Apartments, Co-ownership and Sustainability: Implementation Barriers for Retrofitting the Built Environment

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 7th Australian Housing Researcher's Conference in Perth, Australia, in February 2013.

Abstract

Environmental sustainability issues have been at the centre of urban densification and the walkable city in Australia. While many newer developments are built with green star ratings, retrofitting existing buildings with shared governance structures is sometimes viewed as problematic. This paper explores the use of retrofitting for environmental sustainability within Victoria's owner corporation environment. Little is known about how the use of privatized governance structures within apartment and townhouse developments adds to the complexity of implementing sustainability measures. This paper investigates the motivations and attitudes of strata managers and committees of management in relation to the retrofit measures by drawing on the findings of 13 semi-structured interviews with committee members and strata managers. Findings revealed that there was a substantial understanding of the benefits associated with retrofitting buildings for environmental sustainability; however, a range of reasons and attitudes existed within the strata environment that affected the implementation of such measures.

Key Words:

• Home owner association
• apartment
• retrofit
• sustainability
• Australia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who provided feedback on this paper, in particular members of AHURI and the UTAS PhD writers' group reviews for their comments and encouragement.

Notes

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 7th Australian Housing Researcher's Conference in Perth, Australia, in February 2013.