Biodiversity

Is density a dirty word?

| olivialealwalker
This is the future we’re heading towards unless we change the way we deliver housing. Let’s not make the same mistake as America.
Image credit: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

My grandparents moved to Sydney’s North West because they wanted to farm and the particular rural lifestyle that goes with it. Over the last few years, there has been a massive shift in the area, with 5 acre lots turned into 300 m2 blocks. People still have a dream to live in a massive house with a backyard, but this dream has become unaffordable for many, and so they are creating demand in the suburbs of Western Sydney.

What this has essentially created is a suburban desert. Rather than a more affordable home, some sprawling, unconsidered developments are locking people into a less affordable lifestyle. There are no jobs nearby, so families need two cars to complete the hour long journey to work. There are no parks or shops to walk to, but even if you could, there is no protection from the sun on your walk, meaning people are feeling less healthy and more isolated. The homogeny of these developments means that people won’t be able to grow old in the same community they lived in, as there are no options to downsize.

The future that I’d like to see – density done well

Development that considers the local context, provides a diversity of offerings, is of a high quality, and with increased access to quality parks can be the future.

We know our population is growing, and we will need to build more homes. But rather than sprawling, disconnected spaces, imagine a future of medium density, quality communities where you can walk to most of the things you need. This model allows you to:

  • Have the space you need to kick a ball or walk the dog
  • Have a diversity of building types and sizes within a smaller area, meaning you can grow old surrounded by the same community
  • Walk to the shops or Saturday soccer, rather than having to jump in the car, and doing so on cooler, tree-lined streets
  • Going up, rather than out allows for better public transport services
  • With the right type of mixed use, work within your local community

There is certainly a place for suburbs, and I’ve seen them done really well. This is my vision for the future, because it means we can live in connected, healthy communities and not be disadvantaged when it comes to getting to work and education. Density doesn’t necessarily mean high-rise apartments, although every building typology has a place somewhere, but may be terraced houses as an example, each within walking distance to the amenities they need.

Let’s just do it

I know what it’s like to live in an area that isn’t connected and the impact that can have on everyday life. I also know what good development looks like, and how it can enable people to lead healthier, happier, more connected lives. Connection is both literally through digital and transport infrastructure and employment opportunities, as well as a feeling of being part of a community, which is incredibly important for mental health.

Those who say density is a dirty word are those who have had the privilege of living on a large block close to the city. When density is done well, it can build communities, enable people close access to work and all the recreation they desire. It also creates more space for parks, nature and to grow our food locally. Stop saying density is a dirty word and start thinking about smarter ways to deliver good outcomes for the residents who will inevitably live there.

Are green buildings bad?

| olivialealwalker
The Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab is one of the many beautiful Living Building Challenge certified projects.
Picture source: Living Building Challenge

Some parts of the industry have come a long way in green building design, and developed beautiful, functional and efficient buildings. We start with a building and look at ways to make it better, tacking on incremental improvements.

What if our approach was all wrong?

While this approach has served us for a long time, I believe it is time we shifted the way we deliver sustainable design. Rather than ask how can we make bad better, why don’t we ask what does good look like?

The Living Building Challenge

This is the question that the Living Building Challenge seeks to answer. The Living Building Challenge is the most vigorous, transformative certification available globally. Instead of moving the needle forward slowly, the Challenge has set its flag on the hill for what good looks like, and over 100 certified buildings have risen to it.

The Living Building Challenge is rooted in considering a building as a flower, which makes sense the more you think about it. A flower is beautiful, gets all of its energy and water from where it falls and it isn’t toxic. A flower adds more value to a site than it takes.

Likewise, a Living Building generates 105% of its electricity on site, connects people to nature and their food, protects habitat, sources materials locally, only uses non-toxic materials and is net positive for waste, as well as being educational and inspirational.

The core values, or ‘petals’ of the Living Building Challenge are below, each with a set of imperatives to achieve:

Petals of the Living Building Challenge, each with a set of imperatives that show what good looks like.
Picture source: Understanding the Living Building Challenge Course

Living Building Challenge 4.0 is launching in two weeks, and this is a great opportunity to get familiar with what good looks like. The Living Future Institute of Australia is your go-to in Australia: https://living-future.org.au/

How to get fit (while helping the environment)

| olivialealwalker

You know those Snickers advertisements where it says you’re not yourself until you eat one of their delicious chocolate bars? That’s me, except I’m not myself until I go for a bushwalk. Exercising in the outdoors, without the distraction of my phone, releases all the good chemicals that my brain and body needs.

