offers new insight into the housing circumstances of ex-service households and contributes to our understanding of housing security in later life. It does by operationalising a housing security index to examine what factors influence housing security in later life. It builds on the understanding of housing security gained over the past decade and raises important questions about the social, material and emotive attributes of housing security. TOWARDS AGE-FRIENDLY SOLUTIONS FOR LANDLORDS AND RENTERS CYNTHIA TOWNLEY1, DEBRA LEWIS2 Shelter Tasmania, Macquarie University, 2COTA Tas 1 Research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) suggests that Australia is on the threshold of a steady and sustained increase in the number of low-income 71 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 71 16/02/2015 9:23 am older renters, with the number of people aged 65 years and over living in low-income rental households projected to more than double from 195,000 in 2001 to 419,000 in 2026. The vulnerability of older renters is well known, although there is limited evidence of engagement and collaboration between aged care providers and the housing sector to address housing issues for older Australians. Shelter Tasmania and COTA Tasmania have recognised a common interest in responding to the emerging challenges associated with an ageing population and growing demand for age-friendly rental accommodation. This paper provides a road map towards how community sector organisations can work together to increase the supply of agefriendly rental housing in Tasmania, and to improve the ability of older people to age in place. H O USIN G S ERV ICE PR OV ISIO N FO R INDIGEN O US PEO PLE CH AIR : R H O NDA PHILLIPS UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AT THE FRONTLINE FIONA PROUDFOOT University of Tasmania Mainstream housing service providers are increasingly involved in the provision of housing services to Indigenous clients but there has been little investigation of how housing staff experience and manage the intercultural dimensions of this. This issue is important because of the considerable discretionary power that tenancy managers and frontline staff, exercise in their role. This paper develops a theoretical model for exploring how housing practitioners construct and understand cultural differences and/or similarities and the role this plays in shaping their professional interactions with Indigenous tenants. Thirty-one semi-structured in depth interviews were conducted in metropolitan and regional Queensland with housing practitioners working with Indigenous clients, in state, community and Indigenous-specific social housing services. Early findings suggest practitioners’ understandings can be located along a continuum of Racialised Dichotomy, Homogeneity and Recognition. This combines with their experiential knowing of Indigenous people and their cultural practices, and may help to explain how practitioners utilise their discretionary power at the interface of service provision. “THERE’S A HOUSING CRISIS GOING ON IN SYDNEY FOR ABORIGINAL PEOPLE”: FOCUS GROUP ACCOUNTS OF THE HOUSING EXPERIENCES OF ABORIGINAL PEOPLE LIVING IN WESTERN SYDNEY. MELANIE ANDERSEN1,2,3 ANNA WILLIAMSON 2,1 PETER FERNANDO2, SALLY REDMAN2,1 The University of NSW, 2The Sax Institute, 3The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute 1 72 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 72 16/02/2015 9:23 am Inadequate housing is acknowledged as a key determinant of the poor health of Aboriginal Australians yet there is little published research about housing conditions for those living in urban areas. This study explored the views of Aboriginal people in Western Sydney about their housing circumstances and if they perceive any relationship between housing and health. Four focus groups were conducted with clients and staff of an Aboriginal community-controlled health service in Western Sydney (n=38). Focus groups proved a culturally appropriate forum for conducting research with Aboriginal participants. Inductive, thematic analysis was conducted from a realist stance using framework data management methods in NVivo10. Five high-level themes were derived: the battle to access housing; secondary homelessness; overcrowding; poor dwelling conditions; and housing as a key determinant of health. Participants associated their housing experiences with poor physical health, poor social and emotional wellbeing and other ill effects. Housing issues were said to affect people differently across the life course; participants expressed particular concern that poor housing was harming the health and developmental trajectories of many urban Aboriginal children. Housing was perceived as a pivotal determinant of health and wellbeing that either facilitates or hinders prospects for full and healthy lives. Participants also discussed the social context for their housing problems and their needs and concerns in relation to housing service provision. This study suggests that urban Aboriginal housing requires attention in order to close the health and life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The findings will inform further quantitative studies conducted by the research team that aim to quantify associations between particular housing factors and aspects of health and wellbeing. M AN AGIN G TEN AN CIES IN SO CI AL H O USIN G CH AIR : H AZEL EASTH O PE DESIGN, CONTEXT AND TENANT CHARACTERISTICS: ARE THERE ANY RULES FOR HARMONIOUS SOCIAL HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS? JENNIFER BORRELL1, KATE SHAW2 Yarra Community Housing, 2University of Melbourne 1 Yarra Community Housing provides affordable rental housing to people who are marginalised and/or on low incomes. The organisation is in the process of implementing an adaptive ‘Social Housing Model’, based on internal and external research. Key ingredients of the model, found to facilitate stable housing and quality of life, include: direct access to long term housing, specialist support, proactive tenancy management, social and economic participation, trusting relationships (on many levels) and place-based community development. Always of fundamental importance are affordability, safety and good quality maintenance. Research indicates that architectural design features intersect in complex and fluid ways with social, cultural and organisational factors to create stable and affirming housing arrangements. For example, shared spaces on rental properties may be experienced as negative or positive 73 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 73 16/02/2015 9:23 am depending on tenant characteristics and ‘mix’, tenant feelings of ownership, allocation practices, housing density, level of support from workers and security arrangements as well as the type, purpose, location and design of the shared spaces. This presentation will explore the ways that social, situational, organisational and design factors intersect and ‘talk to each other’ to create harmonious housing environments for people who are marginalised and/or on low incomes. It will also explore the role of design standards for these target groups that might be transferred across different geographical, cultural and systemic contexts. ANTI-SOCIAL AND INTENSIVELY SOCIABLE: THE LOCAL CONTEXT OF NEIGHBOUR DISPUTES AND COMPLAINTS AMONG SOCIAL HOUSING TENANTS LYNDA CHESHIRE, SHANNON BUGLAR School of Social Science, The University of Queensland The presence of nuisance neighbours among social housing tenants is a matter of considerable policy debate and concern, yet there is limited research on tenants’ experiences or accounts of neighbour problems and disputes, or how they arise. Through an analysis of disputes between social housing tenants recorded by the Queensland Dispute Resolution Branch from 1999-2009, this paper seeks to provide new insight into the nature and extent of neighbour problems encountered by social housing tenants and the conditions that often cause them to have difficult and highly stressful neighbourly encounters. Consistent with previous research, the paper begins by identifying two contributing factors: the so-called ‘residualisation’ of social housing whereby social housing is inhabited by those with complex needs and challenging behaviours; and the difficulties associated with high density living, as experienced by tenants in medium-density social housing units. Yet, while the problems that ensue are commonly viewed through the lens of anti-social behaviour, this paper reveals that they are also the product of a particularly intensive form of sociability that arises among social housing tenants due to the localised nature of their lives and interactions. These interactions more commonly resemble the intensive patterns of neighbouring found in classic community studies of working class neighbourhoods than they do contemporary understandings of neighbouring among more affluent and mobile populations. The flip side of this is that conflict, gossip and a lack of privacy are also commonly encountered, as is the exercise of social sanctions against those who do not fit in or are seen to cause problems. When combined with the concentration of social problems that results from the residualisation process, it is this intensively sociable, rather than just antisocial, mode of interaction that helps explain why, when neighbour relations go wrong for social housing tenants, they do so in highly problematic and distressing ways. 74 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 74 16/02/2015 9:23 am National Housing Conference 2015 opening doors... 28 to 30 October 2015 Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre Join us in Perth from 28–30 October 2015 as AHURI convenes the National Housing Conference... opening doors in partnership with the Western Australian Department of Housing. NHC 2015 in Perth will be an inspiring and motivating experience for everyone interested in discussing and debating housing and homelessness research, policy and practice issues. For the first time, it will provide special delegate experiences tailored to practice innovation, leadership opportunities and policy reform strategy. • Visit www.nhc.edu for the latest, up-to-date information about the conference. It will open the door to everything you need to know about this exciting, innovative event. • Subscribe to receive NHC 2015 e-updates at www.nhc.edu.au/subscribe/ to be kept informed. • Register now to take advantage of the special super saver registration fees! If you’re interested in ensuring all Australians have a home—whether as a policy-maker, researcher, builder, financier, planner or housing and allied service provider—this is a must attend event for you. We look forward to welcoming you to Perth in October 2015! Conference convenor In partnership with www.nhc.edu.au AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 75 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ HOW TO HOUSE THE HARD TO HOUSE: THE DISCOURSE OF THE ‘PROBLEM TENANT’ IN TASMANIAN HOUSING POLICY KATHLEEN FLANAGAN University of Tasmania This paper is drawn from a PhD thesis examining the history of public housing in Tasmania in order to develop a genealogical perspective on contemporary policy positions. One of the perennial housing policy ‘problems’ is the question of how to accommodate the small group of households which the market refuses to house, but who, because of their behaviour, are extremely difficult for social housing authorities to house without creating problems with arrears, damage to property and stigmatisation. In this paper, I examine how the state housing authority in Tasmania dealt with this issue from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Over this period, the Housing Department’s position shifted from disclaiming any responsibility for the housing of ‘problem’ tenants through to accepting this task as a core activity. Previous research has explored tenant management through a governmentality framework. Using archival records, I draw mainly on Foucault’s account of history, discourse and the production of knowledge to explore how certain households were constituted as objects of intervention. This genealogical approach illuminates how knowledge about the ‘problem’ household was assembled, disassembled and reassembled in response to the ongoing existence of these families as politically and socially problematic, but present, realities. As contemporary housing policy moves towards models premised on integrated ‘affordable’ rather than ‘social’ housing, the question of how to house the hard to house remains and so does the quest for solutions. This paper raises questions about how ‘new’ the ‘new’ responses being developed in fact are, but more importantly it also demonstrates how the way in which our knowledge of the ‘problem’ is discursively produced defines what is possible and impossible in the way of solutions. Seeing that our knowledge is not natural or inevitable or necessary opens up space in the future for different responses in this critical area of social policy. 