City Futures Blog

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

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Harnessing Big Data in Challenging Urban Contexts

Posted by on August 9th, 2017 · Cities, Data, Guest appearance, Law, Migration, Sustainability, Transport
Harnessing big data in an urban context is the “grand challenge.” Image: AIG

By Laura Bruce, Built Environment, UNSW Sydney.

On July 21st 2017 academics and public sector representatives met to discuss the challenge of harnessing big data in the urban context in order to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event was hosted by the Judith Neilson Chair in Architecture and City Futures both of which sit in the Faculty of the Built Environment, the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

Organised as part of the PLuS Alliance, a research and education network between the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Arizona State University and Kings College London, the roundtable was an important opportunity for cross disciplinary discussions.

As a reflection of the large number of SDG’s, its multiple indicators and the fact that low, middle and high income countries are committed to them, there was a wide variety of presentations. Diverse topics included the use of big data to identify air pollution exposure rates in London,  active transport mobility patterns data across Australian cities, prediction of migration patterns as a result of conflict in Afghanistan and measuring resilience in the urban context of Phoenix, Arizona.

The roundtable heard how policy makers are using mobile phone data in Uganda to identify emerging vulnerabilities and predict food insecurity as a result of the changing habits of mobile phone credit top ups. A Research Fellow from the Institute for Economics and Peace, the organisation responsible for the annual Peace Index, highlighted the inter relationships between the SDGs.

A shanty town in Brazil. mage: Getty Images

What became clear is that the use of big data has possibilities across multiple sectors and can be harnessed for social good however this is not always how big data is framed in the public’s perception. The use of big data by corporations is understood by many as a way of meeting our consumer needs but how is it meeting needs for the collective good?  What role does academia have to play in harnessing its potential in this sphere and its responsible use? These are some of the interesting questions which the roundtable addressed.

Experts from a range of disciplines including Arts and Social Sciences, Computer Science, Law, Mathematics, and the Built Environment amongst others, discussed the importance of what validity and accepted standards for academic rigour mean when using big data. What is ‘good enough’ data? While it is accepted that big data is not a ‘magic bullet’ there is an awareness that national level data used to measure the SDGs is insufficient and big data, if used appropriately, could fill some of those gaps.

Image: City Lab

The legal constraints on data sharing in certain contexts were discussed as well as the legal ramifications of the relationship between big data and the agency of the individual. Since data sources overlap boundaries this calls into question traditional legal and political boundaries and the rights of citizens. What implications does this have in contexts where civil society and legal and political institutions are weak?

Ultimately issues on inequality and big data were identified as a key research area for the group going forward. ‘Leaving no-one behind’ was the SDG theme last year, and it is clear that access and analysis of big data has huge potential for development. The roundtable concluded that it is important to find ways to ensure that all countries can engage in a global research enterprise that can harness the benefits of big data to ensure that no one is ‘left behind’.

The United Nations has a sustainable development agenda. Image: United Nations

Saving Sirius: why heritage protection should include social housing

Posted by on July 28th, 2017 · Government, Law, Sydney, urban renewal

By Chris Martin, UNSW. Originally published on The Conversation.

Campaigners to save Sydney’s landmark Sirius building from demolition had a significant legal win this week.

Last year, the then state heritage minister, Mark Speakman, refused to list the Brutalist block of public housing apartments on the New South Wales Heritage Register. Doing so would reduce the amount that the government, as its owner, might make from selling it. Now the NSW Land and Environment Court has ruled that the decision is invalid and must be remade.

This does not mean Sirius is now heritage-listed, let alone safe from demolition. Heritage Minister Gabrielle Upton could still decide not to list the building, but she will have to make her decision according to the requirements of the Heritage Act.

Still, it is an important decision on how our heritage is protected at law, and it is fitting that Sirius should be the subject of it. In a sense, this building and the Heritage Act were born from the same event: the Green Ban movement of the 1970s, in which Jack Mundey’s Builders Labourers’ Federation (BLF) acted, on the advice of local residents and the National Trust, to prevent development that threatened significant sites and housing, mostly famously at The Rocks.

The Green Bans there were lifted when the state government agreed to “the people’s plan” put forward by residents and the BLF to preserve the built fabric and provide low-income housing in the area. The result was Sirius, which was completed in 1980. And the wider result was statutory heritage protection, in the form of the Heritage Act.

The heritage significance of Sirius lies both in its striking architectural form and in its connection to that remarkable period in Sydney’s social history. Aside from Sirius’s own significance, the case prompts us to consider how heritage is protected, and how social housing fits in.

What is heritage?

When we talk about “heritage” values, it may mean a range of things, from the speaker’s opinion that something is worth keeping, to its status under the several legal regimes to protect heritage.

Aside from the law, heritage management is based on a body of principles and best practice. The principal statement of these is the Burra Charter. It informs the practices of conscientious owners, building professionals, and heritage consultants.

In both law and practice, the focus is on protecting an item’s “heritage significance”. The Burra Charter refers this to synonymously with “cultural significance”, defined as “aesthetic, historic, scientific, social or spiritual value for past, present or future generations”.

This significance may vary by degree (“exceptional” or “outstanding” significance, for instance) and by extent. An item may be significant for a local community, a state, a nation, or all of humanity.

This is reflected in the different legal regimes for heritage protection at all three levels of government in Australia – local government, states and territories (each has its own, broadly similar legislation), and the Commonwealth – and the World Heritage regime.

Where does social housing fit in?

