The Sustainable Housing Challenge
4.6 The Complexity of Housing
So, what do the above challenges tell us? The role of governance is central to many of the challenges. To date, the introduction and use (or lack thereof) of policy mechanisms has been a key driver of prog- ress towards improved housing performance. However, it is also acting as one of the key challenges that are hindering progress. Research from
around the world has shown that the housing construction industry is often resistant to any type of change placed onto them via regulations, and there is an increasing desire to have partisan support for policy changes (or at least a package of support put in place to help with any transition to the new requirements). The current practices of much of the housing construction industry, who are intent on trying to main- tain business-as-usual approaches, make it challenging for those niche actors who want to innovate and push boundaries. It does not help that building codes and planning systems around the world often do not allow for innovation.
As touched on above, any changes to design, material, and technology use, and construction methods or improvements to performance are seen as adding red tape, time, or costs to a project, and that this is pushed onto clients in the form of additional costs. In the housing sector where hous- ing affordability is a global issue, anything that is perceived to add cost is a challenging political and public sell, even when there is limited evi- dence to support such claims. The narrative around the idea of cost and housing performance needs to shift from one of capital costs to through- life costs. The costs to live in housing can be substantial, not just from the operation of the home in relation to utility bills, maintenance, and impact on health and well-being but also the wider costs associated with location such as transport costs. Many new “affordable” houses get built in urban growth areas at the fringes of cities. This has a whole range of implica- tions for liveability and affordability.
There are an increasing number of examples from around the world that have demonstrated that key proponents in the housing construction industry often overstate their own analyses, with costs and benefits more accurately aligning with government analyses [125]. The housing con- struction industry is more likely to innovate when asked to change which has resulted in any costs for compliance or performance changes rapidly falling away through improved design, material and technology selection, and construction methods. For example, minimum building code requirements changed almost overnight in Australia after the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 where more than 2000 houses were destroyed and 173 people died. The building codes were strengthened for new housing in bush fire zones to require houses to be better protected against
fires. While there were some concerns around this adding cost, houses have continued to be built to those higher standards. In the UK, analysis during the Code for Sustainable Homes found that costs to deliver zero carbon homes fell by more than 8% across four years, and that this was for a standard that was not yet mandatory so costs were expected to con- tinue to fall [125]. Others have also predicted cost reductions around the world as more low or zero carbon houses enter the market and construc- tion industries implement more efficiencies and learnings around the design, materials, technologies, and construction industries [126, 127].
While setting regulation is one thing, ensuring compliance is another.
As touched on earlier, there has been an ongoing issue of actual perfor- mance not meeting building code requirements [91, 93, 94]. This lack of compliance is enabled by a lax system of checks and balances in many countries. This is not just in relation to sustainable housing performance, but it has also been seen in recent housing crises around flammable clad- ding (e.g., UK, Dubai, Australia), leaky condo crisis (Canada), and the leaky homes crisis (New Zealand) [44, 45, 47].
Another key consideration is the way we design and select materials, technologies and construction methods for our dwellings has significant implications for how occupants can use them, and in turn how sustain- able, usable, and affordable they are. Also important is that these impacts go beyond the individual dwelling. There is a complex relationship between the design and use of our dwellings and how they have been shaped by hundreds of years of development and innovation. The design, use, and challenges of housing around the world have shifted over time.
There is probably no better illustration of this than Bill Bryson’s At Home book [39]. Bryson explores how some things we now take for granted in our housing (such as mechanical heating and cooling) are relatively recent innovations, and that housing continues to both influence the occupants as well as be influenced by them.4 While Bryson’s book does not directly focus on sustainable housing, some of the elements the book discusses are elements that we have seen contribute to sustainable housing (e.g., natu- ral ventilation).
4 Indeed the shift in the ways we have changed heating and cooling practices has been a focus of various researchers [50].
Furthermore, the history of how our housing has developed cannot be considered in isolation from how our cities have developed. However, much of the focus of sustainable housing and sustainable cities from pol- icy makers often looks at the present moment, without due consideration of how things have changed over time, or could change over the future.
This often results in band aid solutions which are reactive to the situation rather than taking a wider consideration of the challenges and potential solutions. By this, we mean that governments have continued with business- as-usual approaches while paying lip service to sustainability or not exploring the deeper structures of what is happening and why. For example, as cities have expanded, people have become increasingly reliant on the car to get around. This is often because public transport is inade- quate or is put into communities after they have been built and people have already established their transport practices. The solution to trying to improve mobility is often to build more roads and add more lanes to existing roads, often at great expense. While this might provide a short- term solution (although it rarely does), it does not address the question of why people drive. Providing work, recreation, and other amenities closer to homes (or providing homes closer to those amenities as advo- cated in transit-orientated development) will have a greater impact on transportation in cities than adding more roads [128, 129]. However, there are locations that deliver public transport and other non-car travel options (e.g., cycling, walking) in a much better way. We return to the need to challenge how we think about housing, and solutions for sustain- able housing, in the later chapters of the book.