Preface: Feedback on the Housing Precedent Binder

The housing precedent binder of October 15, 2021 was presented to the Steering Committee and comments and feedback were solicited during the scoping workshop, on November 12, 2021. The introduction of the report to the Committee can be found at the beginning of the precedent binder as an amendment of that document. The following notes summarize the discussion section that followed the introduction of the report:

■ There were concerns expressed that the report focused too much on the way housing is currently built on the island and not on how it might be different.

■ We clarified the purpose of the report and how it would contribute to work in subsequent phases.

■ Several references to more innovative projects can up in discussions earlier in the week of the scoping workshop and we pressed for information on these projects.

■ Upon clarification, the project referred to was Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. There were further questions about specific aspects of the project that were appealing, and the conclusion was that Masdar City was an expensive model.

■ We used this opportunity to re-assert that the questions of how money was spent, to what effect and to whose benefit, were central to the housing precedent study, and that by this measure economical precedents were important to the future of Nauru housing and that housing was inherently a little conservative.

■ Whereas the report has recommended building with concrete and block and with local labor, some of the members of the steering committee talked about the economy of some kits from Singapore recently purchased from a company in Singapore.

■ This housing post-dated any models we had mentioned in the precedent study, and so we asked for more information on the company and how the housing had held up.

■ We also mentioned the governments express wish to use the housing program to underwrite a block manufacturing plant, a concrete batch plant, and the masonry trades.

■ The Whitfield study of 1994 had looked at manufactured housing and concluded that there was no clear financial advantage to offshore prefabricated housing, but the Singapore housing, purchased seven to eight years ago cost a fraction of what site built housing is likely to cost, had a clear initial cost advantage.

■ Discussion of this more recent housing by members of the committee turned up some concerns about its durability and the capacity to add on to it.

■ The committee clarified that all housing is subsidized and that housing subsidies go to families with children. This is significant because the 2011 Census identified a large population of single Nauruan adults between the ages of 15 and 35. This single adult population might ordinarily be candidates for smaller, less expensive housing that could reduce the pressure on housing with large families. But with this policy the demand for small one-bedroom units, like those still found around the port for foreign workers, will remain weak.

■ One of the more controversial recommendations of the housing report was to focus less on energy loss across walls and more on lengthening the life span of housing and on the reduction of embodied energy attendant with housing that needed to be replaced at short intervals.

■ The recommendation to focus less on energy loss was based on information from the housing committee that walls did not have insulation, that interior finishes were plastered, and that air-conditioning was very rare. However, the steering committee did talk about sheet rock finishes, which require air conditioning and so in a follow up to the workshop session we pressed the issue of the prevalence of air conditioning.

■ Anecdotal information suggested that wall units are used on the island but that the cost of the electricity to run them is a luxury. If air-conditioning becomes more affordable and prevalent, there is a possibility - remote in our judgement - that energy loss across walls might become slightly more important relative to the embodied energy of new construction.

The precedent study looked at the assemblies and building materials of a typical building, with an emphasis on balancing costs and building integrity. This next phase of work looks at the considerations that impact programming the housing and individual house types (Section 2.0); at aggregated studies without specific sites (Section 3.0); at specific sites in the Section 230 master plan (Section 4.0); and at select island perimeter sites (Section 5.0).

Each phase builds on the previous phase. The building types are based on studies of the assemblies of a building. The aggregated studies are based on the housing types. The master plan studies are based on the aggregated studies overlaid with the contingencies of specific site.

SECTION 2.A