If sourcing expert help isn't possible or within your current budget, there are simple ways to use your smartphone for the job and return good results.

Taking the time to enhance your phone's capabilities can help you produce professional-looking, high-quality images for your marketing efforts. Here are a few tips to help you manage your next commercial property shoot.

• Hire a pro (if you have the budget): Using a high-quality DSLR to shoot real estate with a wide-angle lens is the best and preferred route.
• Maximise your best tools: Shooting your commercial space yourself? Use the best equipment you have, and make sure you edit your images. The end result will be far better quality. Remember, your marketing is a reflection of you and your brand.
• Channel your inner Marie-Kondo: Decluttering your space before you shoot will make the world of difference. Clean inside and outside the property. Are cars parked outside? Move them out of the way, as well as any unwanted items. Where possible, pressure wash and clean your driveways or building areas and glass. Don't forget the greenery! Remove weeds and trim your gardens.
• Shoot steady: An hour prior to photographing your commercial space is probably not the time to down three espresso shots if you're caffeine intolerant and prone to shaking. Photo editors (and professional real estate photographers) can work a lot of magic, but fixing blurred images might be pushing your luck.
• Think about the time of day: Shooting a building exterior? Keep the sun behind you so you avoid bright sun and dark shadows. Think about the 'golden hours' in mid-morning or late afternoon where the light is softer. This will help you achieve far better results.
• Shoot in landscape: It's always better to use a landscape orientation when you shoot your property photos, rather than portrait layout. It looks better in marketing. Plus, they'll help you show off your property!
• Give yourself time: You want your commercial property listing to get the attention it deserves. Ensure you give yourself adequate time to take the best photos you can. A good photoshoot can take time, but it's an investment that will pay off once your listing goes live online.
• Show off your best features: When shooting your interiors, consider the highlights of each room and make sure your photos emphasise them. Do you have beautiful natural light? Is it particularly spacious?
• Check the lights: Have any globes blown? Replace any dead lights and turn all exterior lights on before you shoot your photos to add warmth.
• Prepare your space: Carefully arrange your furniture in each room so that the photos demonstrate the possibilities with design/furnishing. Draw attention to the space with bright artwork, interior greenery or other colourful accents.

Whether you choose to DIY or employ the services of a professional photographer, make sure you show your commercial space in its best light - it can make all the difference and help prospective tenants take notice.

Ready to list your property? Get on board Australia's newest commercial property website, Lease.com.au.

Via The Conversation - By Yvonne Meng (PhD Candidate, Department of Architecture, Monash University)

Every day, most people will at some point use a footpath. Their ubiquity makes them a fundamental part of cities.

Due to their narrow form and seemingly undesigned nature, it is easy to neglect footpaths. Urban design research tends to favour the bigger picture of streets and streetscapes, or focus on architectural elements such as building forms and frontages. And planning policies tend to treat footpaths as road and transport assets, rather than as public space.

However, footpaths in urban areas support complex social systems and a wide variety of uses. They are a vital public space and deserve more attention in the planning and design of our cities.

The case for footpaths

In rapidly densifying suburbs such as Footscray in Melbourne’s inner west, footpaths can become a valuable asset to accommodate daily life. Of the 23 hectares that make up Footscray’s commercial core, only 1% is public open space⁠. This is well below the 9.9% average in the wider City of Maribyrnong area.

Despite the lack of public open space in Footscray, activity on the streets is lively due to a diverse social and cultural mix and changing tempo of street activity.

Gentrification, population growth and multi-storey apartment developments are rapidly changing the physical and demographic landscape. Over the next 20 years Footscray’s population is forecast to grow by 153.19%⁠. This means more people will need access to limited public space.

There are efforts to create more open space in Footscray. For example, in 2016 the City of Maribyrnong redeveloped an open-lot car park at Byron Street as a multilevel car park with an adjacent plaza. However, solutions of this sort have limitations because publicly owned and underdeveloped land is not readily available.

If we rethink definitions of public space to include footpaths, we can start to establish these as spaces for social interaction rather than merely paths for getting from A to B.

More than walking

Modern footpaths are relatively recent urban space. In Western cities, records of footpaths date back to the third century BC, but only in the mid-18th century did they become prevalent in Europe. Before this there was no real physical separation between pedestrians and the carriageway.

In Melbourne, footpaths were scarce at the time the Hoddle Grid was laid in 1837. Not until the 1880s were the city’s footpaths properly paved.

In their most pragmatic form, footpaths provide a safe zone for people to walk, away from moving traffic. However, they can also be an extension of the abutting buildings. Retail goods spill out in front of shops and on kerbs, creating internalised regions. Cafes set up chairs and tables for patrons to sit outside, extending trade into the public realm.

In addition, people use footpaths to congregate or socialise. There are buskers, beggars, authorities, people waiting for transport, or simply those taking a moment to stop.

As a result, footpaths are an ever-changing hybrid of social, commercial and recreational use. Although there can be friction between different activities, the value of urban footpaths is that they are many things to many people.

Yet, despite being such a heavily used space, footpaths in Melbourne are often categorised in planning strategies and policies as road and transport assets. This approach is problematic as it treats them as infrastructure to be managed rather than spaces for human use.

Some cities such as New York do consider footpaths as people-oriented places. The city planning department provides design guidelines to help architects and designers. Footpaths are conceptualised as a “room” with four surfaces: the horizontal pavement, the wall of the building facing the street, the roadside, and the canopy.

This type of thinking acknowledges that footpaths are immersive spaces and the experience of walking them is integral to the success of a street.

Learning from footpath users

People devise many creative and adaptive ways of using them, and architects and planners can learn from these uses. For example, nooks and indents in buildings abutting footpaths enable people to socialise outside in opportunistic ways. However, when unplanned and unmanaged, footpaths can become a jumble of electrical boxes, signposts, café tables, and other disconnected objects.