76 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 76 16/02/2015 9:23 am ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ H O USIN G SUPPLY CH AIR : K ATH Y HULS E DOES TRANSPORT INVESTMENT BOOST POTENTIAL HOUSING SUPPLY IN METROPOLITAN AREAS? JULIAN SZAFRANIEC1, MARCUS SPILLER2 SGS Economics and Planning, 2SGS Economics and Planning 1 This paper tests the hypothesis that improving the connectivity of a location, whether this be situated in the established urban footprint or on the urban fringe, will implicitly improve the dwelling yield from these areas. Using two case study projects in metropolitan Melbourne – the East West Link and Melbourne Metro One – the paper models the impact of major transport investments on housing location and density. In keeping with the general view in the literature, the analysis confirms that transport improvements can galvanise apartment activity in a location. However, it also finds that the infrastructure in question needs to be of sufficient scale and scope to substantially boost an area’s linkages to major employment nodes. More minor transport upgrades which focus on localised circulation are less likely to substantially lift density. The upshot of the paper is that correctly targeted ‘city shaping’ transport infrastructure can effectively boost the supply of housing within existing urban footprints, not through land release/ rezoning, but by raising the feasibility for more intensity uses as people trade private space for improved services and opportunities. Such expansion in effective land supply for housing can place downward pressure on housing prices, other things equal. REPURPOSING COMMUNITY SECTOR LAND ASSETS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING IAN MCSHANE1, ANDREA SHARAM2 RMIT University 2Swinburne University 1 The Australian community or not-for-profit (NFP) sector has come to policy attention as a source of well-located land suitable for affordable housing developments. The ACT Government’s 2012 affordable housing action plan, for example, states that the land on which many clubs and community facilities operates is underutilised, and proposes incentives for NFPs to redevelop their sites to include affordable housing. This presentation canvasses the re-purposing of underutilised or redundant assets owned by NFPs for affordable housing provision. We background the nature of property assets held by the Australian NFP sector, and discuss policy, infrastructural, social and organisational changes that open the way for repurposing. We then discuss how NFP organisations view suggestions to repurpose their land for affordable housing. We conducted interviews with a sample of NFPs, in which the organisations articulated clear links between their mission, their property assets, and housing affordability. Our interview data suggest, though, that a range of institutional and structural barriers would need to be overcome for housing developments to occur on underutilised NFP land holdings. 77 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 77 16/02/2015 9:23 am VACANT LAND TRANSACTION-BASED INDEXES, A WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CASE STUDY GREG COSTELLO Curtin University A suitable supply of vacant land available for housing construction is the first component in the provision of affordable housing. Despite the abundance of research into transaction-based indexes for improved housing there have been few studies of appropriate transaction-based methodologies directed towards vacant land. There are several reasons for this including; (i) lack of data in regions where land is introduced to the housing system in the vacant form (ii) the “moving target” nature of vacant land supply meaning that sales are tightly clustered in areas where vacant land exists. When it is sold and improved the vacant land clusters move to different price and spatial segments thereby creating significant measurement issues, a key focus of this study. This paper presents an empirical study analysing a rich dataset of vacant land transactions for the city of Perth WA 1990 - 2013. The study focuses upon testing established methodology for transaction-based indexes in housing markets applied to vacant land markets. The methodologies include hedonic pricing (both longitudinal and strictly cross-sectional) and repeat sales methodology. An important benefit of the study is that in analysing actual transactions at the micro level, very specific supply characteristics are revealed for the city of Perth both across time, space and various price segments. The results also reveal characteristics of the vacant land market from a real option pricing framework. Vacant land represents a real option to a purchaser in that they may construct a house according to their requirements (exercise the real option) or choose not to build and sell the vacant land (on-sell the option). These characteristics of the market are revealed through the analysis of repeat sales and provide evidence of a significant option pricing premium in the sale of vacant land together with significant periods of speculative activity. 78 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 78 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 6 MO RTGAGES AND THE ECO N OMY CH AIR : LYNDALL B RYANT BUILDING BORROWER TYPOLOGIES IN THE MORTGAGE MARKET; EVIDENCE IN AUSTRALIA MARIA BELEN YANOTTI1, MARDI DUNGEY1,3,4 GRAEME WELLS1, FIRMIN DOKO TCHATOKA2 University of Tasmania, 2University of Adelaide, 3CFAP, University of Cambridge, CAMA, Australian National University 1 4 This paper explores home loan borrower characteristics in a non-parametric manner; it builds borrower typologies based on the type of home loan product selected through the application of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and cluster analysis. The investigation is applied to the Australian mortgage market for the period between January 2003 and August 2008, where the predominant owner-occupier home loans offered were variable-rate mortgages (VRMs), short-term fixed-rate mortgages, discounted variable-rate mortgages, and home equity loans. Results show that households with high income but low wealth were more likely to take standard mortgages to finance their homes, while households with high wealth but low income preferred products such as discounted rate loans and home equity loans. We identify six distinctive borrower typologies in the Australian mortgage market, and conclude that borrowers that were associated with VRMs are generally less risk averse, mobile, and have high income and wealth. These results suggest that Australian borrowers bearing the interest rate risk in a VRM were in a strong financial position to face an interest rate shock during the sample period. Moreover, we argue that some borrower profiles were under-served. INTERNATIONAL FUNDING COSTS, MORTGAGE INTEREST RATES AND CASH RATE CYCLE RELATIONSHIP: EVIDENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF AUSTRALIA BENJAMIN LIU, EDUARDO ROCA, QUYNH CHAU PHAM Griffith Business School, Griffith University Australia is a nation of home-loan borrowers. Hence, the movement of mortgage rates is closely watched in the country. Borrowers expect mortgage rates to synchronise with the cash rate, particularly when the cash rate decreases. More recently, however, the media has reported a weakening of this link. This has been accompanied by complaints from the public and politicians that banks no longer automatically pass on full reductions in the cash rate to mortgage holders. Banks claim that this is due to the effect of international funding costs. We test this claim in this paper. We investigate the relationship between mortgage rates and the 79 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 79 16/02/2015 9:23 am cash rate, taking into account international funding costs in the context of Australia. Using a battery of econometric tests, we analyse data pertaining to all 20 Australian banks during the period 1996 to 2012. We find that international funding costs significantly affect mortgage rates, but the cash rate still continues to drive mortgage rates in Australia. However, the linkage between the cash rate and mortgage rates has indeed weakened since 2006. Our findings, therefore, confirm the divergence of mortgage rates from the cash rate cycle and provide support for the claim by banks that this is due to the effect of international funding costs. This situation creates more uncertainty in relation to the movement of mortgage rates and therefore may discourage people from owning homes, particularly those who are first home buyers as well as those who can least afford to buy homes. Thus, the results of our study have important implications for housing affordability and home ownership. THE REGULATION, MORTGAGE INNOVATION AND HOUSE PRICE NEXUS ASHTON DE SILVA, JONATHAN BOYMAL, STUART THOMAS School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University Understanding how regulation, mortgage innovation and house prices interact is essential if future policy changes are to be effective. We begin by briefly summarising the recent Australian policy environment identifying the importance of signals and regulation . We then draw on past international research to define a typical relationship. Based on a set of interviews with key industry professionals as well as analysis of house prices we identify the relationships underpinning these three important areas. ................. ............................... ............................. ........................... ................................ ............................. ................................ ............................... ........................... ................................. ............................. ............................... ............................. ............................. . . . . . . . . . ...... 80 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 80 16/02/2015 9:23 am H O USIN G FO R V ULNER AB LE PO PULATIO N S CH AIR : R EB ECCA B ENTLEY AN EXPLORATION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF INCLUSIVE DESIGN AND UNIVERSAL DESIGN THROUGH THE LENS OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER CERIDWEN OWEN, CATHRYN KERR School of Architecture & Design, University of Tasmania The fundamental premise of ‘inclusive design’ is the development of integrated design solutions and practices that foster broad participation and engagement in the built environment. Although conceptually broader than ‘universal design’, at an operational level there is very little distinction and the terms are commonly used inter-changeably. Emerging from the disability rights movement, parameters of inclusion remain focused on bodily impairment, with issues of mobility and access foregrounded in policy and practice. The translation of rights to access into principles of access are underpinned by normative assumptions of ‘good’ design that embrace abstract universalism at the expense of situated difference. Further, the discourse is framed within a positivist paradigm that positions inclusion as a problem that can be solved by appropriate technological and built environment solutions. This paper responds to Rob Imrie’s challenge to question the potential for a more progressive agenda that negotiates a path between universal rights and situated difference engaging a broader spectrum of interests and needs. Within this over-arching agenda, the paper focuses on the parameters of rights, diversity and inclusion in housing design from the perspective of individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD inherently embodies diversity and confronts typically adopted perceptions of ‘disability’. Neurodevelopmental differences in sensitivity and cognition provide a non-physical framework for examination, force discourse on cultural and socio-political underpinnings, and belie the possibility of ‘universal’ solutions. Following an interrogation of the theoretical premise of ‘inclusive’ and ‘universal’ design, the paper exposes the limitations of the operationalisation of these concepts in Australian housing policy, design guidelines and legislation through the lens of ASD. The paper concludes by speculating on the potential to develop more dynamic frameworks for universal and inclusive design that navigate the complex territory between incontrovertible rights and, diverse and negotiated needs, desires and practices. THE FAILURE OF A VOLUNTARY CODE FOR UNIVERSALLY-DESIGNED HOUSING MARGARET WARD Griffith University Most people want to remain in their own homes, and to be active and included in community and family life for as long as possible. A ready supply of universally-designed housing has long been 81 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 81 16/02/2015 9:23 am recognised as important infrastructure not only for inclusive communities but also for the costeffective implementation of in-home health and support services for older people and people with disability. The housing industry acknowledges the need for changes in current industry practice and prefers a voluntary incentivised framework to mandated regulation. To this end, community, industry and government leaders agreed in 2010 to an aspirational target of all new housing providing minimum access features by 2020, which was subsequently endorsed by COAG as part of its National Disability Strategy. At the halfway point to this target in 2015, government initiatives for increasing the supply of universally-designed housing continue to cite the agreement, yet housing providers are showing few signs of changing their practices. Consumer groups have identified this incongruence and currently lead the advocacy for the signatories of the agreement to be called to account. This paper reports on this advocacy, which claims that most of the signatories are “missing in action” and anticipates that, regardless of the economic, social and human rights imperatives outlined in the National Disability Strategy, the agreement will fail. The paper discusses the advocates’ recommended interventions and concludes that their call for purposeful government intervention through regulation is justified. The paper identifies areas for further research which will inform this debate. RESEARCHING THE HOUSING FUTURES OF MINORITY GROUPS: GYPSIES AND TRAVELLERS IN ENGLAND MICHAEL BULLOCK (BSc. (Hons) Geography, PhD (Geography), CIHM, MMRS) This paper explores the complexities of understanding and researching the housing futures of one of the England’s most marginalised ethnic groups: Gypsies and Travellers. Although around three-quarters of households (UK 2011 census) live in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing, there is a continued cultural need to live on pitches (and area of land occupied by a resident family) on Gypsy and Traveller sites (comprising a number of pitches). The Government currently requires Local Authorities to assess the future housing needs of this group and in particular the need for additional pitches on sites. However, the delivery of new sites remains highly controversial and generally subject to considerable public opposition. It is therefore essential that robust and defensible local evidence bases are created to assess future pitch requirements to support the housing futures of this group. The paper brings together empirical research from studies for 40 Local Authorities over the past 5 years to establish patterns of housing need and travelling behaviour. It considers the factors underpinning future pitch requirements and how evidence needs to be carefully interpreted to establish future requirements. The paper also considers the challenge of researching marginalised cultural groups, the role of community fieldworkers in the research process, and how the findings of research are helping to shape local planning and land use policy. 82 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 82 16/02/2015 9:23 am The paper concludes that the use of community fieldworkers is central to the success of fieldwork; that analysis of pitch need requires careful interpretation to take account of household mobility and household formation trends; the extent to which the needs of households living in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing should be considered; that policy approaches need to be sensitive to cultural needs; and there continues to be a shortfall in pitch provision for Gypsy and Traveller communities across England. H OM ELES SNES S CH AIR : DEB O R AH BATTER H A M THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK? THE HOMELESSNESS CONSEQUENCES OF UK ECONOMIC RECESSION AND WELFARE REFORM HAL PAWSON1 , SUZANNE FITZPATRICK2 City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, 2Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh 1 The six years following the onset of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 have seen the UK economy mired in a prolonged economic slowdown and associated weak labour market conditions placing millions of households at financial risk. Since 2010, associated with the GFC-triggered collapse in tax revenues, the UK Government has been implementing a raft of ‘welfare reforms’ designed to restore the public finances by cutting social security spending mainly via reduced benefit entitlement for low-income households. In particular, an incrementally implemented array of restrictions to Housing Benefit bears down on the five million HB-entitled renters, and on their capacity to avoid defaulting on housing payments. The incremental sequencing of these changes meant that the full effects were expected to become apparent only from 2013 onwards. However, while it was widely anticipated that the combined effects of economic weakness and welfare reforms would trigger major increases in homelessness, especially after 2013, this appears to have been only partially realised. Indeed, while the latest official homelessness figures for England are running some 30% higher than at their 2009/10 low point, the number of households accepted by local authorities as unintentionally homeless and in priority need in 2013/14 actually fell by 2% on 2012/13. Drawing on analysis of official statistics, together with a survey of local authorities, and key stakeholder indepth interviews, with this paper will summarise the economic factors and welfare reform measures which might have been expected to push up homelessness and the possible explanations for the apparent absence of a major impact in this respect. BRISBANE COMMON GROUND: HOW DO TENANTS VIEW SINGLE SITE SUPPORTIVE HOUSING? CAMERON PARSELL, MAREE PETERSEN, ORNELLA MOUTOU Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland There are contemporary debates about the form of supportive housing with support and how it assists in addressing homelessness. Both scattered-site and single-site supportive housing are 83 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 83 16/02/2015 9:23 am advocated with research demonstrating the former as assisting people with complex needs and the latter favoured by politicians and philanthropists. In this presentation, the focus is on singlesite supportive housing, and the ways the residents experience their tenancy, a viewpoint missing from the literature. Informed by the concepts of home and community, how tenants experience their housing, supports, security, and neighbours is analysed. These themes are considered with 120 tenants undertaking a survey as part of a multistage empirical study of Brisbane Common Ground. Based on the experiences of residents in single-site supportive housing this presentation highlights the complex and contested views of home and community and how this is linked to ontological security, support, controlled access and security features. IT’S MORE THAN A BED FOR THE NIGHT: PRACTICES EFFECTIVE FOR ASSISTING YOUNG PEOPLE TO AVOID OR EXIT HOMELESSNESS LYNNE KEEVERS1, HELEN BACKHOUSE2 LISA MACLEOD3 University of Wollongong 2Southern Youth and Family Services Southern Youth and Family Services 1 3 In the context of the current crisis in housing affordability, housing futures for young people are increasingly uncertain. Young people experience specific and often structural barriers to accessing housing in the private rental market due to such factors as their age, income, family backgrounds and discrimination. How communities, organisations, governments and business work to assist young people secure quality housing is critical to their well-being, health and success in life. Despite recognition of homelessness in the policy environment, relatively little is known about the practices effective in assisting young people to avoid or exit homelessness and the voices of homeless young people are often absent or go unheard in policy discussions. Underpinned by a practice-based approach and using a two phase participatory action research (PAR) framework this study articulates and documents the experience of young people involved in Southern Youth and Family Services (SYFS), a not-for-profit, community-based organisation situated on the