<
https://theconversation.com/why-knock-down-all-public-housing-towers-when-retrofit-can-sometimes-be-better-229186>
"The Victorian government is planning Australia’s largest urban renewal
project. The plan is to knock down and rebuild 44 large public housing towers
in Melbourne. The government says these towers, built in the 1960s and ’70s,
are no longer fit for purpose and will cost more to maintain and upgrade than
to replace.
Rebuilding will allow 20,000 more people to live on these sites. However, most
of the extra housing will be for private renters or owners. It will not add
much more public or affordable housing.
Rebuilding involves breaking up public housing communities. Many tenants have
already been forcibly displaced. Removing stock from the system to make way for
future housing reduces the capacity to house people in need amid a housing
crisis.
Tearing down so much concrete and other materials and rebuilding in a
carbon-constrained world also raises concerns about the public value for money
and the loss of embodied carbon in these old buildings. The materials and
energy needed to erect a new building create a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.
Construction produces almost a fifth of Australia’s emissions.
Some industry experts say the housing towers are structurally sound. They and
other sustainability researchers argue that retrofits can bring the buildings
up to modern standards.
This approach would improve thermal comfort, cut energy bills and produce fewer
emissions. Some retrofitted buildings could have half the embodied energy of
newly built ones. And communities could largely remain in place while the work
is done.
Public housing complexes across Australia face similar renewal proposals. In
each case, there are valid questions about the balance of public and private
benefit.
So, how should decisions on public housing account for environmental, social
and economic costs and benefits for all the people and interests involved? We
draw on our recent research on life-cycle impacts and public housing tenant
relocations to answer this question. Our research shows decisions on each tower
that are underpinned by a proper process – one that considers all the evidence
– could go either way: demolish and rebuild, or retrofit."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