Footpaths are also the site of temporary events such as markets, which help activate the streets. With local council support, these events not only unlock the potential role of footpaths in community-building, but also help strengthen existing cultural identities.

The weekly Mini Green Market on the corner of Hopkins and Leeds streets was born out of a longstanding tradition of informal street vending in Footscray. Despite some conflict and uncertainty in 2018, vendors can use a wide portion of the footpath to sell their wares in a regular organised event.

The conundrum facing footpaths is that, despite being a site for many diverse activities, they are not often considered an important public space in their own right. What makes a space “public” is its capability to enable a wide range of uses and allow for interaction between people. Footpaths do exactly that.

To make the most of our footpaths, Melbourne and other Australian cities need a change in mindset in how we view these public spaces. If footpaths were more carefully considered in city design and planning, they could contribute even more to the quality of the urban realm.

Via The Conversation - by Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Lecturer in Architecture, UNSW

[…] we have concluded that [the] nature and extent [of problems] are significant and concerning. The problems have led to diminishing public confidence that the building and construction industry can deliver compliant, safe buildings which will perform to the expected standards over the long term.

You can say that again.

Just one of the issues identified in the report, combustible cladding, could affect over 1,000 buildings across Australia. An unknown proportion of these are tall (four storey and above) residential strata buildings. Fears of rectification costs are starting to have severe impacts on the apartment market.

The cost of replacing combustible panels at the Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne, which caught fire in 2014, will be at least A$5.7 million, plus A$6 million or so in consequential damages.

The total cost of replacing combustible panels across Australia is unknown at this point but is likely to run to billions of dollars.

The Shergold-Weir report identifies a catalogue of other problems, including water leaks, structurally unsound roof construction and poorly constructed fire-resisting elements. Faults appear to be widespread.

A 2012 study by UNSW City Futures surveyed 1,020 strata owners across New South Wales and found 72% of respondents (85% in buildings built since 2000) knew of at least one significant defect in their complex. Fixing these problems will cost billions more.

Regulatory failures are not only “diminishing public confidence”, they have a direct impact on the hip pockets of many Australians who own a residential apartment. In short, building defects resulting from lax regulation are a multi-billion dollar disaster.

How could authorities let this happen?

A web of regulations and standards enacted by governments cover construction in Australia, but this regulation is centred on the National Construction Code (NCC). The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), a body controlled by the Building Ministers’ Forum, manages the NCC. The ABCB board comprises appointed representatives from the Commonwealth plus all the states and territories and a few industry groups.

It is such a complicated system that it is hard to identify any government, organisation or person that is directly responsible for its performance.

The NCC is supposed to create “benefits to society that outweigh costs” but it appears the ABCB may have been more focused on the need to “consider the competitive effects of regulation” and “not be unnecessarily restrictive” (Introduction to NCC Volume 1).

The BMF’s February 8 communique, issued after the fire in the Neo200 building in Melbourne, is straight out of the Yes Minister playbook:

Ministers agreed in principle to a national ban on the unsafe use of combustible ACPs (aluminium composite panels) in new construction, subject to a cost/benefit analysis being undertaken on the proposed ban, including impacts on the supply chain, potential impacts on the building industry, any unintended consequences, and a proposed timeline for implementation. Ministers will further consider this at their next meeting [in May this year].

This suggests the ministers are more concerned about possible impacts on the panel suppliers and the building industry than the consumer. The earliest a ban can take effect is in May. In the meantime, anecdotal evidence suggests buildings are still being clad in combustible ACP.

Thanks to the journalist Michael Bleby, we know governments and the ABCB failed to act in 2010 when presented with evidence that combustible ACP was not only a danger, but was also being widely used on tall residential buildings.

Bleby quoted ABCB general manager Neil Savery as saying neither his organisation, nor any of the states, was aware that builders were using the product incorrectly.

We also know that panel manufacturers, including the Australian supplier of Alucobond, actively lobbied building ministers. At the July 2011 BMF meeting, the ACT representative effectively vetoed an ABCB proposal to issue an advisory note on the use of combustible ACP.

We are entitled to ask why the ABCB and its staff, or the downstream regulators and their staff, did not know about serious fire problems with ACP that the technical press identified as long ago as 2000. The answer will be of particular interest to residents of tall apartment buildings clad in these panels, all of whom are now living with an active threat to their safety.

Consumers are owed better protection

While both Labor and Coalition governments have worked to improve consumer protection for people buying consumer goods, their record on housing, particularly apartments, is awful. While a consumer can be reasonably sure of getting restitution if they buy a faulty fridge, no such certainty exists if they buy a faulty house or apartment.

At the moment, the NCC does not have any focus on providing protection for buyers of houses or apartments. There are few requirements for the durability of components and astonishingly weak requirements for waterproofing. Under the NCC and its attached Australian Standards, particularly AS 4654.1 and 2-2012, a waterproof membrane could last, in practice, five minutes or 50 years.

Given the magnitude of the economic loss, it would be appropriate for the BMF and ABCB board to publicly admit they have failed. Since their appointments in November 2017 and January 2013 respectively, neither ABCB chair John Fahey nor Savery as general manager has remedied the situation. The Shergold-Weir report has not been implemented and the combustible cladding issues remain unresolved. It would be reasonable for Fahey to step down and for Savery to consider his future.

The next federal government should consider what further action should be taken, particularly in relation to individuals on the BMF and within the ABCB involved in the 2010-2011 decision not to issue the proposed advisory note on the use of ACP. Since the ABCB does not publish minutes and none of its deliberations are in the public domain no one knows what actually happened or who did what.

The new board should consider moving residential apartment buildings (Class 2 buildings in the NCC classification) from Volume 1 of the NCC to Volume 2, which controls detached and semi-detached housing. Volume 2 should then have as its overriding objective the protection of consumers.

The downstream regulators should focus on requiring builders to deliver residential buildings with no serious faults and providing simple mechanisms for redress if they don’t.

Surely this is not too much to ask.