south-east coast of NSW. Employing both quantitative and qualitative data gathering methods this study identifies that organising practices that have the most significant impact and benefits for young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The aspects nominated by young people as making the most positive difference in their lives encompass indicators of wellbeing, care and social justice and include: the relationship with and the care practices of the SYFS staff; practices that assist young people learn to look after themselves and to become independent; developing a sense of belonging and connectedness, a sense of control over their lives and a sense of hope for the future; and access to stable supported accommodation. This study suggests that outcome measures used by funding bodies to assess the performance of funded youth homelessness services, do not give sufficient weight to indicators of social justice, inclusion and wellbeing or to relationships based on care, respect and persistence. The data also 84 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 84 16/02/2015 9:23 am indicates that current policies over-estimate the importance of securing permanent housing for young people. The young people in our study identify access to stable housing that enables them to transition to independent housing as important. TEN ANT PERSPECTIV ES CH AIR : K ATH Y HULS E THE MOBILITY ASPIRATIONS OF AUSTRALIA’S PUBLIC HOUSING TENANTS (2002-2012) RAE DUFTY-JONES, DALLAS ROGERS, MICHAEL DARCY University of Western Sydney, Australia Australia’s population is one of the most internally mobile in the western world. This has significant implications for how housing is accessed and consumed. Recent research identifies a politics of mobility has come to inform the development of housing policy in a number of international contexts, including Australia (Dufty-Jones, 2012a; 2012b). In some cases those in receipt of housing assistance are expected to become voluntarily mobile in order to relocate to improve their social and economic opportunities. In other cases their mobility is involuntarily and directed by the state through estate redevelopments. While the state’s motives are clear, little is known about how recipients of housing assistance imagine their mobility and, when given greater control, how they would pursue it. In Australia, public housing tenants are allowed to request a ‘mutual exchange’ of their homes with other public housing tenants to improve their access to family, services and employment. Local housing authorities have traditionally managed and mediated such moves. However in 2002 a tenant group independently established a website (Our House Swap) which enabled them to circumvent these administrative gatekeepers and advertise their homes directly to each other. Over a ten-year period (2002-2012) more than 10,000 public housing tenants advertised their home for ‘mutual exchange’ on this website. The entries from Australian public housing tenants form the dataset that is analysed in this paper. The analysis focuses on the mobile aspirations and geographical preferences of Australia’s public housing tenants. In doing so it presents important insight into how mobility is imagined and pursued by some of the most vulnerable in Australian society. AGAINST THE GRAIN: TOWARDS A CRITICAL GENEALOGY OF RESIDENT RESISTANCE TO PUBLIC AND SOCIAL HOUSING POLICY CHANGE ANGELA NUNN Public and social housing residents are among the most vulnerable populations in society, made more so by the vagaries of changing housing policies and the reluctance of policy makers and governments to genuinely take into account their views about where they live, despite the use of deliberate strategies to engage and consult residents facing policy driven change. This paper considers possibilities for developing Foucault’s genealogical approach so as to extend the critical purchase of the governmentality analytic, and provide a new means for contesting 85 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 85 16/02/2015 9:23 am knowledge production for housing policy. This work is informed by Walters (2012), who argues against simply applying a governmentality analytic to different domains, and instead challenges us to encounter governmentality. In particular, Walter’s suggestion to ‘change the angle’ (2012 p. 145) of the analysis of the network of governing has potential for recognising residents’ situated knowledge by making residents the starting point of analysis. It is argued that such an approach has possibilities for recognising what are otherwise subjugated knowledges (Foucault 2003), particularly in situations where tenants are resistant to mooted policy change. This work also draws on ideas by Medina (2011); in particularly the emphasis on genealogies developed on the basis of engaging with those ‘… whose memories do not fit the historical narratives available’ (Medina 2011, p. 12). It is also likely that a genealogy of residents’ resistance could contribute to a broader project about rethinking how the notion of resistance is understood. REFERENCES: Foucault M 2003, Society Must Be Defended, Picador, New York. Medina J 2011, ‘Towards a Foucaultian Epistemology of Resistance: Counter-Memory, Epistemic Friction, and Geurilla Pluralism’, Foucault Studies, no. 12, pp. 9-35. Walters, W 2012, Governmentality: critical encounters, Routledge, London. Note:The phrase ‘against the grain’ is borrowed from Medina (2011). THE EVALUATION OF THE BOARDING HOUSES ACT 2012 (NSW) GABRIELLE DRAKE, DR HAZEL BLUNDEN University of Western Sydney Historically, boarding houses were used for providing temporary accommodation to visiting city workers or people on holiday. However, boarding houses now provide both short and long-term accommodation for persons that may not be able to afford or access other forms of housing. In October 2012, the Parliament of New South Wales (NSW) passed the Boarding Houses Act 2012 (NSW) (the Act) to regulate boarding houses in NSW. This paper presents the findings of the first data collection phase of a five year, longitudinal study that explored the effectiveness of the Act. This mixed methods study included 215 surveys and 54 interviews with boarding house residents; 57 surveys and 21 interviews with boarding house proprietors; and four focus groups with community and health agency staff. This data collection spanned three geographical areas in NSW: Marrickville, Ashfield and Newcastle. The paper will present some of the policy implications identified in the study with a focus on housing stress, residents’ knowledge of the Act, compliance and enforcement of the Act; and residents’ unmet needs. 86 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 86 16/02/2015 9:23 am H O USIN G FIN AN CE CH AIR : GR EG COSTELLO RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE AND DWELLING SUPPLY STEVEN ROWLEY School of Economics and Finance, Curtin University A lack of available finance is cited by the development industry as one of the main barriers to residential development in the post GFC climate. Without finance, the vast majority of development projects cannot make it past the land acquisition stage let alone commence construction. The big four banks have dominated development finance in recent years and their strategies and decisions have had a major impact on dwelling supply. There are significant differences in the way developers with different organisational structures, for example Real Estate Investment Trusts, syndicated developers and small, single project firms are able to structure their development finance and consequently the appetite of traditional financiers to lend money. While the risk and potential returns of a specific development scheme remain crucial for banks, the institution’s exposure to property and the financial structure of the developer drive the final lending decision. While larger development companies are able to borrow on the basis of their existing property assets, smaller developers struggle to secure finance without significant equity injections and 80%+ pre-sales. The changing nature of finance has influenced different development sectors in different ways, for example many large greenfield developers remain unaffected, although there has been a shift towards joint ventures, while infill development has been hit particularly hard through the ability of small, local developers to access finance. This research explores the implications of finance availability on dwelling supply, in particular the ability of the development industry to deliver the scale of infill development required within regional planning schemes. AUSTR ALI AN IN STITUTIO N AL IN V ESTO RS ’ ATTITUDES R EGAR DIN G R ESIDENTI AL PR O P ERT Y IN V ESTM ENT CHYI LIN LEE1 , GRAEME NEWELL2 , VALARIE KUPKE3 School of Business and Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, School of Business , University of Western Sydney, 3School of Commerce, University of South Australia 1 2 A lack of institutional investor involvement in the private rented sector is a structural weakness in the Australian rental market. To encourage institutional investment in the private rental market, several residential investment vehicles such as REITs have been introduced in the US and the UK. Despite Australian REITs being the second largest REIT market in the world, no residential REIT vehicle is available in Australia. Therefore, it is not only essential to assess the attitudes of Australian institutional investors regarding housing investment, but also residential investment vehicles. A survey of Australian institutional investors concerning residential property investment was conducted in August-September 2014. The results showed that the lack of well-structured residential investment vehicles and low returns were seen as critical issues in residential property 87 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 87 16/02/2015 9:23 am market. In addition, the most desirable features for an effective residential investment vehicle were being managed by an experienced manager, diversified portfolio by location and delivering stable income returns with low debt. The implications of the findings are also discussed. INTEGRATED DATA INFRASTRUCTURE PLATFORM AS A TOOL TO INFORM SUSTAINABLE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY ANALYSIS IN MELBOURNE MUYIWA ELIJAH AGUNBIADE, MOHSEN KALANTARI, ABBAS RAJABIFARD University of Melbourne Existing knowledge reveals that greater attention is focused on the use of income-mortgage ratio and income-rent percentage for assessing housing affordability. There is sufficient evidence to argue that this is a narrow view of housing affordability assessment, hence the introduction of the sustainable housing affordability concept. With this perspective, several variables are considered important and they should be included to facilitate drawing appropriate conclusions on housing affordability assessment. However, there are challenges of assembling, accessing and using these data variables. The overarching aim of this paper is to present the process of developing a tool to assist in the housing affordability analysis using these multiple criteria. This is by bringing together several datasets from different agencies, which satisfy the many parameters. A Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) algorithm with the use of COPRAS method is used a veritable means of driving the integration and analysis of data to support an appropriate assessment of the key themes. It concluded that integrated data infrastructure is a requirement to assist in making informed decisions about sustainable housing affordability. 