City Futures Blog

News and research in housing and urban policy, from Australia’s leading urban policy research centre.

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Entries Tagged as 'Guest appearance'

Stay cool with revised house construction codes

February 15th, 2019 · No Comments · Climate change, Construction, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing conditions, Sustainability, Sydney, Wellbeing

By Professor Mat Santamouris, Built Environment, UNSW Sydney. This article was first published by the Sydney Morning Herald. For many Australian households, summer’s debilitating heatwaves will be felt well into autumn as the steep costs of airconditioning show up on household power bills. We shouldn’t have to live like this. Much of the punitive cost […]

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Is social housing essential infrastructure? How we think about it does matter

February 6th, 2019 · No Comments · Finance, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Productivity

By Kathleen Flanagan, University of Tasmania; Chris Martin, UNSW Sydney; Julie Lawson, RMIT University, and Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. We know that safe, adequate, affordable and appropriate housing is essential for our health, well-being and social and economic security. […]

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The big lesson from Opal Tower is that badly built apartments aren’t only an issue for residents

January 17th, 2019 · No Comments · Cities, Construction, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing conditions, Strata, Sydney

By Laura Crommelin, Bill Randolph and Hazel Easthope (City Futures Research Centre), and Martin Loosemore (Built Environment, UNSW Sydney). Originally published on The Conversation. The saga of Opal Tower, the 36-storey Sydney apartment building evacuated on Christmas Eve after frightening cracking, has helped to expose the deep cracks in Australia’s approach to building apartments. An interim […]

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There are lessons to be drawn from the cracks that appeared in Sydney’s Opal Tower, but they extend beyond building certification

January 11th, 2019 · No Comments · Construction, Government, Guest appearance, Housing conditions, Sydney

By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Lecturer in Architecture, Univeristy of NSW, Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The reasons for the cracked concrete that triggered the evacuation – twice – of residents from Sydney’s Opal Tower over Christmas and the New Year are unknown and will […]

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Labor’s housing pledge is welcome, but direct investment in social housing would improve it

December 19th, 2018 · No Comments · Affordability, Finance, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply

By Julie Lawson, RMIT University and Laurence Troy, UNSW. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Despite recent falls in the housing market, housing costs and indebtedness bite deeply into household budgets, especially at Christmas time. Just over 433,000 households confront housing stress and homelessness every day […]

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Australia needs to triple its social housing by 2036. This is the best way to do it

November 15th, 2018 · No Comments · Demographics, Finance, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply

By Julie Lawson, RMIT University; Hal Pawson, UNSW; Laurence Troy, UNSW, and Ryan van den Nouwelant, Western Sydney University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Australia needs to triple its small stock of social housing over the next 20 years to cover both the existing backlog […]

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An open letter on rental housing reform

September 25th, 2018 · No Comments · Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing conditions, Law, Tenancy

The right of landlords to terminate a lease with no grounds is the most serious deficiency in residential tenancy laws in New South Wales. Shutterstock Following a review of the New South Wales Residential Tenancies Act 2010 in 2016 and extended consultations, the NSW government has introduced a number of reforms to parliament. Debate is […]

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Vale Patrick Troy

August 24th, 2018 · No Comments · Guest appearance

Image: Fairfax. By Frank Stilwell. Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Patrick Troy was a passionate advocate for better Australian cities. This was the continuous thread through his activities as an engineer, town planner, urban studies academic, senior federal public servant, author and activist. The pinnacle of his influence was during the Whitlam government […]

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Inclusionary Zoning in Ontario

June 25th, 2018 · No Comments · Construction, Government, Guest appearance, Housing, Housing supply, International

By Richard Drdla, Richard Drdla Associates, Toronto, Canada. Earlier this year Richard, an expert on planning for affordable housing in North America, wrote us a guest blog post about the Greater Sydney Commission’s affordable rental housing targets. This post discusses the latest developments regarding inclusionary zoning in Ontario, Canada. Richard is a guest speaker at the […]

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Higher density and diversity: apartments are Australia at its most multicultural

June 19th, 2018 · No Comments · Demographics, Guest appearance, Housing, Migration, Strata, Sydney

Image: Marcus Jaaske/Shutterstock By Christina Ho, University of Technology Sydney; Edgar Liu, UNSW, and Hazel Easthope, UNSW. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Increasing numbers of city dwellers live in apartments. This is particularly the case for migrants. And that makes apartment buildings important hubs of multiculturalism in our cities. However, […]

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