40 entries were submitted to the program this year, with shortlisted projects covering a wide range of building types - everything from a major art gallery expansion through to smaller coastal houses.

Jury chair Neal Mackintosh, director of JAWS Architects, said “As usual, a high level of inventiveness is evident, with Tasmanian architects stretching lean budgets to produce spatially rich and engaging buildings.”

The winners of the 2019 Tasmanian Architecture Awards will be announced at a presentation on 6 July.

Shortlist - 2019 Tasmanian Architecture Awards

• Crump Treehouse – Crump Architects (pictured at top, image by Andrew Knott)
• Dales of Derby – Philip M Dingemanse
• Devonport Living City Stage 1 – Lyons with Maddison Architects and Birrelli
• Domain Community Hub – Field Labs
• Farm Hill House – Preston Lane
• Floodlight House – Crump Architects
• Freycinet Lodge Coastal Pavilions – Liminal Architecture
• Glasshouse – Preston Lane
• Glenorchy Health Centre – Liminal Architecture with DesignInc
• House at Otago Bay – Topology Studio
• Kosaten Launceston – Cumulus Studio
• Manuka Road – Morrison and Breytenbach Architects
• Mount Stuart Greenhouse – Bence Mulcahy
• Pharos – Fender Katsalidis
• SUSH – Core Collective Architects with Christopher Clinton Architect
• TasPorts Cruise Ship Shelters – Cumulus Studio
• The Bae Tas – Workbylizandalex
• Trapper and Burt’s – 1+2 Architecture
• Ulverstone Secondary College Year 11 and 12 – Philp Lighton Architects

The development, Skyfarm, is a collaboration between Melbourne-based nature regeneration and protection group Odonata, urban farm company Biofilta, and The Sustainable Landscape Company.

Visitors will be able to visit the working farm and orchard and enjoy contemporary, sustainable dining options.

Experts behind this project will be on hand at the farm to educate visitors about sustainable living and how to protect the environment.

Frasers Property Australia last year announced its plans to build the ‘most sustainable shopping centre in the world’, which aims to build a structure from non-toxic and recycled materials. The centre aims to produce zero waste and grow fruit and veg on 20% of the site.

The hotel, which is located in the heart of Perth's entertainment and cultural precinct, Northbridge, features 206 guest rooms over 15 levels and is subject to a 15-year management agreement with Hilton Hotels.

Malaysian-based developer SKS Group has appointed CBRE's Aaron Desange, Ryan McGinnity and Chloe Mason to market the sale of the brand new hotel.

SKS Group is currently developing what will become the next venue under the brand, Doubletree by Hilton Perth-Waterfront.

Expressions of interest will close on April 30, 2019.

Today unveiling the world’s first permanent indoor light and interactive digital art foyer in an integrated resort – the ‘Grand Foyer’ is part light, part water and part digital art gallery.

The Grand Foyer will offer an interactive arrival experience aimed to excite, engage and entertain an average of 20,000 guests per day.

The Star Sydney Chief Operating Officer, Dino Mezzatesta, said the transformation supported the Group’s vision to become Australia’s leading integrated resort company by thrilling guests from the moment they set foot on property.

"Architecture, contemporary art and technology have converged to form an iconic showpiece that delivers a unique, unexpected and dynamic arrival experience for our guests,” said Mr Mezzatesta.

“The new Grand Foyer includes a 25-metre-long, 8K resolution crescent shaped screen which will showcase the works of emerging and established Australian artists, university students, cinematographers and animators. The screen content reacts dynamically to the real-world environment and human movement, encouraging guest interaction.

“Inspiration behind the artworks was drawn from The Star’s proximity to the busy Sydney Harbour shoreline – and the constant ebb and flow of human activity within the Pyrmont area.

“Alongside the digital canvas, is the first sculptural water installation of its design in the Southern Hemisphere – the ‘Aquatique’ artwork of falling water. The integration of Aquatique, LED screens, lasers, lighting and live performances is a world first for an entertainment precinct.”

The new guest arrival experience has been collaboratively delivered by The Star Entertainment Group and famed lighting specialists Ramus Illumination, who were responsible for delivering Australia’s largest permanent outdoor projection system at The Star Gold Coast, as well as its porte-cochère lighting installation, also at Broadbeach.

World-renowned for their signature approach to creating works that are innovative, interactive and sustainable, Ramus Illumination have designed and directed countless live international shows for artists including U2 and David Bowie, as well as events such as The Academy Awards, The Grammys and the Super Bowl Halftime Shows.

Via The Conversation - By Robert Freestone (Professor of Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW), Gethin Davison (Lecturer in City Planning and Design, UNSW) and Richard Hu (Professor, Canberra Business School & Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra).

For major projects, the architect would likely have had a previous association and a good track record in matching their client’s commercial priorities to what the approval authority demands in terms of uses, floor space, height, design features and respect for surroundings.

Over the past two decades, though, and largely unknown to the public, Sydney has adopted a mandatory competitive design process for the projects that have transformed the city skyline.

The scale of developments captured by these protocols underscores their impact. Between 2000 and 2017, 46 proposals were granted planning approval. These represented a total investment estimated at over A$7 billion and producing nearly 2 million square metres of commercial floor space.

Our research found competitive processes are delivering demonstrable benefits such as higher quality, innovation and an improved public realm. Of 26 completed projects by the start of 2018, 62% have won major industry awards and 50% have received awards from the Australian Institute of Architects.

Architectural design competitions go back centuries in Europe and are not uncommon for major public buildings everywhere. Yet what has been instituted appears to be unique for any Australian or indeed global city. Sydney’s mandatory “compare, critique and commission” model for private development is truly pioneering and innovative.

So how did this happen?

In 2000, Sydney City Council, led by independent lord mayor Frank Sartor, turned the time-honoured arrangements on their head.

This was a time when the connection between global city aspirations and good architecture was becoming better appreciated. There were concerns, too, that Sydney’s major architectural practices were often not as innovative as they could be.