88 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 88 16/02/2015 9:23 am So Solving Tomorrow’s Social Challenges Institute for the Study of Social Change Authorised by the Director, Institute for the Study of Social Change © University of Tasmania, Australia. Info Line 1300 363 864 ABN 30 764 374 782. CRICOS Provider Code 00586B AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 89 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 7 H O USIN G AND PLANNIN G CH AIR : H AL PAWSO N THE AUSTRALIAN SUBURBAN DREAM: ALIVE BUT NOT KICKING PAUL BURTON Urban Research Program, Griffith University Graeme Davison has described Australia as ‘a mental suburb of England’ in which for 150 years the ideals of suburban life provided a template of the good life for most Australians. Towards the end of the last century this began to change, in the face of cultural and political criticism but more pertinently in response to market adjustments by developers looking to develop new markets for new housing products. While the cultural and political criticism did not go unanswered and some new market developments provoked local opposition and resistance, the suburban good life template began to show signs of fraying. This paper begins by critically reviewing the longevity of this suburban template and the factors that appear to be leading to its fraying. It then explores the manifestation of these changes in the city of Gold Coast, which has grown rapidly over the last half century to become Australia’s sixth largest city. It is also a place which to some epitomises a laissez faire approach to planning and development and, to the extent that this is true, reflects changing notions of an Australian suburban good life as well as its contemporary challenges. To assess the degree to which the suburban template is fraying in this particular place, the paper draws on data from existing studies of housing and planning in the city, interviews with local and national housing developers and promotional material for new and older housing developments in and around the city. The paper concludes that the Australian suburban dream is still alive, but is not kicking and its long term future remains uncertain. HOUSING CHOICES AND TRADE OFFS IN AUCKLAND ALISON REID Research, Investigations and Monitoring Unit, Auckland Council Auckland is at a turning point in how it must think about and deliver housing solutions. It is New Zealand’s ‘primate city’ and is home to one third of the total New Zealand population. The population of Auckland is projected to increase exponentially, driven by natural increase as well as net in-migration from other parts of New Zealand and overseas, which will drive the demand for an increasing number of dwellings. Further to this, increasing ethnic and cultural diversity and a changing demographic composition will drive demand for a variety of appropriate housing solutions. This ongoing demand for a range of housing solutions is occurring in a broader context of a general desire to curb urban sprawl. The issue of enabling and encouraging supply-side factors to meet this demand is a priority for Auckland Council, and for central government. The Auckland Plan specifically employs wording 90 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 90 16/02/2015 9:23 am around a ‘housing crisis’ in Auckland, and includes a priority to ‘increase housing choice to meet diverse preferences and needs’. The Plan proposes an urban form for Auckland of a ‘quality compact city’ with up to 70% of growth occurring within the 2012 Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) over 30 years, but with flexibility for up to 40% outside the MUL. In this context, and building on research undertaken in several Australian cities, Auckland Council has undertaken a study into the housing preferences, choices and trade-offs that Auckland residents would realistically make when choosing a place to live. This was a discrete choice experiment that explored the trade-offs households make between size, location and housing type. This presentation will report on initial findings from the study and will consider broader implications for Auckland’s future housing supply. V I AB ILIT Y O F SO CI AL H O USIN G PARTNERSHIP B ET W EEN GOV ER N M ENT AND N OT - FO R - PR O FIT S ECTO RS – R ELATIO N SHIP B ET W EEN NEO - LIB ER AL M ACR O AGENDA AND AUSTR ALI AN PO LICY TOO LK IT SIR IS EN A HER ATH Macquarie University Social Housing (SH) sector has been confronting significant fissures in many Organisation of Economic Development (OECD) countries including Australia since late 1970s. Changes influencing SH provision and management have originated from both supply and demand side challenges. (Jacobs, Atkinson et al. 2010) In relation to supply side main concerns centre on the viability of existing stocks in terms of age and location. These issues have been compounded by a reduction in the level of funding available to SH providers. In relation to the demand side, the SH sector has experienced growing demand resulting in longer waiting lists. Compounding this growth in demand, there has been a qualitative shift in the nature of applications. Current demand is mostly from people facing severe social disadvantage who have been compelled to demand higher housing subsidies due to their social vulnerability in terms of physical or mental ability and/or income poverty. (Arthurson 2010) In response to the challenges facing, SH providers of many OECD countries have moved towards searching market based solutions by partnering with the emerging not-for-profit (NFP) community providers. (Blessing 2012). The first part of this paper traces the relationship between macro ideological trends of neo-liberalism and the policy trajectory in SH sector since late 1970s which have framed the current situation. The macro ideological trend of neo-liberalism is on one hand blamed for the growing gap of social inequality where free market struggled to provide answers. On the other hand it is possible to proposition that neo-liberalism’s ‘variegated’ forms leave room for quasi-market approaches involving private, public and community sectors to search for viable solutions to issues such as high demand for SH which was considered the sole responsibility of government under Keynesian mix economic models. This paper argues that (a) fundamentals in neo-liberalism still carry severe 91 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 91 16/02/2015 9:23 am contradictions between their approaches to economic growth and social and environmental equity (b) as a consequence contemporary SH policy approaches carry similar contradictions illustrated through the analysis of Australian SH policy material originating from commonwealth and state government (c) what is key to a successful community and public partnership in SH is sincere commitment of stakeholders with crystal clear roles paying attention to the local path and situation, learning from similar exercises and taking risks rather than direct application of a theory. EN V IR O N M ENTAL LY SUSTAIN AB LE H O USIN G CHAIR: MICHELLE GABRIEL EVOLUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN HOUSING MARKET AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIVE HOUSING SRIMIN PERERA Australian households make a significant impact on the environment by generating almost ‘one fifth of Australia’s greenhouse gases’ (Australian Greenhouse Office 2003). Given the availability of all the environmentally responsive building materials and design methods plus, given that a majority of Australians are concerned about the environmental changes occurring (ABS 2012), this study will contribute to the understanding of why homeowners are not demanding environmentally responsive methods in building/ using their new home. Through literature review, it was found that this was due to internal psychological factors which were mitigated through contextual factors. This paper reviews the contextual factors of the Australian housing market that has its influence on environmentally responsive housing. Some of these factors for Australia include, financial deregulation and mortgage structure; increased housing wealth; change in family structure; influence of colonization and migration; and suburbanization. A HOUSE WITHOUT A VERANDAH IS LIKE A FACE WITHOUT EYEBROWS HELEN CAMERON School opf Psychology, Social Work & Social Policy, 2University of South Australia. Unless a person is rich enough to design their own house, developers and builders usually determine the style. Inevitably this precludes the use of verandas or even adequate eaves. A glance at any property insert from local papers demonstrates this. This trend makes no sense in our country where hot summers are common. The less well-off then find themselves dependent on expensive air-conditioning for comfort during hot summer weather. Energy usage issues are also paramount with increased power costs, yet good house design could help avoid these. How can these design factors be brought into better focus among those with the power to make changes? 92 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 92 16/02/2015 9:23 am HOUSING AS A SUSTAINABILITY ISSUE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA: A CASE STUDY KUNTAL GOSWAMI1, LOU WILSON2 Charles Darwin University 2University South Australia 1 Housing provides a strong linkage between different aspects of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). Even though shelter is considered as one of the most basic needs according to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is still one of the difficult policy areas even in a developed economy. Although historically South Australia had a reputation of having a good proportion of public housing, in recent years the data shows that many low income households in South Australia are in housing stress and housing market of Adelaide is actually one of the most unaffordable among the capital cities of Australia. Our paper suggests that the housing stress will increase and will continue for a long time, as there will be adverse structural change in the employment market in the period after the General Motors’ Holden plant closure. The factors that may aggravate impending housing stress in South Australia are continuing instability in the job markets, increasing health costs and rising energy costs. Our paper suggests the adoption of affordable and sustainable housing models will reduce housing stress and improve affordability. One of the recent initiatives of the South Australia Government is to build medium to high-density affordable housing along Adelaide’s transport corridors. These projects include high rise apartment buildings. This idea is theoretically prudent and encouraging from the sustainability and affordability points of view. However, the idea is contrary to the traditional Australian lifestyle preference for detached bungalows with a green lawn and backyard. To implement this plan, the South Australian government may need to pay more attention on changing the consumer preferences embedded in the present housing market H O USIN G