Social housing can certainly have heritage significance. We have been building it in Australia for more than 100 years, and its design and construction have been shaped by contemporary architectural and political ideas, sometimes in an exemplary way.

Depending on the degree and extent of its significance, a social housing building or place could come under any of the Australian or international legal regimes. The World Heritage Register includes social housing – the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. No social housing from Australia has been nominated for that list, nor for the National Heritage List.

One of the six Berlin Modernism Housing Estates protected by World Heritage listing.
Doris Antony/Wikipedia, CC BY

The Sirius case is about the state-level heritage regime. If Sirius were listed on the NSW Heritage Register, it would not be the first social housing to be listed. Sirius’s neighbour, the row of terrace houses at Gloucester Street, The Rocks, is listed, along with all of Millers Point. This includes 214 properties – an extraordinary mix of Georgian mansions, Victorian terraces and early 20th-century workers flats.

For many years these properties provided social housing, which is an acknowledged part of their significance. The state government has decided all these properties will no longer be used as social housing. They are being sold off, but remain on the NSW Heritage Register.

The NSW Heritage Register lists all of Millers Point, 214 properties in all, including this Georgian building.
sv1ambo/flickr, CC BY

Listing isn’t a blanket protection

The Heritage Act does not prevent a listed property being sold, or new occupants moving in. Generally, it prohibits development of the property without prior approval of the relevant authority (usually a local council) and the Heritage Council, a statutory office established by the act. The process involves public submissions and consideration of any effects on heritage significance.

The act sets a high threshold for demolitions: these will be refused unless the item poses a danger. It also imposes a positive obligation to maintain and repair to minimum standards – preventing “demolition by neglect” – and provides for conservation management plans as a way of getting works approved and encouraging best practice.

There are some exceptions to the general processes of the Act. Notably, if the government declares a “state significant development”, the consent authority is the planning minister – the Heritage Council’s approval is not required.

Large developments (above A$10 million) in The Rocks are state significant development – so even if listed, Sirius might not be completely safe.

Many properties have local significance

Many more social housing properties are on local heritage registers in NSW. Some are part of “heritage conservation areas”, which cover all properties in a street or suburb of local heritage significance.

One example is the Daceyville estate, the first purpose-built public housing in Australia. Another is the Woolloomooloo estate, which includes Victorian terraces acquired and renewed as social housing in the 1970s.

Daceyville estate, pictured in 1915, is heritage-listed as the first purpose-built public housing.
State Library of NSW/flickr

Some properties are listed individually. Examples include Chippendale’s Strickland Flats, the first public housing flats in Australia, and a collection of post-war cottages in South Granville.

Local councils make these listings under their local environmental plans. Generally, the property may be altered or demolished only with the council’s prior consent. Some minor developments may not require the full consent process.

In the case of NSW public housing, however, special provisions allow for a much wider range of development activities on local heritage-listed properties and conservation areas without local consent. This includes the construction of multi-dwelling buildings. Demolitions, however, cannot be carried out without consent.

In terms of practice, heritage conservation management is something that social housing providers should do well, considering their scale, long-term property holding and access to expertise. Even their frugality may be an advantage: as the Burra Charter notes: “the best conservation often involves the least work and can be inexpensive”.

However, as social housing renewal moves up governments’ agenda, sound legal protections and decision-making processes are also required.

The ConversationSirius has a less famous sibling, “The Laurels”, a low-rise block of modular apartments in suburban San Souci. It is not listed on any heritage register. Perhaps it should be.

Chris Martin, Research Fellow, City Housing, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Sydney must heed lessons of London affordable housing fiasco

Posted by on July 20th, 2017 · Government, Housing supply, Sydney, urban renewal

By Hal Pawson, Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald feature on urban renewal in London shone an interesting and quite revealing spotlight on a high profile project with a major Australian connection. Crucially, though this rather uncritical account completely missed the aspect of the story with the greatest direct relevance to Sydney.

The SMH piece focused on the renewal of Southwark’s Heygate Estate and the central involvement of Australian developer Lendlease – a project already lauded by Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison as ‘…[something] I’d love to see … lived out on the streets of Australia’. Quite rightly, the SMH noted that “Lendlease sits at the heart of the debate about the best way to build and renew social housing in London”. Having done that, however, it entirely failed to explain the main reason why the company “sits at the heart” of this argument. In fact, through its profitable exploitation of planning system loopholes on affordable housing obligations, Lendlease has achieved notoriety within UK affordable housing advocacy circles. And just how this came about is a tale with direct implications for Sydney.

The SMH story played up the inclusion of 25% ‘affordable housing’ within the rebuilt 3,000 (sometimes reported as 2,500) unit Heygate. On the face of it, a pretty hefty project component. But it’s a completely different matter when one also considers that the new scheme is replacing a large demolished council estate and that the number of directly equivalent homes included in the rebuild is in fact derisory. According to a 2015 Guardian report, just 74 of these homes will be low rent “social housing” affordable by very low income earners. That’s 74 in place of around 1,000 council homes (and 200 leasehold ex-Right to Buy properties) flattened to make way for the project. Some might call this “social cleansing”.

Lendlease’s ‘social housing offer’ also compares with the 432 such homes that, for a project of this scale, Southwark’s policy would normally require incorporated in any private housing development on privately owned land (i.e. involving no social housing clearance). As one affordable housing advocate therefore commented, “Southwark has lost 358 social-rented homes in the deal, while Lendlease stands to make whacking profits – on land they bought from the council for a pittance.”