So the council inserted in the Sydney Local Environmental Plan provisions to enforce “design excellence” for all development. In particular, developers of the biggest projects (in terms of site area, height and development cost) were required to organise an approved competitive design process to determine their choice of architect.

There was resistance from some leading architects whose comfortable relationships with developers would be disrupted. The development industry was also discomforted by yet another regulatory hoop to jump through – one that would add time and money. They were offered a generous sweetener: allowance for up to 10% extra floor space or height if the council accepted the jury recommendation that “design excellence” was achieved.

The wider public was and largely still is none the wiser about these procedures, which have received little promotion or independent scrutiny. The process takes place behind closed doors marked commercial-in-confidence.

Conceived as a new method of privately procuring design services, the requirements nonetheless slip seamlessly into the development application procedures stipulated by the New South Wales Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

How well has this model worked?

The accent on competition with developer incentives on offer sounds like a policy approach truly befitting the neoliberal age, but is it successful?

Early projects were not always exceptional. But in the past decade most of central Sydney’s best new buildings are the product of design competitions. These include the EY Tower in George Street, Liberty Place in Castlereagh Street, and 1 Bligh Street.

All are vastly superior in design, efficiency and sustainability terms to the buildings they replaced. Our research confirmed a high proportion of projects have been recognised as outstanding.

Competitions encourage a fuller exploration of possibilities for a site. This enhances prospects of the best outcome. Working to a detailed brief but independent of an actual client enables design considerations to be prioritised and public interest considerations to be explicitly integrated.

With experienced jurors, expert front-end advice on the technical soundness of proposals, and advice and effective oversight from council staff, the process creates a unique forum for dialogue and consensus between key stakeholders. As the council’s director of city planning development & transport, Graham Jahn, said in 2015, this interaction helps “close the gap” between public and private interest.

Not surprisingly, developers like the incentive of securing extra floor space, the airing of any design concerns or related issues ahead of a detailed development application, and the increased certainty of approval for a successful competition outcome.

Putting architects in competition with one another drives design creativity. In some cases the local environmental plan has even been amended when statutory regulations would have frustrated an innovative outcome that’s clearly in the public interest.

The old design oligopoly has certainly been smashed. To the end of 2017, 88 different firms participated in competitions, with 52 firms winning in their own right or in partnership.

A quarter of the winning firms are based overseas. This signifies a greater global connectivity in design processes but belies the perception of a takeover of local business by offshore “starchitects”.

What are the drawbacks?

At the same time, concerns have surfaced. These include:

• the high costs and risks for competing architects even when partly remunerated for their participation
• the risk of hyper-gentrification as the quality stakes constantly rise
• a striving for iconic ‘look-at-me’ architecture at every turn
• a missed opportunity to engage the public more deeply in design matters.

The resource and time demands on the city council have certainly escalated.

Competitions encourage a fuller exploration of possibilities for a site. This enhances Nevertheless, the competition idea is set to be an ongoing fact of life. The council has already extended the competitive regime to major projects outside the CBD. It was a timely move to pick up the wave of apartment building in urban renewal precincts like Green Square.

The council’s design competition policy, after nearly two decades of practice and improvement, is now a mature urban intervention of some note. It has been an influential shaper of the state government’s recent roll-out of design excellence initiatives to local authorities across the state.

For lease: 110/114 Brougham Street, Potts Point, NSW 2011
These two gallery-like, ground floor creative spaces are a rare offering. Predominantly open plan, they will accommodate flexible layouts and use as a creative office or showroom. Tour the office space here.

For lease: 72B Fitzroy Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
A vibrant and light-filled space in the hub of the Surry Hills creative district. Loads of character, great natural light and an inspiring work environment. Tour the office space here.

For lease: 91 Campbell Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
Spellbinding 410sqm of creative light-filled office space, polished floors and 12 foot Herringbone ceilings. Tour the office space here.

For lease or sale: 309/50 Holt Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
This 201sqm office space is at the epicentre of Surry Hills' creative precinct and benefits from uncompromising finishes and building amenity. Tour the office space here.

For lease: Level 3 / 490 Upper Edward Street, Spring Hill, QLD 4000
A hip fit-out near Central Station in Brisbane. The building is fitted with secure bike racks, two lifts, recessed lighting and comes complete with kitchen and lockers. Tour the office space here.

For lease: 1st Floor / 30 Florence Street, Teneriffe, QLD 4005
The 'London offices' offers a great mix of contemporary, cutting-edge design and old-world charm characteristics, making it the perfect space for a creative offering. Tour the office space here.

For lease: Level 3 / 58 Kippax Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
This refurbished office is close to Central Station and provides unrivalled lease tenure flexibility. Enjoy polished concrete floors, high ceilings and natural lighting flooding in from north and south aspects. Tour the office space here.

We get it. You have a business plan, you’re chasing growth opportunities and all you’re missing is the location. There are risks associated with buying a property which can make a commercial lease a better option for you.

A commercial lease tends to have a longer term

If you’ve entered the residential space before, you’ll know most residential leases are offered for a fixed one-year term. However, many landlords will prefer a longer-term agreement. If you’re starting a new business, it could be a good idea to negotiate a shorter term, but look for the ‘option clause’ in your agreement.

What’s an option clause? An option clause offers you the opportunity to renew your lease for an additional term. This, in turn, offers income security to the landlord, and even better - location stability for you.

The fit-out is your responsibility

If you’re entering a retail property space, the internal fixtures and fittings are required for your operations. This process is called ‘fit-out’ and will be done at your expense. In some cases, the landlord may offer it to you as an incentive to close the deal. Top tip: Ensure you incorporate fit-out costs into your budget.

When your lease comes to an end, remember you’ll also be responsible for ‘making good’. This means you must return the property to its original condition: removing fixtures, fittings and all additions, as well as repairing any damage that occurred during the lease.