AND FA M ILY V IO LEN CE CH AIR : SUSAN GOO DW IN FORM AND CONVIVIALITY: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE MORPHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS EXPERIENCED IN TWO KEY HOUSING PROJECTS AIMING FOR SOCIAL INTEGRATION BEATRIZ CRISTINA MATURANA Universidad de Chile Recent public policies in Chile highlight the role of social integration in delivering the changes that will assist to improve quality of life and reduce what is perceived by many, as an increasing social segregation in Chilean cities. Thus, integration is seen as an instrument of government policy to achieve equity. The recognition of the problems caused by social segregation and the subsequent interest in social integration, is expressed and shared across most of the political spectrum in contemporary Chile. Among public policies, the program for social integration through housing 93 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 93 16/02/2015 9:23 am was developed in 2006 and the first projects built in 2008. This paper discusses early findings of research that investigates social integration in two key housing developments. These projects are Villa Las Araucarias in La Serena, and Casas Viejas in the capital Santiago and were built in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Due to their relatively recent construction, territorial location and large number of dwellings in each, these projects are emblematic of a significant change in the conception and realization of socially integrated housing in the country. This research looks for tangible spatial expressions that may reveal levels of conviviality (or lack thereof) among residents in these developments. It discusses the types of morphological changes instigated by individuals and groups within the houses and public spaces. These are changes directly or indirectly initiated by the homeowners and expressed at a neighbourhood scale. Among these transformations are the extensions to the original houses, closing of entrances to cul-de sacs, changes to the permeability of original fences and the establishment of local home businesses. The significance of these changes is analysed in relation to the main objective of this type of housing development—social integration. KEEPING SAFE AND STAYING INDEPENDENT: EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF ‘STAYING AT HOME’ SCHEMES FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED FAMILY VIOLENCE AN GELA SPINNEY1 , M ELANIE TH OMSO N 2 Swinburne University of Technology 2University of Melbourne 1 In this paper we discuss ‘staying at home’ schemes that support women and children to remain in their home while the perpetrator of family violence is removed. These schemes typically integrate legal, housing and welfare components, and have been shown to be successful in enabling women to remain in their homes in a wide range of situations. We note a lack of available evidence on whether ‘staying at home’ schemes have been considered specifically for women with disabilities and consider the possible relevance of such schemes for these women, who experience family violence at higher rates and face multiple barriers to leaving their home. In doing so we expose a significant gap in the evidence base, given the high rates of family violence experienced by women with disabilities, and the barriers faced by this group in leaving the home “WE JUST CAN’T GET AHEAD”: WORK DISINCENTIVES AND SOCIAL HOUSING H AZEL B LUNDEN , M ICH A EL DAR CY University of Western Sydney Over the last twenty years social housing has been increasingly targeted to the highest need households so that low income alone does not qualify a household for access. At the same time the income security system moved to reflect the principle of ‘activation’ whereby recipients are strongly encouraged to enter the workforce and reduce their dependence on government payments. This presentation reports on a study, conducted in partnership with Pacific Link Housing, which examined disincentives to employment for social housing tenants generated by the interaction 94 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 94 16/02/2015 9:23 am of income tax, tapering of benefits, and income related rent. The study included modelling of the financial impact of these policies which revealed exceedingly high effective marginal tax rates (confirming the findings of previous research). In order to better understand factors that might prevent or dissuade social housing tenants from working, surveys and interviews were conducted with work-eligible tenants. While more than 85% of Pacific Link tenants surveyed have been employed at some point in their life, only around 8% are currently working. In-depth interviews explored households’ choices regarding housing, work and training. While a minority are confused about details, most tenants rationally weigh the comparative advantages of employment, income and tenure choices. For many, the net return from employment is marginal, but more importantly, working was understood to jeopardise security of tenure. Tenants generally expected that work they do undertake will be intermittent and insecure. Under these circumstances tenants may reasonably choose not to pursue employment or to increase their hours of work. In the absence of housing options offering comparable security of tenure, tenants will continue to choose social housing over transition into insecure and unaffordable private housing and insecure employment. The research highlights the importance of long term housing security which, for many tenants, overrides small and possibly short term income increases. WHEN DO TENANTS LEAVE SOCIAL HOUSING? ILAN W IES EL , H AL PAWSO N City Futures Research Centre, Built Environment, University of New South Wales The paper examines the motivations of social housing tenants who choose to exit the sector, and the immediate and longer term housing and non-housing outcomes of such moves. The evidence of very low and declining rates of mobility among social housing tenants, appears to contrast evidence of relatively high rates of mobility up and down the housing tenure ‘ladder’ and relatively high level of social mobility in Australia compared to other OECD countries (Clark and Maas, 2013). This analysis has implications for current debates about the function of social housing as a springboard for social mobility or, conversely, a ‘welfare trap’ with in-built disincentives for social and housing mobility. MOBILITY MOTIVATIONS OF RURAL PUBLIC HOUSING TENANTS LIVING IN NSW, AUSTRALIA TEGAN B ER GAN , R A E DUFT Y - J O NES University of Western Sydney Mobility is a core dynamic that affects the production and consumption of rural housing. As rural areas and communities have changed over the latter decades of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, mobility has become an increasingly dominant theme in the rural housing literature. These concerns between the rural housing-mobility nexus range from the effects of counterurbanisation on the affordability of rural housing to the invisibility of homelessness in rural spaces. This paper builds on this literature to examine motivations behind the mobile intentions of NSW rural public housing tenants who listed their home on the tenant-operated website Our House Swap between 2002-2012 (n=4700). 95 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 95 16/02/2015 9:23 am CO N CUR R ENT S ES SIO N 8 NEW MO DELS O F H OM E OW NERSHIP CH AIR : JULIE LAWSO N EXPLORING MODELS FOR ACCESSIBLE COLLECTIVE HOME OWNERSHIP IN AUSTRALIA ANDREA BLAKE Queensland University of Technology The housing market today is characterised by the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Whilst the ‘haves’ may have purchased their home some time ago and have benefitted from the upward movement in property prices over the past decade, the ‘have nots’ are typically those who may be young, individuals, single parents and many others who are perpetual renters. Historically various forms of collective home ownership, such as housing cooperatives, have been explored to provide the ‘have nots’ with access to affordable home ownership. For those who seek uncomplicated governance the housing cooperative model has a limitation. This paper explores some of the common models of collective home ownership including the more traditional models, such as joint tenants and tenants in common, to establish their potential to become an enduring part of the affordable home ownership scene in Australia. The governance structures, potential limitations and risks of collective ownership models are addressed and recommendations are made to make collective housing options more robust and accessible. HOW PEOPLE IN RESIDENTIAL PARKS CAN FORM CO-OPERATIVES, BUY THE LAND BENEATH THEIR HOMES AND RUN THEIR PARK DA M I AN SA M MO N1 , DAV ID B UN CE 2 Department of Housing and Public Works, Queensland State Government Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Adelaide 1 2 Living in your own home in a residential park is different to living in an owner-occupied house or apartment. People living in a residential park own their home but not the land beneath it, which is rented from the park owner. Thus residents are, at the same time, home owners and tenants. Dwellings in residential parks are known, misleadingly, as relocatable homes. They are transportable bungalows and possess house-like characteristics. Once sited and connected to services they cannot be easily moved and it may cost $15,000 to $50,000 to do so. The owner of the park holds significant power over residents: Ground rents can be increased; the owner can apply for a change of land use to redevelop the land for another purpose; and can evict the residents. Escalating site fees and the lack of permanent security of tenure are the two major concerns affecting residential park households across Australia. 96 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 96 16/02/2015 9:23 am This paper examines a way in which a new ownership paradigm can overcome these two problems. It is based on the co-operative ownership and self-management of residential parks and has been successfully implemented in the United States for 30 years. The paper investigates the benefits of resident ownership and how the model may be transferred to Australia. SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINANTS OF EFFICACY BELIEFS IN MULTI-OWNED HOUSING MANAGEMENT YUN G YAU Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong In spite of its challenges in housing management, multi-owned housing (MOH) has gained its popularity in the Asia-Pacific region. Previous studies on collectivism in MOH management have suggested that efficacy beliefs play a significant role in predicting resident participation. Accordingly, for promoting resident participation in MOH management, resorts can be made to boosting up residents’ perceptions of self-efficacy and collective efficacy. Perceived self-efficacy refers to a resident’s belief about his ability to influence the collective outcome while perceived collective efficacy refers to a resident’s belief about the group’s ability to realize the collective good. Nonetheless, the literature has spilt little ink over the determinants of these two types of efficacy belief in collective actions. Drawing on the findings of a structured questionnaire survey conducted in Hong Kong, this article empirically explores the factors shaping the efficacy beliefs about resident participation in management of private MOH in the city. The analysis results suggest that socio-economic characteristics of the residents like age, income and education level are significant determinants of the perceived self-efficacy and collective efficacy. Besides, the presence of owners’ corporation in a residential development is found to have a positive impact on residents’ collective efficacy beliefs. These findings have far-reaching policy and practical implications for MOH management. I M PR OV IN G H OM E EN V IR O N M ENTS CH AIR : CER IDW EN OW EN PRODUCING SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL SOCIAL CAPITAL CARYL B OS M AN , PETER H O NEYM AN Griffith University Over the past three decades, it has become apparent that profound changes are occurring in community formation, however defined, changing lives and transforming living arrangements. In Australia, some residential communities are becoming (more) socially fragmented which is leading to higher levels of loneliness and isolation. This is particular prevalent and significant as the population ages. Some scholars argue that the production of social capital is the answer to reviving community relations between residents in a specific locality. These researchers suggest that an increase in social capital requires, among other things, changes to the way community and residential planning occurs. 