Greener design pays healthy dividends

Luke Parker and Nic Osboine were stepping into new design terrain when they bought into Fremantle’s Knutsford precinct.

The OP Properties directors purchased an 1,893 square metre site in the DevelopmentWA precinct for $2 million in late 2019, just before COVID escaped from China.

Subiaco-based OP emerged ahead of the pack during a tender process for the site, which called for sustainably led design.

Montreal Commons, a $20 million, 39-dwelling apartment complex, is OP Properties’ most progressive project, with its pitch to prospective buyers that they will “get paid to live low carbon”.

The building’s electricity is 100 per cent renewably sourced, utilising precinct-scale battery storage, a developer-funded 75-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system and top-up renewable energy from the grid.

In addition, it uses a power-trading arrangement, facilitated by Western Australian technology firm Powerledger, which allows residents’ strata fees to be offset by at least half.

“We’ve managed to create a financial benefit from this way of living,” Mr Parker told Business News.

“Even if buyers aren’t driven by sustainability outcomes, there’s a financial outcome.”

Mr Parker admitted that the project’s green focus meant it carried considerably greater risk than a conventional development, which was amplified by the current industry climate.

“In an already highly volatile economic environment it can be a challenge to do something progressive because it carries more risk,” he said.

Montreal Commons on completion. Image: Hillam Architects

“As developers do more of these, it becomes a bit more business as usual, and that starts to carve a well-worn path.”

He added that the financial benefits of the project were key because consumers valued their bottom line. “If we want extensive take-up of that technology and we’re going to achieve net zero etc, we’re going to need financial incentives,” Mr Parker said.

“The lower carbon outcomes are a convenient by-product.”

He added that it was crucial to have all stakeholders aligned with projects such as these, including government agencies.

Director of project sales at Optic Property, which grew out of OP Properties, Nick Shinner, said although people appreciated the low-carbon element, cost was also at the forefront.

“You get people walking in the door … and they look at it and say it’s great, but the first question is about the cost of the strata fees,” he said.

Mr Shinner said the strata cost of a two-bedroom apartment at Montreal Commons was less than $1,000 per annum.

The development, expected to be complete by mid to late 2023, is set to be one of Australia’s first carbon-neutral apartment buildings.

The development was globally recognised under Bioregional Australia’s One Planet Living Project framework earlier this year for its sustainability credentials.

Its use of renewable energy, passive solar design, community bore, water efficient landscape design, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and the encouraged collaboration between residents all led to its One Planet Living certification.

Context

East Village, a 1.5-hectare site within the 30ha Knutsford precinct, was created in early 2019 by then LandCorp to transform an industrial zone into a demonstration project for sustainable living.

Its 36 ‘town homes’, developed by DevelopmentWA, will draw off the same renewable energy microgrid as OP Properties’ Montreal Commons apartments.

DevelopmentWA describes East Village as a “living laboratory”, in that lessons from the project can be applied to future developments.

Curtin University is working closely with the government developer to deliver research outcomes for the site.

Environmental consultant Josh Byrne, of Josh Byrne and Associates, worked alongside OP Properties on the landscape architecture and sustainability aspects of Montreal Commons.

Professor Byrne, who is also a dean of sustainable futures at Curtin University and a presenter on ABC’s Gardening Australia, has worked closely with developers in this space for two decades.

He said East Village demonstrated the success of large-scale sustainable design, which should be more common among developers.

“It is a leadership project when it comes to sustainability [and] will be a catalyst for high-quality sustainable built form across the wider precinct,” Professor Byrne told Business News.

He said the fact that Montreal Commons could connect to an existing precinct battery and shared bore scheme strengthened the case for shared infrastructure.

“[That] makes the business case behind that infrastructure even stronger,” Professor Byrne said.

“This is where we really need to start moving away from lot-by-lot, ad hoc development, and move towards precinct planning and precinct delivery.”

The solar energy storage system utilised at East Village was pioneered at nearby White Gum Valley.

Dubbed WGV, the precinct is the state’s first One Planet Living community and was designed to test green living protocols.