An annual rent increase is normal

Your commercial lease will likely include an ‘escalation clause’. This clause may state that your rent will increase on each anniversary of the lease. Depending on your situation, this increase may be a fixed percentage value, or it could be annually reviewed to reflect the Consumer Price Index.

Good news: Rent increases cannot occur more than once a year. Your landlord must also offer adequate notice before they increase the rent. So, when you’re considering your next lease, think about how this escalation cause compares to your projected cash flow. The last thing you want is for the rent to climb out of your budget!

Having an agent manage your commercial property is a good move

Commercial property is a complex thing and there are many nuances to consider. If this is your first (or third) premise acquisition, consider talking to a professional commercial real estate agent.

You can only use your commercial property as the lease dictates

The way you’re permitted to use your commercial property will be outlined in your lease agreement. The permitted use explains the specific purposes that the property may be used for, anything from retail trading, cafe space, warehousing and distribution and more.

When it comes to your lease negotiation, consider:

• Your current business operations; and
• Any intentions you have to grow or diversify your business offering.

This clause can also stop you from assigning the lease to another person in the event you try to sell your business, so ensure the permitted use is kept broad.

Still looking for a new business premise? Find commercial property for lease at Australia’s newest commercial property website, Lease.com.au.

By Peter Walters, (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Queensland)

Gentrifying inner-city suburbs – places like West End in Brisbane, Fitzroy in Melbourne and Newtown in Sydney – are characterised by independent owner-operated retail businesses. Busy “third places” such as cafes, bars and restaurants – where people spend time between home (“first” place) and work (“second” place) – are common.

These are the favoured haunts of the hipster. Hipsters have an uneasy place in our cultural landscape, not least of which is their role in gentrification. However, their role in the inner city is important in showing the rest of the city how to create contemporary, accessible and successful third places with low, non-gendered barriers to entry.

Third places provide residents and visitors with a variety of what Ray Oldenburg calls “the core settings of informal public life”. Cafes, bars, pubs, clubs or chess rooms (in some places) are places where people can meet informally or be “together alone”. They allow for planned and accidental encounters across different times of the day and are essential for a healthy neighbourhood social life or “sense” of community.

What’s missing from outer suburbs?

As we travel out of the inner city towards the outer suburbs, residents become increasingly deprived of these places. Suburban retail centres become less “local” – shopping centres are isolated from the surrounding neighbourhood, controlled by a single corporate landlord, marooned in a sea of parking and offer a predictable range of franchised outlets and national brands, often anchored by a large supermarket. At the district level are huge impersonal shopping malls.

None of this enables residents to take advantage of local third places or feel any sense of authorship over them, which is so important for creating place and community.

History has an obvious role to play. Inner-city suburbs were planned and built before widespread car ownership. Streets are laid out in grids, which make for easy and direct pedestrian or bicycle travel.

These areas were built before the introduction of strict “single use” zoning regimes, so have a good mix of land uses. Retail, residential and even industrial properties exist side by side. Property ownership has evolved so one landlord rarely controls an entire retail strip.

Businesses open on to wide, protected footpaths which are thoroughfares for more than just the businesses located there. The built form is varied, interesting and vernacular and suited to small independent businesses.

Gentrification and the hipster

Inner-city neighbourhoods in recent decades have been gentrified as more affluent residents and businesses colonise formerly working class, migrant or Indigenous areas of inner cities. Gentrification takes place over a long time and in particular phases.

The first to colonise an area are “renter gentrifiers”. They are responsible for making the place hip or edgy through alternative music and art, underground fashion and an embryonic start-up business culture.

This in turn attracts better-resourced gentrifiers who share the same cultural tastes as the renter gentrifiers but have money. This creates demand for a range of retail outlets, such as artisanal bakers, micro-breweries, tattoo artists, vintage fashions, vinyl record stores, independent bookstores and, most importantly, abundant bars, cafes and coffee shops.

These businesses are stereotypically run by hipsters, a subculture easily recognisable by their carefully curated full beards (male), artistic or ironic tattoos, skinny jeans and other vintage accessories. Hipsters are often disparaged for their lack of originality, for championing a look that mimics a historical period they never experienced. As Jake Kinsey writes sarcastically in a whole book that derides hipsters:

... creativity, genius, eternal value and mystery are inseparable from the hipster.

The quest for authenticity

Authenticity is a contested word, but if we think in terms of “authorship”, the independently owned and operated third place where both owner and customer feel a sense of ownership and reciprocal obligation provides much more authenticity than just another outlet in a chain of franchises.

While some hipster businesses that work in the gentrified inner city might not work so well in the outer suburbs, people who live in these suburbs are not a different species. The desire to get out of your house, to socialise, to see your neighbours out in the community or to be “together alone” is not limited to the inner city. There is no reason people in the suburbs would not respond to independently owned businesses, rather than the remotely controlled, rationalised franchises – see “McDonaldization” – that populate so many suburban shopping centres.

Quality third places are just as important in the outer suburbs, which are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of life stage, ethnicity, culture and employment type.

So what’s the solution?

Property developers are often quick to point out that local retail is not economically viable in new suburbs unless it consists of supermarkets and fast-food outlets and is surrounded by tarmac. Local (walkable) retail is invariably compared on price to the large impersonal shopping malls that draw shoppers in from the suburbs. However, the lure of a small local shopping precinct, where “third place” businesses such bars, cafes and restaurants and community hubs can operate at survivable rents, is a different proposition.

This is not a new suggestion. Various models have been proposed to subsidise retail rents, provide independent freehold of individual retail premises, or rent control.

Developers have been reluctant to help with this as it not profitable (for them). Local authorities have also been reluctant to engage developers on this front.

There are, however, some encouraging exceptions to this. Some more enlightened developers see the sustained benefit of creating community hubs. The argument is for a social good rather than a purely economic one.

The outer suburbs are spatially different to the inner city – history and late capitalism have taken care of that. Local authorities need to think about current inflexible zoning regimes and about how small socially beneficial businesses can be encouraged.