I’m so fortunate that there is a National Park within walking distance of my apartment, and I love it. It’s such a privilege to run past the beautiful big trees, the quick-flitting birds and the chorus of frogs. Unfortunately, there is evidence of humans everywhere – particularly after rain – the creeks throughout are choked in plastic, and an abundance of weeds crop up along the banks.

Take 5, Park’s Alive

If you haven’t come across it, the ‘Take 3 for the Sea’ program is enormous, and incredibly impactful. It encourages people to pick up three bits of plastic and bin them.

Why can’t we do the same for weeds? Introducing the ‘Take 5, Park’s Alive’ program!

The idea behind this is that people walking along trails in a National Park can pull out five weeds along their journey. There will be signs to inform what the weed is and how to remove it, as well as a designated area to leave it. By focusing on specific areas and specific weeds, it gives the regular bushcare volunteers a fighting chance to stay on top of the weeds.


By putting signs along trails, users of the space can contribute to National Park’s environmental goals.

The Park that I exercise through is full of joggers, walkers and bike riders. Many hands make light work! People want an opportunity to give back, but don’t often know how. ‘Take 5, Park’s Alive’ gives them the chance, while also meeting National Park’s educational objectives.

How can you get the community involved in your project?

I’ve bin chicken you out: The Rise of the Ibis

| olivialealwalker
Ibis at Wynyard Station: we’ve missed the train trying to keep them out of our cities

If ‘The Rise of the Ibis’ sounds like a Star Wars movie, then good, for it seems that our city parks are our battle ground and bin lids are our only defence against the long and pointy beaks of our enemy.

And yet, I have a confession to make: I love the bin chicken.

I think it comes from an understanding that ibis are native to Australia. We’re building over all the wetlands, so they’ve got nowhere to call home. Now how do you feel? Ok, I get that you still hate them.

So what does this mean for our city?

We have another 10 million people to fit into Sydney in the next 10 years (NSW Government, 2018). We’ve (attempted) to design this city to be convenient for humans to live, move, work and play. What does our love of concrete and steel mean for the species whose habitat we’re developing on?

We need to consider where we are going to build, and who – other than humans – is impacted by this. We’ve already lost 54 species in Australia , and that’s not the future that I want to grow up in. It’s really not ok.

Rating tools such as Green Star and the Living Building Challenge, don’t allow you to develop on sensitive areas at all. This needs to be minimum practice – no matter how essential it seems to build that piece of infrastructure there, there is always a smarter way. We need to put value on biodiversity (yes, there is financial value but I’m also talking about the type of value you get when you wake up in the morning and can be proud of the work that you do), so that it’s a stakeholder with a seat in these decision making processes.

This matters. Once a species is gone, it’s gone. To put it in perspective, humans are only one species.

Recommendation

Policy
We mandate that no development can occur on threatened ecological ecosystems, in line with what Green Star and the Living Building Challenge already require.

Development
Every project has a Biodiversity Management Plan that follows the following hierarchy:

We can design around areas of habitat on our projects, minimise harm through appropriate controls during construction, and then restore any habitat that was on site. Fairwater, by Frasers Property Australia, has done this spectacularly by transforming a concrete stormwater channel into a beautiful natural corridor. All development will have some residual impact, but offsetting should be the absolute last viable solution.

Done well, biodiversity adds value to our sites by creating space for recreation, visual amenity and stormwater management.

Fairwater: brilliant by nature.
Photo credit: Frasers Property Australia

Back to the bin chook

In Africa, they call a similar species ‘The Sacred Ibis’. In Australia, we call them ‘bin chickens’. Before you hate on the tip turkey, understand that she’s had to swap her crabs for your kebabs because of the way that we do business. If we continue to build on high quality habitat, then we may find ourselves fighting for more space.

References:
– NSW Government, 2018. Delivering Infrastructure. Viewed on 9.3.19 at: https://www.nsw.gov.au/improving-nsw/premiers-priorities/delivering-infrastructure/
– ABC News, 2016. Fact check: Does Australia have one of the ‘highest loss of species anywhere in the world’?.Viewed on 9.3.19 at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-19/fact-check-does-australia-have-one-of-the-highest-extinction/6691026

Next stop: nature station

| olivialealwalker
Redfern Station – one of many examples where planting would make a positive impact on the customer experience.

When I catch the train in the morning to work, I’m taken on a journey of a different sort. You could say it’s an emotional journey, but I think there’s a physical response. You see, as a wanna-be ecologist and bush care enthusiast, the train journey to work affords me a view of some of the worst weeds in Australia as well as the most beautiful Australian native flora.

While we don’t want a possum splattered on the windscreen of your train, the benefits of biodiversity far outweigh that risk.