The 2.29ha DevelopmentWA precinct was created when the former Kim Beazley School was decommissioned in 2008, and the area was rezoned for residential development.

WGV contains an affordable housing precinct with 28 single homes that connect to a community bore, a generation Y demonstration project comprised of three apartments, and 12 artists’ residences.

For her PhD at Curtin University, Jemma Green tested the model of shared solar at a building scale at WGV.

Dr Green later founded software and technology company Powerledger, which uses blockchain technology for energy trading (also utilised at East Village).

The WGV site also contains Yolk Property Group’s Evermore apartment development, built in 2018, and an undeveloped apartment site under negotiation.

Yolk Property Group founder and director Pete Adams told Business News the 24-dwelling development Evermore was designed to source 80 per cent of its power from off-the-grid supplies.

Evermore’s solar energy and battery system cost close to $500,000, a significant proportion of which was funded via a federal government renewable energy grant.

“I think it’s a success, and I’d like to continue to roll it out, it’s more difficult to roll out now; we got the grant back then, which subsidised it a bit,” Mr Adams said.

He said the system was a more effective way to store energy than if residents had individual batteries.

“The sharing of the battery concept worked really well, because if you’ve got a home battery and you go away for a month or so, no-one is getting use out of it,” Mr Adams said.

“At least with a shared battery, everyone is utilising it, so you’re getting more economic efficiencies out of the battery storage.”

Mr Adams added that there was demand for the product, particularly in Fremantle, but there wasn’t huge depth in the market.

DevelopmentWA senior development manager Warren Phillips told Business News WGV came about after studies into the area found a strong interest in greener living.

“We found that White Gum Valley was a suburb in Fremantle that had the highest proportion of customers paying for green energy from Synergy, so paying a bit extra to have clean energy,” Mr Phillips said.

“We thought there must be an interest here; when we held community workshops, people … were interested in alternative ways of living.

“It definitely set the tone in that it was an accommodating place that really did have an appetite for sustainability.”

He explained that East Village took the principles applied at WGV a step further, by connecting the battery storage across the entire precinct.

“At East Village and WGV, we put the challenge out there for the proponents who wanted to buy those apartment sites to put forward their commitment to sustainability,” Mr Phillips said.

Yolk Property’s Evermore apartment development in White Gum Valley. 

“We were pleasantly surprised with the responses. We didn’t necessarily get as many potential proponents, but you do get the ones who see the future and particularly in the Fremantle market where having a sustainable apartment building is a point of difference.”

At nearby Hamilton Hill’s OneOneFive, DevelopmentWA studied the demographics of the area and is in the process of formulating a sustainably led project.

“There is a lot of interest in sustainable living in Hamilton Hill. It is more affordable, however, it also had a history of being a heat stress suburb,” Mr Phillips said.

“When we looked at the national studies on suburbs that suffer the most health impacts in housing during the summer periods, Hamilton Hill was a hot zone where the houses weren’t well designed when they were built in the 1960s and seventies, and there was insufficient tree canopy.”

Mr Phillips added that energy efficiency in homes was key for its 115 Hamilton Hill development.

Mindset change

Professor Byrne has noticed more widespread uptake of sustainable initiatives among developers in recent years.

“What I’ve noticed in the last five to 10 years is the momentum has well and truly shifted,” he said.

“It’s no longer just the top end of the market looking at this … we are seeing many more sustainable outcomes on the ground, and even in the past 12 months it feels like it’s gaining momentum even more.”

Professor Byrne said that as businesses came to terms with their corporate social responsibility requirements, there was a realisation among larger developers that they needed to show leadership around decarbonisation.

“There is still a lot of work to do to understand how we look at the right types of projects, but the momentum is definitely there,” he said.

“The built environment is where we need to do the heavy lifting over the next 10 years, because it’s the low-hanging fruit … and it’s where some of the quickest gains can be made.

“Then we’ll see other sectors of the economy like agriculture and heavy industry … their decarbonisation needs to kick in as soon as possible; but the reality is there are bigger challenges there.

“As we look to be net zero by 2050 … it will be through 2030 and 2040 when the built environment will be a big focus.”