All of this came about through the company’s skilful utilisation of a planning system weakness introduced by the Cameron Government in 2012 allowing developers to deflect or dilute affordable housing obligations. Crucially, under the new ‘NPPF’ framework enhanced weight was accorded to project “viability assessment”. As described by one UK planning expert, the mechanics of the test within this changed context have “driven a coach and horses through the planning system”.

The direct relevance of this story to Australian readers is the connection with the generally progressive proposal for affordable housing targets in our own city, as laid out by the Greater Sydney Commission in 2016. Critically, the GSC’s ‘inclusionary zoning’ draft policy also allows that private developer affordable housing contributions (5-10% of additional floorspace in upzoned developments on greenfield sites or in urban renewal precincts) will be “subject to viability”.

While the GSC outline formula appears influenced by the UK framework it pays no regard to the inclusionary zoning affordable housing policies widely operated across North America. Here the idea of a viability test is seen as fundamentally conflicting with the basis for such policies – i.e. that the land market will adjust to the designation of affordable housing obligations, as developers offer less for the land to maintain project viability. For example, in the inclusionary zoning framework recently enacted by the Canadian province of Ontario (applicable to Toronto – a city with many similarities to Sydney), viability assessment does not feature.

As argued in greater detail in the City Futures Research Centre consultation submission on the GSC’s District Plans, when the precise rules for the GSC viability assessment are worked out it’s essential that these are not unfairly weighted in favour of developers as in London. For example, in contrast to the eye watering levels of developer profit factored into some London viability tests, reasonable and defensible profit assumptions must be used.

More broadly – and in sharp contrast to the secrecy attaching to such calculations in the UK – any such process in Sydney or elsewhere in Australia must be fully transparent. And it must be founded on clearly stated developer obligations enshrined in planning law and guidance which do not provide a free pass to companies who have recklessly overpaid for sites. Only if constructed on this kind of basis is the GSC’s system going to realise its ultimate objective – the suppression of land values consistent with designated developer obligations on affordable housing and other infrastructure.

Taxing empty homes: a step towards affordable housing, but much more can be done

Posted by on July 17th, 2017 · Affordability, Housing, Housing supply
File 20170713 9462 1n2hcla
Vacant and unlit ‘ghost’ apartments are a source of public outrage in major cities around the world.
leniners/flickr, CC BY-NC

By Hal Pawson, UNSW. Originally published on The Conversation.

Vacant housing rates are rising in our major cities. Across Australia on census night, 11.2% of housing was recorded as unoccupied – a total of 1,089,165 dwellings. With housing affordability stress also intensifying, the moment for a push on empty property taxes looks to have arrived.

The 2016 Census showed empty property numbers up by 19% in Melbourne and 15% in Sydney over the past five years alone. Considering that thousands of people sleep rough – almost 7,000 on census night in 2011, more than 400 per night in Sydney in 2017 – and that hundreds of thousands face overcrowded homes or unaffordable rents, these seem like cruel and immoral revelations.

Public awareness of unused homes has been growing in Australia and globally. In London, Vancouver and elsewhere – just as in Sydney and Melbourne – the night-time spectacle of dark spaces in newly built “luxury towers” has triggered outrage.

This has struck a chord with the public not only because of its connotations of obscene wealth inequality and waste, but also because of the contended link to foreign ownership.

Early movers on vacancy tax

Against this backdrop, the Victorian state government has felt sufficiently emboldened to legislate an empty homes tax. Federally, the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, recently backed a standard vacant dwelling tax across all the nation’s major cities.

Similar measures have come into force in Vancouver and Paris. And Ontario’s provincial government recently granted Toronto new powers to tax empty properties. Emulating Vancouver, Victoria’s tax is a 1% capital value charge on homes vacant for at least six months in a year. Curiously, though, it applies only in Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs. And there are exceptions – if the property is a grossly under-used second home you pay only if you’re a foreigner.

Also, as in Vancouver, tax liability relies on self-reporting, which is seemingly a loophole. This might be less problematic if all owners were required to confirm their properties were occupied for at least six months of the past year. But that would be administratively cumbersome.

This highlights a broader “practicability challenge” for empty property taxes. For example, how do you define acceptable reasons for a property being empty?

In principle, such a tax should probably be limited to habitable dwellings. So, if you own a speculative vacancy, what do you do? Remove the kitchen sink to declare it unliveable?

How can we be sure a home is empty?

Lack of reliable data on empty homes is a major problem in Australia. Census figures are useful mainly because they indicate trends over time, but they substantially overstate the true number of long-term vacant habitable properties because they include temporarily empty dwellings (including second homes).

Using Victorian water records, Prosper Australia estimates about half of Melbourne’s census-recorded vacant properties are long-term “speculative vacancies”. That’s 82,000 homes.

Applying a similar “conversion factor” to Sydney’s census numbers would indicate around 68,000 speculative vacancies. Australia-wide, the Prosper Australia findings imply around 300,000 speculative vacancies – 3% of all housing. That’s equivalent to two years’ house building at current rates.

According to University of Queensland real estate economics expert Cameron Murray, a national tax that entirely eliminated this glut might moderate the price of housing by 1-2%. Therefore, although worthwhile, dealing with this element of our inefficient use of land and property would provide only a small easing of Australia’s broader affordability problem.

Making better use of a scarce resource

Taxing long-term empty properties is consistent with making more efficient use of our housing stock – a scarce resource. A big-picture implication is that tackling Australia’s housing stress shouldn’t be seen as purely about boosting new housing supply – as commonly portrayed by governments.