97 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 97 16/02/2015 9:23 am In part, due to pressures such as climate change, decreasing housing affordability and rapid population growth coupled with land shortages, many suburban residential developments are being designed to achieve higher densities and compact living. New urbanist inspired Community Title developments are, in theory, a way of meeting these pressures. This paper tests this hypothesis by investigating the levels of social capital through a comparative case study of two residential areas: one a typical 1980s suburban Torrens Title development and the other a new urbanist inspired Community Title development circa 2000. Residents in both case studies, located in the suburb of Coomera on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland, Australia, were surveyed in 2013. The surveys showed that bonding social capital was lower in the new urbanist inspired Community Title development. Bridging social capital was high in both developments. Our research suggests that new urbanist inspired housing developments are unlikely to increase social capital. We argue that lifestyle factors and resident empowerment and responsibility in local decision making processes will have a positive affect on the production of social capital. To achieve this outcome we recommend planners and planning policy (re)focus on public involvement and participation in local decision making processes. OCCUPANT FEEDBACK FROM AN EXEMPLAR SUSTAINABLE, MIXED-TENURE, MIXED-USE APARTMENT DEVELOPMENT IN MELBOURNE TRIVESS MOORE, IAN RIDLEY, JIN WOO, MEGAN NETHERCOTE, DAVID HIGGINS, KARISHMA KASHYAP Griffith University The requirement to transition to a more sustainable housing future is well recognised from both the context of reducing environmental impacts and providing more affordable and equitable housing provision. There is increasing research around the technical performance of buildings which improve environmental performance and research which explores various affordable housing outcomes. However there has been limited exploration to date in the Australian context of developments which attempt to bring both elements together. This talk presents a case study of the Nicholson development in Coburg, Melbourne. The Nicholson is a 199 apartment development which was completed in 2011. At the time of its design and construction the development was innovative across four key areas: sustainability (built to a six star standard), the use of modular construction, being mixed-use and mixed-tenure and the governance of the development. This presentation discusses the results of a post-occupancy evaluation of the Nicholson. The evaluation included conducting a Building User Satisfaction (BUS) survey and conducting follow up semi-structured interviews with occupants. The analysis found that occupants were generally quite satisfied with the Nicholson development. They felt they had lower utility bills from the improved design and sustainability outcomes. A main concern for the occupants was the overheating of many of the apartments in summer-time. This resulted in occupants needing to install air-conditioning or to spend time away from their apartments during the hottest periods of the summer as the heat made the apartments unbearable. The occupants were also grateful for the supermarket downstairs but were keen to see the other 98 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 98 16/02/2015 9:23 am empty retail spots occupied sooner rather than later. Many of the occupants were aware that the building included mixed-tenure accommodation but few had any issues with this arrangement. The analysis from this project will help the development of sustainable, mixed-use and mixed-tenure accommodation in Australia. HEALTHY HOUSING FOR AN AGEING POPULATION: EXAMINING THERMAL COMFORT AND AFFORDABILITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT R ACHEL B ILLS School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide Older people are particularly vulnerable to hot weather, as indicated by a worldwide trend for greater hospitalisations and mortality in older people during periods of extreme heat. Studies have also shown that many of these deaths occur at home. Climate change experts predict an increase in the number of extreme heat days in the near future [1], which presents a potentially disastrous situation for the ageing population. Studies into adaptation to climate extremes have brought to light a number of reasons why older people fail to cope in these conditions. Whilst age-related physiological changes play a part, there are also overarching behavioural, attitudinal and psychological reasons. Older people can be less likely to utilise adaptive behaviours, such as using air-conditioners or opening or closing windows, to cool down in hot weather [2]. With older people spending the majority of their time indoors, the thermal environmental conditions inside the home may also play a part in their poor health outcomes. Public health authorities advise the use of air-conditioners to keep the home cool during periods of extreme heat. Energy affordability is, however an acknowledged problem, especially amongst the older population, and the cost of electricity has been recognised as a significant barrier to air conditioner use [3]. Therefore the need for cost effective energy efficient design solutions is becoming more important. Whilst external environmental conditions have long been correlated with health outcomes, there has been little investigation into internal dwelling conditions. This research investigates the thermal conditions inside the homes of Australia’s older people and the effect these conditions might have on their health. This research will also examine the barriers that prevent older people from creating a healthy thermal environment, and investigate the cost effectiveness of design solutions that will allow healthy housing for our ageing population. 1. CSIRO and Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Climate change in Australia: technical report 2007. 2007: CSIRO. 2. Hansen, A., et al., Perceptions of Heat-Susceptibility in Older Persons: Barriers to Adaptation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2011. 8(12): p. 4714-4728. 3. Chester, L., The Growing Un-affordability of Energy for Households and the Consequences. International association for energy economics newsletter, 2014. Second quarter 2014: p. 23-27. 99 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 99 16/02/2015 9:23 am AFFO R DAB LE STUDENT ACCOM MO DATIO N CH AIR : GIN A Z APPI A THE COST AND AVAILABILITY OF STUDENT ACCOMMODATION STEV EN R OW LEY , ANDR EA CO N STAB LE Curtin University Students have a range of possible accommodation options when studying at university. Less than 5% of students live within a residential college, university hall or residence with two thirds preferring to stay with parents or live with a partner. By contrast, in the UK the proportion of students in institution maintained accommodation is four times the rate of Australia. Accommodation costs vary significantly from university to university and are dependent on the type of accommodation and the range of utilities included. Weekly rents for on-campus accommodation, either university run or managed by the private sector start at $140 and can rise to over $400 when meals are included. In the vast majority of university locations it is cheaper to rent accommodation in the private rental sector which has implications for supply in the local market. Although there are a range of government schemes available to support low income students such as Austudy and Youth Allowance, only a small proportion of students receive these benefits (13 and 33 per cent respectively) while around half of students report receiving no financial support from parents. Many students are forced to work long hours to meet accommodation costs resulting in less time to concentrate on academic work. This study calculated the number of hours a student would need to work to meet housing costs. An 18 year old student on minimum wage would need to work around 35 hours per week to meet weekly costs of $370 (rent and living expenses). The findings have implications for the ability of non-subsidised students to effectively engage in university studies and the lack of an appropriate and affordable dwelling supply leads to a potential disparity between the academic outcomes of students with and without third party financial support. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 100 ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ 10 0 16/02/2015 9:23 am SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBOURS: GROWTH IN STUDENT POPULATION AND DECLINING HOUSING AFFORDABILITY IN AUSTRALIA NNENN A IK E University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland In the past six decades, the Australian Higher Education (HE) sector has undergone significant changes with increase in enrolment by both domestic and overseas students (Bradley et al., 2008, Australia Universities, 2013). This growth in the Australia HE sector raises vital concerns as to how students access safe, affordable and suitable accommodation as evidence exists that there is a growing housing affordability problem across Australia (O’Neill et al., 2008, Yates and Gabriel, 2006, Yates and Milligan, 2007). With Australian universities providing accommodation for only about 4% of the nation’s 1,000,000 students, it is often difficult for students to find affordable housing within reasonable distance of university campuses, in both inner cities and regional areas (Universities Australia, 2014). Using a case study methodological approach employing mixed methods, this exploratory study explores how safe, affordable and suitable student housing in Australia can be achieved by examining the supply responsiveness by the universities, private and the not-for-profit sectors. Furthermore, the provision of safe, affordable and suitable accommodation cannot be explored in isolation without examining what consequence this may hold for local communities where these students live. Hence this study equally investigates what impact (economic, physical, socio-cultural) students living in university neighbourhoods have on those neighbourhoods considering that over 95% of students live in non-university provided accommodation. This study advances the provision of safe, affordable and suitable housing for students studying in Australia as well as promotes a resilient and cohesive community necessary for community sustainability. ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... TRENDS IN HOUSING AFFORDABILITY INDICATORS IN AUSTRALIA B EN FAULK NER , DAV ID Z AGO , CAR O LINE DALEY Australian Bureau of Statistics Identifying households experiencing housing affordability problems assists in formulating new policy responses across housing, planning, taxation and other portfolios. However issues such as market segmentation, choice and the multiple reasons that households invest in housing, mean that there are challenges in agreeing on a single measure of housing affordability. This presentation will outline key measures of housing affordability, the current measurement challenges and examine trends in selected measures over the past decade. In particular, it will focus on the measures of rental affordability and home purchase affordability used in the National Affordable Housing Agreement reporting which are based on the ABS Survey of Income and Housing. These measures have a primary focus on the economic circumstances AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 101 101 16/02/2015 9:23 am of those households that may experience difficulty entering or remaining in particular housing markets due to their limited economic resources. Results from our analysis of detailed housing costs associated with different tenure types will be presented to better understand the true cost of maintaining housing in Australia. The analysis takes into account proportions of home loans used for non-housing purposes, principal repayments and essential costs such as body corporate fees, dwelling insurance and essential maintenance. It also includes mean rental costs with a modified treatment of Commonwealth Rent Assistance and refunds from outside the household. Data will be drawn from the ABS Survey of Income and Housing, a large sample survey designed to collect information on the income, assets, liabilities, net worth, and other characteristics of households and individuals in Australia (excluding very remote areas), This survey offers a unique opportunity for analysis of the distribution of income and wealth across the population alongside detailed data on housing costs, housing subsidies and occupancy. A factsheet describing the key measures of Housing Affordability will be available to participants. PO LICY TOO LS AND EVALUATIO N CH AIR : TA M LIN GO RTER QUESTIONING THE CUMULATIVE EFFECT OF TIME SPENT IN UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING EM M A BA K ER1 , R EB ECCA B ENTLEY2 , LAUR EN CE LESTER 3 School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide, 2Centre for Health and Society, University of Melbourne, 3Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Adelaide 1 Australia has some of the world‘s most unaffordable housing markets, a problem that has become well established during the 21st Century. Our previous work has sought to measure the extent of poor housing affordability, and understand its effects on the health and wellbeing of the population. In an era of worsening affordability problems, increasing numbers of Australians are likely to live in unaffordable housing, and for longer periods of time. ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ This paper, extending previously published work, estimates a possible cumulative effect of the length of time spent in unaffordable housing. We hypothesise that cumulative exposure to housing affordability stress (HAS) is associated with poorer mental health (using the Short Form 36 Mental Component Summary (MCS) score). The analysis uses 12 waves of data from an Australian longitudinal survey (HILDA 2001 to 2013). Our results show that for both men and women, there is a measureable initial effect of ‘falling into’ unaffordable housing, however, our analysis shows that this effect does not appear to accumulate over time. 102 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 102 16/02/2015 9:23 am ESTIMATING UNMET HOUSING DEMAND AND PRIORITY AREAS FOR PUBLIC AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA LEVEL A HOUSING PRACTITIONERS APPROACH JULIE CO N SIDINE , SAR AH M EW ETT Western Australia Department of Housing Access to affordable housing is essential for the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. Low to moderate income earners are most at risk of not being able to access affordable housing. Government Agencies and the not for profit sector provide a much needed safety net for those who the private market has failed. In the current fiscal environment it has become increasingly important to ensure resources are directed to areas where the level of need is highest. One of the facets of this is understanding the geography of the unmet demand for social and affordable housing for those in the low to moderate income bracket. This paper presents a method for estimating social and affordable housing demand at the Local Government Area (LGA) level. It is based on data from the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census, information from the WA Housing Authority and WA State Government population projections. The output from the model is transformed into information which is easy to understand and can be practically applied in the decision making process of social and affordable housing providers. WAITING FOR SOCIAL HOUSING - INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES TO PRIORITISATION POLICY AND MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS FOR SOCIAL HOUSING WAITING LISTS DEB B IE GEO R GO PO ULOS NSW Department of Family and Community Services Many international cities are experiencing a shortage of affordable and secure housing for low to very low income people. As a result, state housing authorities have long waiting lists for government subsidised housing, with demand far outstripping supply. ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... ........... In NSW, social housing is administered through Housing Pathways – a multi provider system that includes a statewide approach to applications, assessments and allocations of social housing and other housing related assistance. The term social housing is used to cover public housing and most community and Aboriginal housing. A consolidated social housing waiting list has been in operation since 2010 – the NSW Housing Register – and this captures all approved applicants waiting for social housing. In 2012/13 almost 65,000 applications for housing assistance were assessed (households). In the same year, over 400,000 people were assisted with social housing and/or private rental assistance. Despite this level of assistance, the social housing waiting list at the end of 2013 stood at over 58,000 households. AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 103 103 16/02/2015 9:23 am The first release of annual expected waiting times for social housing in 2012 provided the most comprehensive data on approved applicants and available social housing ever released in NSW. This publicly available information has allowed a sharper focus on the role of social housing, specifically, policies for prioritising applicants and strategies for managing the large waiting list. In order to deliver public value for clients and the broader community from government investment in social housing, consideration of both equity and efficiency are key. That is, how does government balance equity and efficiency to deliver the best outcome for individuals and society? Waiting lists for government subsidised housing are managed quite differently throughout the world. This paper will present findings from overseas research in the USA, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong - funded through a Churchill Fellowship - on policy and administrative approaches to managing housing waiting lists, success factors and possible approaches that may be applicable in Australia. Th ha re Ci Th the pr an We to 20 of mo of Th ca the Th so an ec cit ch pla gr It i an ho me 104 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 104 16/02/2015 9:23 am The State of Australian Cities national conference has been held biennially since 2003. In 2015 it returns to Queensland when it will be held in the City of Gold Coast, from December 9-11. Key Dates The SOAC conference has always been committed to maintaining the highest standards of scholarship in the work presented to foster productive dialogue between academic researchers, policy makers and other urban practitioners. AbstrAct submissions close 16 March 2015 We invite you to visit the Gold Coast, to attend the conference and to present a paper that reflects your current research interests. The 2015 conference invites contributions under the traditional themes of economy, social, environmental, urban structures, governance and movement as well as a new theme of cities and health. Further details of these themes are included under the call for papers. notificAtion to Authors 11 May 2015 The main conference will again be preceded by a Symposium for PhD candidates and early career researchers, organised in conjunction with the new Australian Early Career Urban Research Network. The city of Gold Coast can be a contradictory and contested place, sometimes celebrated for its entrepreneurial approach to growth and occasionally criticised for its local culture. Renowned for its ecosystems and the environmental attractions of its hinterland, the city is also vulnerable to many of the hazards exacerbated by climate change. As the second largest local government in the country its planning regime has to confront the challenge of promoting economic growth while protecting the assets that make the city popular. It is therefore an ideal location for Australia’s urban scholars to gather and learn more about the state of Australian cities, and to debate how our work can best contribute to the planning of our cities and metropolitan regions. AbstrActs in review 18 March – 25 April 2015 full PAPers due for review 15 July 2015 PAPers in review 17 July – 15 August 2015 revised PAPers to Authors 16 August 2015 eArly bird registrAtion close 21 August 2015 finAl PAPer due for PublicAtion 1 October 2015 Registration & Call for Papers NOW OPEN AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 105 16/02/2015 9:23 am O UR SPO N SO RS THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS www.utas.edu.au Institute for the Study of Social Change Faculty of Arts, University of Tasmania www.fairbrother.com.au 10 6 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 106 16/02/2015 9:23 am N OTES 107 AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 107 16/02/2015 9:23 am W W W . AHR C2 015 . COM . AU AHRC_Handbook_A5_V5.indd 108 16/02/2015 9:23 am
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