Melbourne’s green spaces are being lost in rush to build more housing

Melbourne has lost almost 2000 hectares of tree cover in the past five years as suburban backyards are cleared for new housing.

Members of the Upfield Urban Forest group: Anna Sinn,
Greta and Esme Holroyd, Tamar Hopkins and Gerard Morel.
 They are photographed in the Urban Forest near Brunswick station. 

The amount of urban forest that was removed between 2014 and 2018 is roughly equal in size to Reservoir, Melbourne’s largest suburb by area.

The eastern suburbs, long celebrated for their leafiness, experienced the greatest loss of greenery in that time, accounting for more than two-thirds of Melbourne's total tree canopy loss, researchers at RMIT University found.

By contrast, the western suburbs have enjoyed a small recent recovery in green growth, although this has been from a much lower base and has mostly occurred on public land.

Read the story from The Age by Adam Carey - “Melbourne’s green spaces are being lost in rush to build more housing.”

Australia still doing bare minimum on new-build home energy efficiency

New housing in Australia must meet minimum energy performance requirements. We wondered how many buildings exceeded the minimum standard. What our analysis found is that four in five new houses are being built to the minimum standard and a negligible proportion to an optimal performance standard.

NatHERS star ratings across total data set for new housing approvals, May 2016–December 2018. 

Before these standards were introduced the average performance of housing was found to be around 1.5 stars. The current minimum across most of Australia is six stars under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).

This six-star minimum falls short of what is optimal in terms of environmental, economic and social outcomes. It’s also below the minimum set by many other countries.

There have been calls for these minimum standards to be raised. However, many policymakers and building industry stakeholders believe the market will lift performance beyond minimum standards and so there is no need to raise these.

Read the story from One Step Off the Grid by The Conversation -  “Australia still doing bare minimum on new-build home energy efficiency.”