It should also be about making more efficient and equitable use of existing housing and housing-designated land.

Penalising empty dwellings is fine if it can be practicably achieved. That’s especially if the revenue is used to enhance the trivial amount of public funding going into building affordable rental housing in most of our states and territories.

But empty homes represent just a small element of our increasingly inefficient and wasteful use of housing and the increasingly unequal distribution of our national wealth.

One aspect of this is the under-utilisation of occupied housing. Australian Bureau of Statistics survey data show that, across Australia, more than a million homes (mainly owner-occupied) have three or more spare bedrooms. A comparison of the latest statistics (for 2013-14) with those for 2007-08 suggests this body of “grossly under-utilised” properties grew by more than 250,000 in the last six years.

Our tax system does nothing to discourage this increasingly wasteful use of housing. It’s arguably encouraged by the “tax on mobility” constituted by stamp duty and the exemption of the family home from the pension assets test.

A parallel issue is the speculative land banks owned by developers. The volume of development approvals far exceeds the amount of actual building. In the past year in Sydney, for example, 56,000 development approvals were granted – but only 38,000 homes were built.

In many cases, getting an approval is just part of land speculation. The owner then hoards the site until “market conditions are right” for on-selling as approved for development at a fat profit.

Properly addressing these issues calls for something much more ambitious than an empty property tax. The federal government should be encouraging all states and territories to follow the ACT’s lead by phasing in a broad-based land tax to replace stamp duty.

Such a tax will provide a stronger financial incentive to make effective use of land and property. The Grattan Institute estimates this switch would also “add up to A$9 billion annually to gross domestic product”. How much longer can we afford to ignore this obvious policy innovation?

The ConversationAcknowledgements: Thanks to Laurence Troy for statistics and Julie Street for background research.

Hal Pawson, Associate Director – City Futures – Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

With better data access, urban planners could help ease our weight problems

Posted by on July 11th, 2017 · Cities, Data, Demographics, Wellbeing
File 20170707 3035 a0ub73
Increasing access to health data and more readily available analytical tools offer some opportunities to tackle the ever-growing rates of obesity.
AAP/Dave Hunt

By Alison Taylor, UNSW; Christopher Pettit, UNSW; Ori Gudes, UNSW, and Susan Thompson, UNSW

A recent episode of ABC TV’s Ask the Doctor pointed to poor urban planning as a major culprit in worsening obesity rates and associated lifestyle diseases such as diabetes. The show highlighted suburbs without footpaths, fresh-food outlets or exercise opportunities.

Built environments are important contributors to our health and wealth. Urban planners strive to create the best environments, but many describe the results as “obesogenic” – that is, places where fast-food outlets abound and there are few opportunities to be sufficiently physically active.

Increasing access to health data, along with the powerful analytical tools needed to interpret these data, provides an opportunity to develop a real fix for this worsening situation.

How far planners have come

Urban planners have come a long way in supporting healthy and active living. Internationally, this goes back to the late 1940s, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined health as much more than the absence of disease.

The subsequent and ongoing development of the WHO Healthy Cities movement, the declaration of the Ottawa Charter, and the publication of the social determinants of health and the related settlement map, further reinforced the importance of urban planning and design in creating places that support health and wellbeing.

Recently, the UN Sustainable Development Goals cemented this focus on healthy built environments.

In Australia, this global recognition has brought built environment and health professionals into a closer working relationship. For example:

How health data can help

Despite this progress, some health indicators continue to deteriorate. The numbers of children either overweight or obese is a global public heath epidemic. In Australia, around 25% of children are overweight or obese.

This trend is worrying, as obesity in childhood and adulthood is strongly linked.

Being overweight or obese is a significant risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Globally, more than 420 million people have type 2 diabetes, and these numbers have quadrupled since 1980. In Western Sydney alone, 60% of adults are overweight or obese.

But increasing access to health data and more readily available analytical tools offer new opportunities to tackle ever-growing rates of obesity.

The Heart Foundation has published comprehensive design guidelines and a website linking research evidence to good practice.

In NSW, the Healthy Urban Development Checklist assists health professionals to comment on the extent to which urban planning proposals will support health. In Victoria, Community Indicators link practitioners with communities to create healthy places.

Other tools include Healthy Built Environment Indicators and the NSW Integrated Planning and Reporting Framework to get physical activity and healthy eating into local council community strategic plans.

Beyond these approaches, geographical information systems (GIS) and other analytical tools can help tackle obesity. South Australia’s Department for Health and Ageing used GIS to plot gaps in built environment facilities and resources that impact childhood obesity. One study established a link between obesity and access to fast-food outlets.

Another initiative provided insights into the spatial patterning of health issues by developing a diabetes map.

Using these tools is a step in the right direction. But challenges remain, particularly in terms of access to health data. The release of datasets such as the National Health Services Directory and the National Deaths and Mortality database is encouraging.

Greater ease of use improves implementation

Increasing user-friendliness of analytical tools, such as GIS and online portals like the AURIN workbench, and walkability planning support systems offer more powerful means of understanding the relationship between health and the built environment.

However, to seize these opportunities, we need enhanced data analysis, interpretation and presentation skills for planners and policymakers.

It takes skill to communicate the stories in the data and clearly identify the implications and required policy responses. Practical and policy-relevant research is critical.

