Climate-safe housing

This Issue This is a part of the Climate change feature

By - , Build 174

A Dunedin pilot project will provide housing for a person whose home became unhabitable after repeated floods. This case study in collaborative action is an example of what’s needed as climate change encroaches on our lives.

Climate-safe house proposed for Waitati.

YOU MIGHT THINK climate-safe housing is all about design, yet design is only a minor, but important, part of climate-safe housing. After all, there are many designs for modular transportable homes, prefabricated dwellings, passively designed homes and homes with energy autonomy.

What hasn’t been solved yet is public apathy, denial, political inertia, compensation and the challenges faced by our most vulnerable living in areas that are impacted by climate change or extreme events, such as flood hazard zones.

Partnering for climate action

In Dunedin, repeated flooding has rendered some properties unliveable and made life precarious for some of the most vulnerable residents. To confront this sticky situation, the climate-safe house project has been established as a collaboration between the Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust (BRCT) and Otago Polytechnic.

Early in 2019, a formal agreement was signed that requires both to work together to construct the climate-safe house in time for the Home & Living Show in Dunedin in November. BRCT and Otago Polytechnic have cooperated on climate actions since 2016, and more recently, BRCT joined a bid led by Otago Polytechnic to the United Nations to establish a Regional Centre for Expertise.

The climate-safe house is the first project to demonstrate partnerships for climate action.

A warm, safe transportable home

The first climate-safe house will be constructed in stages and installed on a property in Waitati. It will provide a warm, efficient, elevated and transportable home for a community member whose home has become uninsurable and uninhabitable due to flooding.

BRCT is leasing the property to build the house and will sublet it to the current resident and property owner at a peppercorn rental, removing it when flooding becomes too extreme.

This is about a community taking responsibility for adaptation to climate impacts and forming partnerships to achieve one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. (For more on these, see Build 165, Sustainable development goals, page 92.)

Climate-safe house proposed for Waitati.

Model of how we might adapt

This project is a model of how we might begin to manage the retreat from flood hazard zones through use of adaptable transportable eco-housing. There are valuable co-benefits as well, such as job creation in the adaptation efforts and better builds with clean technology.

Challenges have included resolving legal access to the property and resourcing a new build that falls outside the usual social or community housing model.

Details of materials and design

Structural insulated panels (SIPs) will provide the building's thermal envelope – the floor, walls and ceiling. The Formance Ready panels – a design for manufacture and assembly approach to allow faster, more efficient construction – will be delivered to the builders for pre-assembly and then transported for full assembly on temporary piles at the home show.

The climate-safe house will sit on a standard subfloor and will be clad with weatherboard, ply and corrugated iron. Internal walls will be lined with plasterboard, and the floor will be tongue and groove macrocarpa. Its compact construction (6 × 9 m) makes for ease of transportation and is modular so additional units can be connected.

A 45° angle on the north-facing roof aspect will enable solar panels to be installed. Once moved to Waitati, the climate-safe house will be placed on piles to elevate it well above flood hazard risk and for the completion of decks, the roof and the internal fit-out and connection to services.

Value not just economic

While the cost of the first climate-safe house includes many of the one-off development costs of a pilot, there will be a diminishing marginal cost for subsequent builds. In a well-being economy however, value cannot be measured just in terms of economic cost.

The climate-safe house’s value is multiple, with additional value such as:

  • a model affordable eco-home
  • a tool to engage the community on adaptation to climate change
  • a demonstration of new building techniques
  • a practical solution to the combined housing/climate crisis
  • a new leasehold arrangement to provide for the vulnerable
  • acknowledgement of the need for well managed retreat from vulnerable coastlines
  • an opportunity to develop new skill sets to assist the transition to zero carbon.

A model for the future

The climate-safe house is about showing a way forward for communities increasingly affected by climate change. It models not only new building techniques but also collaborative problem solving. It will ultimately demonstrate the benefits of warm, dry, adaptive housing for vulnerable members of our communities.

There are lessons, too, for central government, iwi and aligned agencies. By working together, we can deliver new adaptable homes and a blueprint for practical climate action.

For more

See www.brct.org.nz to get involved or join as a partner on the climate-safe house project – contact Scott Willis at [email protected].

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Articles are correct at the time of publication but may have since become outdated.

Climate-safe house proposed for Waitati.

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