Suburbs do not empty out during the day. In a post-work and ageing society, suburbs will become socially barren places to live unless there are lively hubs where people can leave the private realm of the home and see each other in a welcoming environment in which they feel some authorship.

By Amelia Thorpe – Senior Lecturer and Director of Environmental Law Programs, UNSW

A poll of 300-plus citizens gathered for the inaugural Perth City Summit in August found parklets are the street activation people would most like to see. But why are they so desirable?

San Francisco is central to the parklet story. In 2005, the design collective Rebar turned a parking space into a “park” for two hours as a comment on the use and control of public space in the city. This was followed in 2006 by the installation of more than 40 temporary parks for PARK(ing) Day, now an annual international event.

By 2010, San Francisco had introduced a policy to help create parklets. This has set an important precedent for parklet policies in Australia and internationally.

There are now more than 50 parklets across San Francisco. According to its Pavements to Parks program, these parklets have “appeared … under the sponsorship of nonprofits, small businesses, neighborhood groups, and others”.

This account conveys a strong sense of democracy and accessibility: anyone can install a parklet in their city, and apparently many do. The Deepistan National Parklet (aka “the Deeplet”), the parklet installed by Deep Jawa outside his home in the Mission District, is a celebrated example.

The neglected role of business

We hear much less about the businesses behind parklets. Cafes, bakeries, bars and pizza shops have installed almost all of the 50-plus parklets in San Francisco. Deepistan is exceptional not merely for its topiary dinosaur but for its non-commercial nature.

This is not surprising, since the proponent pays for installation and maintenance. And the costs are significant (typically these can be well over A$20,000).

The term “parklet” can be traced to San Francisco (it was coined by City planner Andres Power as a catchier name for Rebar’s proposed “walklet”). But there are many other precedents for the intervention itself.

Perhaps the most obvious, given the strong connection between parklets and cafes, is the long-standing use of footpaths and roadways as restaurant dining areas. The parklet outside Vans Cafe in Cottesloe, for example, was approved under an alfresco dining licence. Converting a parking space into a sitting space is hardly revolutionary.

Yet advocates of parklets rarely make this connection. The story of parklets as entirely new, stemming from Rebar’s DIY park, is far more appealing, suggesting a bottom-up, creative and democratic remaking of the public realm. The link to one of the world’s most innovation-rich cities doesn’t hurt, either.

The reluctance of planners and policymakers to connect parklets to business also reflects concerns about the commercialisation and commodification of the city. The problems of privately owned public spaces (“POPOs” – provided by large developers in exchange for variations to planning rules) are well documented, particularly the issues of high levels of management and surveillance.

Parklets, however, are not privately owned public spaces. Parklets are installed on public land, are temporary and cannot be controlled by the business that installed them. Each bears a sign proclaiming the public nature of the space. Anyone can use parklets, whether they buy something or not.

One might critique parklets for their scale, their distribution or their use. They are tiny and do very little to meet important needs for play, exercise or engagement with nature. Some appear a little neglected; many are in areas that are already leafy.

In San Francisco, some parklets have been rejected for fear they will contribute not to community empowerment but to gentrification.

Why so popular?

So how can we explain the popularity of the parklet? Perhaps because parklets support, and build off, the kinds of places people like – and these aren’t just green spaces.

As US urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs explained so powerfully, cities need more than parks and plazas: commercial activity is a crucial component of public life. Cafes are increasingly important sites for community interaction as other places for local exchange disappear, including banks, post offices, corner delis and newsagents, on top of the local hardware, haberdashery and other specialist shops lost to competition from larger retailers and the digital marketplace. Parklets present some hope for walkable, local commerce.

Or perhaps their popularity has more to do with the lack of options for public participation in shaping the city. Parklets may be led by businesses, but they are local businesses, sometimes supported with public or crowdsourced funds, and parklet policies mean that the spaces cannot be private. Opportunities for participation are often much greater than for the larger public spaces created by professionals. They also show vividly how much space we waste on private cars.

After parklets, the second-most-desired street activation, according to the Perth City Summit poll, was “creative installations”, followed by street events and murals. In comparison, parklets offer a more tangible and accessible option.

Clearly, we can’t rely on businesses alone to provide adequate and appropriate public spaces. The role of local and state governments in providing a high-quality public realm continues to be important. But parklets show that businesses are not all seeking to play the system. As we think about public life, parklets might provide a useful model to build on.

Via the Conversation – By Chris Leishman (Professor of Housing Economics, University of Adelaide).

The annual growth of house prices has been slowing consistently for more than a year in Australia’s largest cities.

Prices finally started falling in the latter part of last year. The decline began much earlier in Perth and Darwin.

Prices in most other cities, with the exception of Hobart, have been more stable.

House owners have a secret weapon

A rise in house prices is a mixed blessing. For those whose employment and savings strategies have helped them become homeowners, price inflation is a good thing – the value of the house rises while the mortgage debt stays the same, or falls. For others, the savings and income targets for owning a home become ever more elusive.

So this should mean falling house prices are bad for homeowners and good for aspiring homeowners, right? In practice, things don’t work out quite like this, for several reasons.

Provided they are financially “liquid” (they have a job and can cope financially), homeowners have a secret weapon: they don’t have to sell.

Research shows housing markets tend to operate in periods of “frenzy” alternating with periods of relative inactivity. Lots of people try to capitalise and trade up in a hot market. Once markets cool, people tend to stay where they are and wait for prices to improve.

For aspiring homeowners, this is bad news. Although prices might be falling, fewer people are vacating their houses. This reduces the supply of houses on the market at lower prices.

Weaker markets make loans harder to get

House markets adjust to economic cycles, although these adjustments tend to be exaggerated and are prone to overshooting. The global financial crisis is an obvious example of an extreme correction when asset values plummeted.