Enshrining the need for planning healthy built environments in legislation will help planners in their fundamental role of promoting healthy lifestyles. Planners can be taught the theory. But putting it into practice requires a strong policy framework to support principles, maintain standards and withstand cost-cutting pressures.

The ConversationWith the increasing democratisation of health data and better access to analytical tools such as Australian National Data Services, AURIN and others, spatial thinking, data-driven approaches and collaborative action can fast-track plans for new and renewed environments that enable healthy living.

Alison Taylor, Lecturer, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW; Christopher Pettit, Professor of Urban Science, UNSW; Ori Gudes, Research Fellow, Cities Futures Research Centre, UNSW, and Susan Thompson, Professor of Planning and Head, City Wellbeing Program, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Tenants’ calls for safe public housing fall on deaf ears

Posted by on June 28th, 2017 · Government, Housing, Housing conditions, Tenancy

By Gemma McKinnon, UNSW.

I have worked and researched in housing law for one-third of my life. When news of the Grenfell Tower fire broke, our network of tenant advocates and housing researchers was heartbroken and angry, but not necessarily surprised.

People who know public housing in New South Wales (including the residents themselves) know that many of these homes are desperately in need of repairs and maintenance.

The Grenfell Tower fire is an example of the potentially tragic consequences of failure to keep rental properties in a safe and habitable condition. Watching the surviving Grenfell residents finally get to express, in national and international media, their frustration at how poorly their housing had been managed, one is struck by the thought: what would residents of public housing in NSW and other Australian states say if the cameras were finally turned on them?

Failure to repair is systemic

In an alarming trend, the NSW Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) consistently fails to adequately repair, maintain and manage its public housing properties. As this trend continues, the principal policy response has been to sell properties or outsource management.

The 2016 NSW parliamentary report into management of public housing maintenance contracts provides countless examples of what can only be described as systemic failure by the LAHC to meet its obligations as a landlord. In NSW, that legal requirement is to provide and maintain the residential premises in a reasonable state of repair.

This is a strong and clear obligation. There is little confusion in the community or among housing workers about what it means. However, both public and private tenants know there are few options for actually ensuring repairs are carried out.

In the private sector, tenants fear retaliatory evictions or rent increases when they attempt to assert their rights to repairs. In public housing, where tenure security is stronger and rent increases are manageable, tenants still wait for unacceptably long periods for repairs. Further, the work of contractors in some areas was described as “patch jobs”, resulting in recurring issues.

The parliamentary report shows that the majority of tenant requests did not result in responsive maintenance. Instead, they were assigned to a schedule of planned works stretching many months into the future. As a result, tenants who do seek repair orders from the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) were considered “queue jumpers” by some LAHC staff.

Cost is nominated as a significant factor. Among Redfern Legal Centre’s submissions to the report were accounts of tenants being told the LAHC could not afford to carry out repairs.

However, analysis of the LAHC annual reports shows that rent collected from tenants was more than enough to cover the costs of repairs, council rates and tenancy management. Rents represent 75% of the corporation’s total revenue.

A restructuring of the LAHC’s maintenance contracts in 2015 improved matters in some areas. However, tenants’ advocates continue to report large numbers of calls from public housing tenants relating to repair issues. In 2016, some 20% of the issues tenants raised in calls to the Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services related to repairs.

This amounted to nearly 1,000 complaints, which compares unfavourably to both private and community housing tenancies. Despite heavily subsidised NCAT application fees, social housing tenants made only 163 applications for repairs to the tribunal in 2015.

A problem of attitude

The accessibility of the NCAT and the strong legislative protections relating to repairs and maintenance should put tenants in a position of confidence when it comes to enforcing their rights.

The core of the issue may very well be attributable to attitudes to public housing tenants. The Grenfell fire has been likened to Hurricane Katrina and Flint as a situation where poor communities live in conditions in which they are vulnerable because, as David Madden put it:

They routinely faced a level of risk that would never be tolerated for wealthier city-dwellers.

Public housing tenants in Australia are often spoken of in terms of their cost to society, not their contributions.

Demand significantly outweighs the state’s willingness to supply public housing. A result of this is that tenant demographics become less diverse and reflect complex needs, which are compounded by an inability to afford market rents.

Tenant participation processes in public housing systems are effectively non-existent. And, as we saw with the Grenfell residents, any calls for change are likely to fall on deaf ears.

The NSW government points to satisfaction surveys and consultations held in public spaces. But that’s not really listening – anyone who has engaged in that process knows there is no real conversation happening.

While governments have easy access to media to share their opinion, too few journalists are willing and able to probe their claims. Public housing tenants’ voices are too often dismissed. What needs to happen for us all to start listening, and will we start before it’s too late?

The ConversationThis article was written with assistance from Leo Patterson Ross, Advocacy and Research Officer at the Tenants’ Union of NSW. Assistance included supplied statistics, reference material and guidance.

Gemma McKinnon, Associate Lecturer, Law School, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

City Futures Research Centre is hosting a seminar, Grenfell Tower: the fire, the fallout and the wider implications, by visiting UK academic Mark Stephens, on 18 July. Please click for more information and registration.

Beyond Medicare levies: joining the dots to create places that are good for our health

Posted by on June 23rd, 2017 · Public space, Wellbeing
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The Airds Bradbury residential development has open spaces but these lack the amenities of public parks.
Author provided.

Susan Thompson, UNSW and Gregory Paine, UNSW

We have lots of open space, but no real parks. – participant in Airds Bradbury study

When you build a park, put a cafe there and a newsagent, or something, people will buy coffee and a newspaper and sit and read and that’s encouraging that interaction. Or even chess sets, things like that, activities to encourage people. – participant in Victoria Park study

Two basic classifications in health distinguish between diseases we catch from each other – communicable – and those associated with our lifestyles and genetic inheritance – non-communicable.

