The City of Sydney Council has endorsed changes to planning and development rules to incentivise developers to provide more build to rent and co-living apartments and family friendly apartments in Sydney’s CBD.
Proposed changes include:
- 20 per cent to 75 per cent more floor space for build-to-rent development for both conversions and new builds
- Give developers access to 20 per cent more floor space for co-living developments to stimulate an increase in student and low-income worker accommodation
- height incentives for sustainable buildings that include green roofs
- reduce the number of two-bedroom apartments permitted in a residential development while raising the minimum number of units with three-bedrooms or more
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the proposed amendments to the Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2012 will apply to applications made within five years from when the changes are formally approved.
The draft changes will be presented to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment for determination on whether the proposal will proceed to public exhibition.
Farmers for Climate Action
Farmers get it. According to a survey by Farmers for Climate Action Aussie farmers see climate change as the greatest threat to their business, with 89 per cent saying they had experienced “very unusual” or “somewhat unusual” climate change related events, including rainfall events, unpredictable growing seasons, and storms in the past three years.
Interesting to see that among other findings were that:
- 71 per cent of farmers have invested their own money into emission reduction, such as solar panels and batteries, electrifying farm equipment, etc.
- 64 per cent are planning to invest in future or additional emission reduction measures
- Of those asked what the single greatest threat to the future of farming in Australia was,
- 55 per cent said climate change
- 15 per cent said bureaucracy and red tape
- 9 per cent said water security
- 8 per cent said increasing costs of insurance, fertiliser, and other farm expenses
Australia set to pioneer first 3D printed home
3D printing technology company Luyten 3D whose work featured at Tomorrowland 2022 has announced its partnership with the University of New South Wales to design and build a 3D printed owner occupied home in Melbourne.
According to Luyten the building will inform the development of new building standards in the nation’s national construction code.
The company says it will use 3d printable concrete – Ultimatecrete to deliver a 60 per cent reduction in construction waste, a 70 per cent reduction in production time and an 80 per cent reduction in labour costs compared to usual construction.
Jobs news
Lendlease has appointed Clare Donovan as sustainability manager after her work as sustainability reporting manager for the Goodman Group. Donovan has also been national sustainability manager at the Abacus Group, strategic planning manager and planning program manager of sustainability for the City of Sydney and sustainability specialist at the Greater Sydney Commission.
Infrastructure Sustainability Council chief executive Ainsley Simpson is moving on to become the inaugural CEO of Seamless, a clothing stewardship scheme aiming to create a circular clothing industry by 2030 by reducing clothing sent to landfills.
Simpson previously spent two years as the IS Council’s business and technical services manager before leading the organisation for almost six years. She is also a current member of the infrastructure steering group at GRESB and a board director at the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council.
Plus Architecture has appointed Mark Ojascastro as its Sydney studio principal. Ojascastro was previously an associate director for Bates Smart for almost 13 years, working as a lead conceptual designer for a range of buildings.
Battery recycling
B-cycle has released its Positive Charge Report that claims since its inception 18 months ago, battery recycling has increased by more than 30 per cent across the nation.
The government backed battery recycling scheme, founded by the Battery Stewardship Council, now has more than 4195 drop off points across the nation for consumers to recycle everyday loose batteries.
The program was also supported by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which provided the program authorisation to collect batteries in exchange for a number of conditions, which includes launching safety awareness campaigns, undergoing consumer research and developing new products to help consumers to safely store batteries.
According to the report, batteries contain finite natural materials, and most components are recyclable. Battery recycling rates have almost doubled, with 2.735 tonnes of used batteries since the program started.
Other key stats include:
- average recovery rate of materials from batteries collected is 71.08 per cent
- the program website has serviced over 90,130 searches for the closest battery drop off point
- there are now 850 participants hosting accredited drop off points
- 90 per cent of the loose battery market and 55 per cent of the power tool market are participating in the scheme
- battery related fires are increasing, leading to a number of campaigns addressing the risks of batteries
- lithium-based batteries are set to grow to 7.7 million tonnes by 2050, which is 40 times what is in use today