The current dip in house prices in Australia is almost certainly a milder adjustment. However, even minor adjustments in the housing market are associated with adjustments elsewhere in the economy, particularly in labour markets.

The graph below shows the national trends in employment and underemployment over the past three years. Although total employment has been growing, the reported level of underemployment (a measure of the desire of workers to work more hours than they do) was also growing for much of 2018. Low wages growth and limited working hours do not help when people are already struggling to afford a house.

The supply of finance in mortgage markets also depends on the economic cycle. Unfortunately, falling house prices and a deteriorating economic outlook tend to translate to tighter lending conditions.

So while housing prices might be falling in our biggest cities, at the same time it’s becoming harder to get a home loan. The number of first home buyer dwellings financed fell by more than 5% in the year to November 2018.

So what’s next for the housing market?

Change in the total number of properties sold is also a useful leading indicator, meaning that transactions data tend to signal a change in market conditions long before average prices begin to change. The chart below shows the year-on-year growth in transactions peaked in the third quarter of 2017.

The growth in transactions began slowing, then became negative in the early months of 2018. These changes occurred much earlier than the plateau, then fall, in prices in late 2018.

The outlook is never certain, but it is worth noting that prices very rarely stabilise or begin growing while the transaction volume is still declining.

Like many sectors of the economy, housing markets are cyclical. But what makes the housing market different is the historical fact that periods of falling prices are much less frequent than periods of rising prices. The market will soon return to its long-run unsustainable trajectory of rising prices and declining affordability.

During the current price adjustment, housing affordability may appear to improve slightly. But low wages growth and limited working hours, coupled with lending restrictions, combine to make it just as hard for first homeowners to enter the market.

Current circumstances create opportunity elsewhere in the housing system. In particular, modestly falling prices coupled with lenders issuing fewer mortgages to owner-occupiers create fertile conditions for private residential investors. Times like this tend to favour cash buyers rather than those who need to scrape together a deposit and secure a mortgage before they can buy a house.

Paradoxically, then, declining house prices are no better for housing affordability than rising prices.

Via The Conversation. By Leila Mahmoudi Farahani, Billie Giles-Corti, Cecily Maller, and Melanie Lowe.

The National Growth Areas Alliance of local councils launched a national campaign, “Catch up with the outer suburbs”, on Monday. But what is it really like to live in these areas?

Living Liveable is a short documentary film produced by RMIT University researchers showcasing the lived experiences of residents in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. The film includes interviews with 11 residents that highlight their perceptions and experiences of liveability in their suburbs. This article explores their reasons for living where they do and recounts their experiences of life in the outer suburbs.

Why all the fuss about liveability?

Liveability and its underlying indicators have been the subject of substantial research. Most well-known liveability indices produced by the private sector — such as the Mercer Quality of Living Ranking and the Economist Intelligent Unit’s Liveability Index — rank cities against each other. And most Australian capital cities are ranked relatively high in such global liveability indices.

These measures overlook inequities within cities between established inner areas and newer outer suburban areas. Many of these urban fringe suburbs are experiencing rapid population growth. RMIT researchers have developed spatial liveability indicators, showing that residents in outer suburbs lack access to basic amenities that inner-city residents take for granted.

Yet residents’ perceptions of their neighbourhoods and their lived experiences are often unheard in such measures. The interviews show that a combination of factors shapes decisions to live in an outer suburb. These include perceived affordability, people’s aspirations for a good life, and access to public transport. As one resident said:

I was looking for an affordable area where I can, you know, buy a decent-size house within a decent budget and all those things. So, this area probably suits me, which is nearest for public transport, but yeah, it’s a bit far from the CBD area, which is alright. – male resident of Wyndham

Access to green spaces and a sense of community were among the things residents loved most about living in their suburb:

We live opposite a beautiful park … it’s right at our doorstep. We feel very, very lucky to live opposite this beautiful park, it’s very well maintained by the local council and it’s highly utilised. So even just out there walking, I’ve got to know people in my neighbourhood. – female resident of Wyndham

Traffic makes life worse
However, traffic volumes and poor access to daily living destinations and public transport had negative impacts on residents’ lived experiences. While current liveability indices usually consider access to daily living destinations – such as food outlets, schools, hospitals, and public transport – traffic is often overlooked. Yet, 10 out of 11 people mentioned traffic, in 30 separate instances, as something that makes their neighbourhoods less liveable.

A painter living in the City of Casey described how increasing traffic in recent years was forcing him to wake up half an hour earlier and get back home half an hour later in the afternoon.

I’m a painter, so I work anywhere from here to the city. The Monash [freeway] … I call it my driveway. So I’m on that every day, and it just depends which exit I’m taking for the day.

So, I get up at the moment at 4.50am. I get up to beat the traffic, which starts at about 5.20, and then I get to the job, and then I might have a bit of a snooze in my car or eat breakfast. And that’s just all just to beat traffic. And I can stay there for an hour before I have to, you know, knock on the client’s door, and say, “Oh I’m here to start.”

And, yeah, then at the end of the working day, which is 4pm, after I’ve done my eight hours, I just have to grind with the traffic on the way home… I might get home at about 6.10pm.

For some, the traffic has affected their mental health and increased stress levels.

We’ve lived in this house for 16 years and just the buildup of traffic … I was used to getting from A to B very quickly. I now have to plan, embed in my day, more time to get from A to B. I think that’s the biggest negative.

And it’s certainly one that impacts my husband. He doesn’t work locally. He works in the eastern suburbs and he also has to travel around a lot for his work. And that’s becoming a bit of a nightmare for him and actually creating a bit of stress. – female resident of Wyndham

Lack of access to daily living destinations, including employment and supermarkets, means residents depend on their cars. This adds to their cost of living and reduces neighbourhood liveability.

Lack of public transport or infrequent services also has negative impacts on residents’ quality of life and well-being.

I take my hubby to work in Derrimut and so that normally takes me … about two hours easy; just over two hours. … he doesn’t drive. He can’t use the train simply because the train doesn’t go anywhere near where he works. There’s nothing. No public transport to take my husband to work.