It’s relatively easy to justify government funding for communicable diseases as these very quickly affect a lot of people. We obviously need medical infrastructure to deal with the patients, as well as environmental improvements to prevent outbreaks in the first place – such as access to sunlight and fresh air, clean water and waste disposal.

Non-communicable diseases are different. These include the many chronic conditions that plague modern Australians and cost our health system dearly – heart and respiratory diseases, obesity, diabetes, cancers and mental illness.

Contributory factors are complex, however, and include personal preferences, such as patterns of eating and drinking, and levels of physical activity. Many then argue that preventive intervention is “nanny”-like and should not be the responsibility of the state.

This is a wicked problem – its complex and interrelated causes and consequences are hard to pin down. As a result, it isn’t easy to allocate responsibility. But governments are implicated in many ways.

Where does government come into this?

Governments organise employment arrangements that dictate work-life balance. They fund “sedentary” car-based transport over “active” transport – walking, cycling and public transport.

They plan urban areas, which should increase walking and cycling and provide inviting spaces for physical and social activity and restorative “greenness”. Governments can also influence access to nutritious foods.

Healthy physical and social activity happens in public spaces that are designed to encourage this.
just1snap/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

However, in a move seemingly towards reduced state responsibility, the New South Wales government has deleted a well-conceived objective of “health” from proposed planning laws and abolished its well-respected Premier’s Council for Active Living.

Such disconnects flow down. Our recent study of four new residential communities in Sydney, Planning and Building Healthy Communities, found a host of good intentions for a health-supportive environment were simply not carried through. For example:

  • residents don’t use a link to a regional cycleway offering access to a greater range of facilities because it is on a busy highway and they consider it unsafe;
  • restrictive booking policies limit use of estate recreation facilities;
  • an extensive pedestrian and cycle path network is designed for recreation activity, but is too circuitous to encourage active transport use;
  • high-rise residents are frustrated about not knowing their neighbours, but regard foyers and lifts as too impersonal to be meeting places; and
  • garden maintenance is contracted out, so residents don’t garden and enjoy the benefits of improved fitness and contact with nature.

A bike lane should promote healthy physical activity, but it won’t if potential users feel it’s unsafe.
Richard Masoner/flickr, CC BY-SA

One explanation points to a lack of engagement by designers, builders and managers. Research suggests this derives from the long-held notion of a need for “professional detachment”.

This is curious when one considers the responsibility of professionals to be client-focused and responsive. No doubt professionals’ own heath aspirations and experiences would mirror those expressed by our study participants.

But it is not just practitioners who are implicated. Much research is still organised around the model of linear and quantifiable cause-and-effect, which is typical of communicable disease. This approach doesn’t work for people-place-health relationships, which are broad, qualitative and networked.

A ‘deep immersion’ response to problems

In response, our study took an integral, “deep immersion” method. This included:

  • partnerships with key health and built environment “players”, state health and urban development authorities, and the Heart Foundation;
  • a comprehensive audit – not just reviewing census, medical and GIS data, but pounding the footpaths (or lack thereof), buying food in local shops, and observing how spaces were used day and night, on weekdays and weekends; and
  • detailed interviews with residents, asking about behaviours, aspirations and needs, followed by workshops to explore further what worked and what didn’t in terms of their health.

The audit, interview and workshop processes are available for others interested in conducting similar comprehensive studies.

Instructively, the participating residents invariably “got it” in terms of what is actually needed – action by each of us as individuals, combined with action by us as a community to provide effective policy, design and management. One workshop participant summed it up:

So … you’re asking, what do I do to keep healthy? That’s us. We need to do that. What should I do to keep healthy? That’s [also] us. What is helping me to keep healthy? This is about our community. What could actually help us? By having better gyms, all this sort of stuff … What I need to [do] … that’s where I see the linkage coming through … We’ve got to do that and make the choices…

The ConversationA sympathetic “putting oneself in the shoes” of residents via the deep-immersion techniques used in our research will better equip designers, builders, managers and researchers to plan and manage health-supportive environments for all.

Susan Thompson, Professor of Planning and Head, City Wellbeing Program, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW and Gregory Paine, Research Officer, City Futures Research Centre, City Wellbeing, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Compact for Renewal Project: what tenants want from social housing renewal

Posted by on June 6th, 2017 · Tenancy, urban renewal

By Bernie Coates, Visiting Fellow, City Futures Research Centre. Prior to retiring in 2015, Bernie was Director of Community Renewal in the Renewal Division of the NSW Land and Housing Corporation (formerly Department of Housing), and has worked in social and community housing for 40 years.

In early 2016, Shelter NSW, the Tenant’s Union of NSW and the City Futures Research Centre at UNSW agreed to partner in a project to develop a Compact for Renewal between agencies undertaking urban renewal and social housing tenants affected by such renewal.  The compact would represent an agreement about how urban renewal was to be conducted in social housing areas, and how social housing tenants were to be treated and engaged.

It is widely recognised that renewal of public housing areas can be highly disruptive, cause high levels of stress and trauma and lead to significant adverse health impacts for social housing tenants.  These effects are compounded because tenants are often highly disadvantaged and disempowered.  Moreover, the renewal process is imposed from above; tenants typically have little or no say in the process, and this lack of control compounds these impacts.  These adverse impacts were identified in important research conducted by Shelter NSW in 2014 and updated in 2016.

