The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) wants the federal government to include an ongoing fund of $250 million a year in its next budget to buy back and raise the homes exposed to extreme flood risks.
The ICA also calls on state and territory governments to match this with $500 million yearly to move approximately 750 families out of flood danger zones.
The council says that the $1.6 billion in joint funding currently set aside to buy back at-risk properties is insufficient and has resulted in only 1300 buybacks so far. It also wants an extra $5 million each year to help improve risk management in sectors experiencing higher frequency of personal injury claims.
Call outs for tiny house code committee
The International Code Council and Tiny Home Industry Association (THIA) is looking for code officials, design professionals, government regulators, builders, manufacturers, and other relevant industry stakeholders to help set design, construction, inspection, and regulation codes for tiny houses built for permanent occupancy.
Volunteers will have the opportunity to have a voice in addressing the minimum requirements necessary for tiny houses used for permanent occupancy to assure public safety, sustainability, and resilience. Get in touch here.
Sunshine Coast Council
Sunshine Coast Council has purchased a 14 hectare parcel of untouched native bushland to expand the East Mount Mellum Nature Refuge to protect biodiversity corridors, support endangered koalas, the vulnerable glossy black cockatoos, and the Richmond birdwing butterfly. Acquisition of the area will also let the council maintain the water quality flowing into the Pumicestone passage.
An environment levy funded the purchase, which allows council’s plans to maintain 8.6 ha of land for every 1000 residents – a goal set in the council’s Environment and Liveability Strategy – to be exceeded.
Pressures grow in the UK
Housebuilders, housing associations and build-to-rent developers are under pressure from the cost of capital and regulatory challenges in the UK. And “a brutal 2023 has left hopes of a volumetric modular housebuilding renaissance, carefully nurtured over the last decade, hanging by a thread, with the?collapse of the most high-profile start-ups” says Building in this report on the UK’s need to build 300,000 homes a year.
Jobs
GridBeyond, an energy monitoring software provider, has appointed Tim Barrass as its new regional director.
Barrass’s new gig will involve battery asset optimisation, trading software and community batteries. Prior to his new job, Barrass was a business development manager of infrastructure for NSW, ACT and Queensland for LumeaAU, the commercial and investment arm of TransGrid. He spent up to 20 years in energy related roles, including jobs at ERM Power and Endeavour Energy.