S0 … we’ve got no choice. So, if something happens to me, uh, we’re in a load of trouble. That’s where it’s difficult. We need more public transport. We really do. – female resident of Wyndham

Planners need to hear what residents say

The film highlights the gaps in current measures of liveability. For example, future liveability indices should consider including traffic and car-dependency indicators. Increasing traffic, the time spent travelling, and the financial burden of car dependency can detract from some of the key reasons residents choose to live in Melbourne’s outer suburbs – namely, affordability and sense of community.

We need to engage with communities and hear from them about their lived experience to better understand and measure their quality of life, their health and their neighbourhoods’ liveability. Objective measures of the quality of access should be accompanied by insights from residents about their lives in the suburbs. The voice of residents needs to be included in the planning of our cities as they grow, as well as the metrics of how successful we are in delivering equitable cities that foster healthy, affordable and prosperous lives for all.

Via The Conversation – By Michael Darcy (Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University). Disclosure statement: Michael Darcy is currently employed by the Tenants’ Union of NSW.

This transfer from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services nearly doubled Southern Cross’s portfolio.

More than 3,000 transfers have since been made to community housing providers on the NSW North Coast and in northern Sydney.

These are the first of over 14,000 tenancies being contracted out to community housing providers over coming months. The “whole-of-location” transfer program will result in the department closing housing offices in four regions. Non-government organisations will manage all government housing assistance programs in these regions.

This is not an entirely new development. Nationally, community providers were responsible for about 20% of 400,000 social housing dwellings in 2016. Most are managed under contract for state authorities, which retain ownership of the properties.

The current transfers represent a major acceleration in the growth of community housing providers’ share of the social housing sector. It will bring NSW to within a few points of the 35% target agreed by the Housing Ministers’ Council in 2009. This will be achieved in the next few years with transfers resulting from large estate redevelopment projects.

It is the first time a state government housing agency has effectively contracted out the entirety of its operations, albeit in particular regions. Rents collected will fund the management of all housing programs in these areas.

The policy narrative surrounding this program is richly positive. The government is promising improved customer experience and, importantly, more resources for social housing in general. Last month, NSW Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward said:

By transferring management to Community Housing Providers … we are harnessing over $1 billion of additional funding over 20 years that will improve the experience of people living in social housing. I am delighted that, as part of the transfer, tenants will have the support and services they need to improve their lives.

So where is the extra money coming from?

The extra A$1 billion represents Commonwealth funds that will be captured by the NSW social housing system without appearing in either state or federal budgets. This results from an anomaly in federal income security arrangements: very low-income community housing tenants can receive up to about $67 per week (singles) in Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA), whereas public housing tenants are not eligible for this benefit.

Public housing rents are calculated at 25% of income (or market rent if this is lower). But community housing organisations can add the entire amount of CRA received by the tenant to this figure. This effectively increases the rent payable for a single pensioner by up to 70%.

Under changes in the law in 2016 tenants have no option but to accept the changes. If a tenant delays or fails to apply for CRA for any reason they are deemed to be receiving it and their rent correspondingly adjusted.

What about the housing maintenance backlog?

According to the Productivity Commission, in 2016 more than a quarter of public housing dwellings in NSW failed to meet a basic standard of functionality and structural integrity. This was the worst result of any state.

It is highly likely that the transferred properties carry a substantial backlog of maintenance and repairs. The cost of this work will be effectively shifted to the federal government. However, as CRA is an income security entitlement, this will not appear as housing expenditure in the federal budget.

Maintenance issues are the most common reason for complaints and tenant dissatisfaction, so tenants will welcome more spending on maintenance. However, community providers are required to use the government’s existing maintenance contractors at least until contracts expire.

Providers contend that higher staff-to-tenant ratios will lead to more humanised management and greater responsiveness to individual tenants’ needs. This claim will be tested against the fact that the community providers are dramatically expanding their portfolios and scope of operations, and will absorb many displaced department staff.

For some tenants, it appears more local “hands-on” management is not always experienced as a positive. Analysis of NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) data sourced by advocates somewhat surprisingly reveals that community providers are heavily over-represented in taking tenants to the tribunal. At the same time, the break-up of management among many providers will limit the possibility of moving or swapping houses for employment or family reasons.

Lack of title limits new housing supply

In the UK and Europe, non-profit housing organisations are now the major developers of new social housing. They do this by borrowing against their assets and partnering with the development industry.

Australian community housing managers have long argued that they should be given freehold title to state properties. In theory, this would enable them to borrow and provide extra social housing stock without adding to public debt.

State governments have resisted asset transfers on accountability grounds, preferring to simply outsource management.

So, rather than adding to social housing supply, the marked growth of the community housing sector over the last decade has been almost entirely at the expense of public housing. Australia’s population increased by 12.6% between 2011 and 2016. The number of social housing dwellings (public and community housing) grew by less than 3% in that time. Most of that growth resulted from federal stimulus funding during the global financial crisis.

The current program in NSW excludes any expectation that providers will leverage additional income to develop new housing.

In 2013 the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute published a comprehensive analysis of social housing transfers. The report concluded that potential benefits included maximising revenue, improving services and leveraging growth. However, it noted that “there has been an unrealistic loading of objectives onto this one policy mechanism”.

The authors called for a clearer and more realistic rationale for housing transfers and better opportunities for tenants to be involved in shaping the outcome.

Five years on it is apparent that revenue is the key driver at the expense of increased supply and tenant choice or voice. Support for the growth of community housing has been restated in the new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement where it appears as a national priority area.

In NSW, a wide range of former government responsibilities and access to a Commonwealth-funded revenue stream have been handed over without the accountability and grant management mechanisms that traditionally apply to community-based service providers. Tenants are expected to apply for federal funds on behalf of the state social housing system and bear a significant cost if they don’t comply.