The need for a compact arises from the variable experience of tenants to date with renewal, and the widely varying polices and practices affecting tenants applied by agencies undertaking renewal in New South Wales.  Projects have been subject to widely differing approaches ever since the first comprehensive renewal project commenced at Minto, in southwest Sydney, in 2002.  Some projects have taken tenants interests seriously and tried very hard to include tenants in all aspects of the projects.  These projects have actively engaged tenants in planning, sought tenants’ advice about implementation and gone the extra mile to ensure tenants are treated well and fairly when it comes to relocations and resettlement in new areas.  In these cases effort has also been put into strategies to support tenants to cope better with the impacts of change in their own family life and in their communities.  Further, these projects have invested in the community and in building the capacity of the community so that tenants get real benefit from renewal, where they could otherwise have been significant losers from the process.

In the first stage of the Compact for Renewal project, the partner organisations sought to gain a rich and detailed understanding of tenants experience of renewal to date and to find out what tenants want and need to make renewal a better experience.  We also sought to identify good practice where it existed.  During 2016, a series of focus groups with social housing tenants was conducted in eight social housing areas in Sydney that have experienced renewal programs within the last ten years or so or were scheduled to do so in the near future.  Across these areas, the experience varied widely from generally positive through to the highly traumatic and dislocating. The focus groups included a number of tenants who have been highly involved in the renewal processes in their area, some for 15 or more years.  The focus groups thereby brought a wealth of experience and rich perspectives on renewal approaches and what works for tenants. From this rich information base and drawing on the issues raised by tenants in the focus groups, a comprehensive list of what tenants need and want from renewal projects was developed and published as A Compact for Renewal:  What tenants want from renewal.

What tenants want starts with five core principles:

  • Respect for Tenants;
  • Acknowledgment that renewal has damaging and disruptive impacts;
  • Impacts will be mitigated and minimised;
  • Commitment to real engagement; and
  • Tenants to receive a fair share of the benefits of renewal.

These core principles are followed by a comprehensive set of requirements.  A selection of those requirements are listed below, grouped under four headings.

 

Planning and setting up the renewal project

  • A social impact assessment to be carried out for all projects, so social impacts are identified early and strategies to mitigate and manage them are set out. Tenants should be key informants for this assessment.
  • Social planning should identify the social and community structures and organisations that are valued in the community and a plan developed for retaining and transitioning them.
  • A Social Plan to be developed alongside a physical masterplan, setting out the community facilities, support services and community services to be provided for the new community.
  • The project team to include staff whose job it is to engage with residents, including bilingual staff. Tenants also want the project leader to accept them as key stakeholders and to ‘meet them as equals’.
  • An on site office should be provided where tenants are always welcome, where good information is available and tenant’s questions can be answered.
  • Tenants want a Community Reference Group (or similar) to be set up for all projects—a secure and respected vehicle for community input to the planning and implementation of the project. Tenants also want a strong residents voice in all aspects of the project, including support for an independent tenants’ group.

Community engagement

  • Tenants to be fully engaged in projects as an important project stakeholder. Agencies should invest in capacity building to support tenants to participate more fully and meaningfully.
  • An engagement plan should be prepared and tenants consulted about it before it is finalised. Project staff should report back to the community on the plan and involve residents in reviewing the plan periodically.
  • Tenants want quality information to be provided about the project and how it will impact on them and the community. This information should be regularly updated and made available in many formats including a regular newsletter (or similar), face to face and at community meetings and events.
  • Consultation should seek to reach all groups including harder to reach groups. Consultation approaches should be creative and varied to appeal and attract participation from the full range of population groups.

Managing change and the adverse impacts of renewal

  • Agencies to provide a comprehensive range of practical, emotional and professional/specialist support services to assist tenants to better manage change and adverse impacts—including physical health, mental health, dislocation, stress, anxiety, grief and loss, and trauma.
  • An independent tenant advocacy service for all renewal projects, spanning individual advocacy and collective or project-wide advocacy.
  • Recognising the damaging affects of a loss of choice and control, tenants want agencies to extend choice and control in as many areas as possible, including choice of relocation areas, replacement homes, home improvements and control over the timing of the move.

Relocation and resettlement

  • Consistently good relocation practice, including a relocation coordinator who will ‘go the extra mile’ to support tenants through the process, and better training for coordinators in issues like trauma, grief and loss.
  • Improved support for tenants to resettle in a new neighbourhood, including better information about services, transport, schools etc., and access to resettlement support
  • Support for tenants to downsize and declutter, including access to a service to assist tenants over a period of time prior to moving.

In the second stage of the project, the findings are being presented to renewal agencies in New South Wales, including government and community sector agencies, seeking their feedback on the extent to which those agencies believe they can manage projects in line with what tenants want.  Subject to the willingness of agencies to engage with the project, we seek to negotiate a compact by which agencies agree to manage renewal projects in social housing areas.  In this negotiation, will be important for project partners to emphasise their willingness to understand what’s important for the agencies regarding renewal processes, and to work through the list of what tenants want from renewal to identify a set of principles and rules that both parties are comfortable with.

This compact therefore seeks to develop a set of ground rules that would make renewal less disruptive, traumatic and dislocating for tenants and would support their active involvement in the renewal project.  The compact would outline a comprehensive set of requirements for renewal agencies in how to plan and manage these projects with the best interests of tenants in mind.  It would act as a guarantee for tenants that their interests would be recognised and respected in the process.  Ideally, it will also increase the chances that tenants may feel able to lend their active support to renewal projects.