Our train corridors often have quite a large buffer between the tracks and the fence line, in some areas up to 20 metres wide. While I appreciate the service tracks, many of these are thick with weeds like privet, balloon vine and ‘mother of millions’. While these weeds may be constrained within a fence, their seeds certainly are not, and they are providing a bank of genetic material that has a far wider spread than the rail corridor. Native plants and animals need green corridors to be able to move between patches of good quality bushland, so that they can breed and feed. What if transport corridors were biodiversity havens?

What does good look like?

The soon-to-be-completed (ha!) Sydney Light Rail around Randwick is the best local example that I’ve seen of integrating biodiversity and transport. Not only is it beautiful, the planting will also provide shade and a visual break from the main road. Meadowbank Station is another brilliant example, where not only the station itself has been improved, but the train track surrounding it.

The law doesn’t allow me to take photos while I’m driving, so here’s an artists impression of the Sydney Light Rail crossing the South Dowling Bridge, showing positive integration with nature.
Photo credit: NSW Transport and Infrastructure

What could we do?

Train services are often shut down for scheduled maintenance on weekends, meaning that no trains run and the tracks are safe. This is a great opportunity for Transport NSW to host volunteer days (they could certainly do with the good PR), where people volunteer to vegetate a section of the track. In return, volunteers could get free trips on their Opal cards, and a sense of pride on their daily commute.

In addition, all new train stations (in fact, all infrastructure projects) should rate their work under ISCA – the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia’s tool – and target credits relating to ecology and green infrastructure.

What next?

Increasing biodiversity brings with it beautification, cooling of our cities (evapotranspiration of trees does a better job than weedy grass), potential noise control as well as shading where there are footpaths along the tracks. We have an opportunity to improve Sydney’s biodiversity, and it’s in front of our eyes every day.

River dreams

| olivialealwalker
Cooling off in the Hawkebsury River.
Photo credit: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/australia/best-secret-sydney-beaches-revealed/news-story/e31983cba91fd34b5869af32a376d4a0

It was while meandering my way through a busy train station, swept up by the tide of bodies on their way to work that I stumbled upon an advertisement for the Hawkesbury, and its beautiful river.

The Hawkesbury is the place that I’ve called home for most of my life, and a place I still have a very strong connection with. The advertisement is right – it’s not just a river. I was lucky to grow up on beautiful farm land with views of mountains everywhere I looked. I could stumble upon a boutique shop, or a friendly store owner at any time. I could just as quickly escape to a national park, or swim in the river. The Hawkesbury is an incredibly beautiful place, and it’s certainly worth the visit.

So on my walk through this train station, I was transported to a different place, and it got me thinking – how can we bring a little bit of the Hawkesbury to our city? Why do we need to wait until the weekend to recharge? What could this look like? I’ve broken this down to three key areas: urban agriculture, connection to nature and human-first shopping.

Urban agriculture

The biggest event of the year is the Hawkesbury Show and everyone shows off their produce, from fruit to fowl to finely-arranged flowers. We grow up with an understanding of where our food comes from and an appreciation of what it takes to grow it. Through the Hawkesbury Harvest Trail, we’ve got access to fresh food straight from the farm.

City-dwellers don’t get this same benefit, and there’s an opportunity for Councils, community groups and even the residents to encourage more urban agriculture. This could be as simple as vegie gardens on the back veranda or as complex and resource-intensive as a community garden. It could also look like fruit trees along the street.

You can pick your own mandarins at Watkins Orchard on the Hawkesbury Harvest Farm Gate Trail.
Photo credit: Mary Canning Photography

Connection to nature

While not every LGA in Sydney has the privilege of being on the water, there is still an opportunity to increase connection to nature. Where there is the space available, development controls could ensure every dwelling has lines of site to nature, whether a park, a green roof or street trees.

Where space is a limiting factor, controls could support biophilic design. This may be through natural fibres, colours and forms, through light or through sound. People can take control of their lives and spend their lunch break in a park, or through some nature-based meditation. Not only does connecting people to nature bring calming and positive productivity effects, it also has a cooling effect on our cities. By increasing canopy cover by 10%, the value of your home will also increase by an average of $50,000! (AECOM, 2017)

Human-first shopping

We may be faceless numbers to many of the big supermarkets, but there will still be hidden gems in your communities. I encourage you to reach out to and support your local family business – not only will it put money back into your community, it helps bring us all a little bit closer together, increasing our resilience during hard times.

So how are you going to bring a little of the Hawkesbury into your day?

Reference:
– AECOM. (2017). Green Infrastructure: A Vital Step to Brilliant Australian Cities. Viewed 1.3.19 at https://www.aecom.com/brilliantcityinsights/brilliant-cities-insights-greening/