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Industry applauds new sustainable public housing at Ivanhoe, but is the model sustainable?

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Frasers Property Australia , Citta Property Group and Mission Australia have won the tender for the $2. 2 billion redevelopment of the Ivanhoe public housing estate in Macquarie Park, in north-east Sydney. The project is set to achieve high sustainability outcomes , such as carbon neutral operation , but while the news has been welcomed by many in the property industry , it has also raised questions about just how replicable this model of public housing funding is. The master plan for the 8.2 hectare site will see 259 existing low - density public housing dwellings demolished and replaced with more than 3000 dwellings built by the Aspire consortium, including at least 950 new social housing apartments and 128 affordable rental apartments . A non-government co- educational vertical high school , two 75- place childcare centres , a 120- bed aged care facility , 141 social housing independent living units and 132 private independent living units are also in the plans. Community f...

think rooftop vegie patches and beehives

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The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...

think rooftop vegie patches and beehives

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The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...