Overturning perceptions: migration, renewal and the new Western City

Posted by on May 31st, 2017 · Affordability, Cities, Demographics, Migration, Sydney

Next Monday 5 June Blacktown City Council will host a City Futures seminar, Overturning perceptions: migration, renewal and the new Western City. If you’re involved in migrant services, community development or social planning – or just interested in migrant experiences of Sydney – please come along to this free event (register here).

The seminar will feature presentations by Dr Ryan Allen and Dr Hazel Easthope, and a Q&A panel session.

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Religious and ethnic residential segregation in Western Sydney – Dr Ryan Allen, University of Minnesota

 

In addition to many practical matters, such as housing affordability, access to amenities and the availability of jobs, ethnic and religious identities can influence where people live. Spatial concentrations of people of the same ethnicity or religion can provide important and desirable social, cultural and spiritual outlets. Segregated ethnic and religious communities may also form in an involuntary fashion when individuals from specific ethnicities or religions experience discrimination that leaves them with few options for where to find housing. To the extent that ethnic or religious segregation patterns map onto the geography of opportunity in a city, residential segregation can play a role in exacerbating levels of social or economic inequality.

In this presentation, I present preliminary results of an analysis of segregation patterns in Sydney along two dimensions: ancestry, which serves as a proxy for ethnicity, and religion. Using data from the 2011 Australian Census, I assess the extent to which residents from a common ancestry or religion form spatially segregated communities in Greater Sydney. Results suggest that at the SA1 level, which represents the lowest level of spatial detail available in the Census, segregated ethnic and religious communities are relatively uncommon. Instead, most Sydney communities house residents with broad mixes of ancestry and religion. At the same time, there are some significant pockets of residential segregation, which are more likely to be defined by religion than ancestry.

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Affordability barriers to migrant settlement in Australia’s ‘gateway suburbs’ – Dr Hazel Easthope, based on a paper by Dr Hazel Easthope, A.Prof Wendy Stone and Prof Lynda Cheshire

Official statistics suggest that the most common type of socio-economically disadvantaged suburbs across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are areas with above-average numbers of recent overseas migrants and families with children. Many see the spatial concentration of disadvantaged people and the clustering of newly arrived migrants as problematic. But our research demonstrates that that concentrations of newly arrived migrants – and particularly humanitarian and family migrants – can have beneficial outcomes. This is possible when the locations involved are advantaged places with good social supports and services. In two suburbs classed as disadvantaged and characterised by high proportions of recent overseas migrants we interviewed residents and local service providers about their quality of life, how their localities had changed over time and the opportunities for new residents to settle there. These were the suburbs of Auburn in Sydney and Springvale in Melbourne. Judging from these local perspectives, these are good places to live. They embody the ideal of a multicultural society and afford residents access to significant formal and informal support and services. All this is despite their official designation as ‘concentrations of disadvantage’.  Looking to the future, though, this positive scenario is under threat. The capacity of new migrants to emulate concentrated settlement patterns is increasingly undermined by changes in the labour market and housing affordability constraints. The implications of these changes for the wellbeing of disadvantaged residents and the future of these suburbs are significant but effective responses to these challenges are difficult. Both the implications and possible responses to the decline of affordability in gateway suburbs will be discussed.

Planning healthy cities: a workshop linking research questions to policy and practice

Posted by on May 26th, 2017 · Cities, Wellbeing

By Alison Taylor, Susan Thompson and Ori Gudes, City Futures Research Centre.

Earlier this month a group of around 30 academics, health planners, and interested stakeholders met to discuss research needs around the topic of planning healthy cities. Representatives from the City Futures Research Centre kicked off the workshop with three short presentations that set the scene for the following spirited discussions.

Professor Susan Thompson, Program Head, City Wellbeing, provided a retrospective view of how far we’ve come in planning our cities to support healthy and active living. And yet, there still remain some significant challenges, particularly in relation to planning legislation.

Dr Ori Gudes demonstrated the potential contribution that GIS and spatial approaches can make to healthy cities. He presented an overview of the City Futures City Analytics capability and series of practical examples showcasing his research. Participants were particularly taken with the work showing the number of fast food outlets in close proximity to schools.

Following this, Dr Alison Taylor described current research investigating the equality of health service distribution across Sydney. Western Sydney was found to be under-serviced for its population size. One group of four local government areas which account for more than one in every five (21%) Sydney residents, only have 12% of the city’s health services. Workshop sessions saw participants deliberating over the insights needed to prepare for future challenges, identifying research gaps and discussing data tools that could assist the achievement of healthy cities.

The session culminated in a panel of experts providing their multi-disciplinary perspectives. Michelle Daley from the Heart Foundation, Stephen Conaty from the South West Health District and Juliet Suich from the Greater Sydney Commission outlined challenges and opportunities to consider.

The workshop was successful in highlighting recent research and showcasing expertise, bringing people from different organisations together to share insights, swap tips and network to undertake further work together. The key workshop finding was that we have some good research to tell us what we need, but workers in the field need practical guides as to how to implement these findings: ‘We know what we need, but how do we do it?’ There were many useful ideas discussed which will motivate our research, and importantly, ensure that it is policy and practice relevant.

Workshop presentations by City Futures staff will be made available on the City Futures website. The workshop was the final event for the ANDS funded Urban Health Data Connectivity Project.