HOUSING
National new home lending posts solid April gains
A
BS HOUSING finance figures released for April 2015 show an increase in lending for new homes to both owner occupiers and investors “In a positive update for new home building activity in early 2015/16, finance for new housing climbed higher across the board in the month of April this year,” said Housing Industry Association Chief Economist, Dr Harley Dale. “In April 2015 there was a 4.3% increase in the number of owner occupier loans for construction, while the equivalent number of loans for the purchase of a new property rose by 1.6%,” he said. “The April results include an increase in lending for investment in new residential dwellings which took the annual value to in excess of $9 billion for the first time ever. “The number of first home buyer loans for owner occupiers remains low, but is running at its highest annual level in a year, although that of course excludes those first time buyers entering the investment market. In April 2015 the number of trade-up buyer loans reached its highest level since prior to the GFC,” said Dr Dale. ABS figures broken down by region continue to highlight wide disparities in new housing conditions. The total number of owner occupier loans for new housing increased in six out of eight States and Territories in April 2015. Over the three months to April this year the seasonally adjusted estimate of new loans increased by 4.9% in New South Wales, 4.7% in Victoria, 3.4% in Queensland, 1.6% in South Australia, and 20.6% in the Northern Territory. The number of loans fell over the same period in Western Australia (-4.4%), Tasmania (-10.3%), and the Australian Capital Territory (-8.7%). ABS APRIL KEY FIGURES Trend estimates
Seasonally adjusted estimates
Mar 2015 to Apr 2015
Mar 2015 to Apr 2015
Value of dwelling commitments(a)(b) $m
% change
$m
% change
Total dwellings
32,109
1.4
32,712
2.9
Owner occupied housing
18,924
1.3
19,218
3.1
Investment housing - fixed loans(c)
13,186
1.4
13,494
2.6
Number of dwelling commitments(a)(b) no.
% change
no.
% change
Owner occupied housing
53,546
0.7
53,951
1.0
Construction of dwellings
5,947
-0.2
6,121
4.3
Purchase of new dwellings
2,696
1.1
2,766
1.6
Purchase of established dwellings
44,903
0.8
45,064
0.5
Housing affordability can be fixed, says HIA PUBLIC SPECULATION about a housing bubble ignores the real culprits of Australia’s housing affordability problems, says the Housing Industry Association (HIA). “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Australia would get the disproportionately high level of taxation off new homes and improve the supply of new housing,” said HIA Chief Economist Harley Dale. “The truth is that most of the problems having an impact on housing affordability are caused by Governments and therefore Governments can fix them. “The two biggest taxes on a new home are stamp duty and GST - the latter which doesn’t apply to existing homes - and when combined with all the other taxes, levies and charges on a new home can be over 40% of the final price,” he said. “New housing, which provides a necessity of life, namely shelter, is the second most heavily taxed major sector of the Australian economy. “Equally, delays in planning and restrictions on land supply, mean that new housing is not reaching the
TIMBERMAN, August 2012 – 6
FRAME AUSTRALIA
FRAME AUSTRALIA
buildingSmart with BIM J
OHN MITCHELL, chairman of buildingSmart Australasia looked around the room at the FRAME conference in Melbourne and asked if anyone knew what BIM was. Did anyone use BIM? The silence was telling. Certainly there were people in the audience who had some knowledge while some like Claudelle Taylor of the Leighton Group had experience with BIM but mostly the audience was struck dumb. As Mitchell went on to say, the building industry is not renowned for its affinity with and use of high tech computer software programs but it is time. Other industries have already embraced similar systems, and other countries are embracing Building Industry Modelling (BIM). So what is Building Industry Modelling? “BIM is 3D object model that is like a building database, easily visualized,” said Mitchell. “We can extract significant intelligence out of it.” Currently there is a lack of integration along the supply chain linking parties and between project phases but it’s not impossible to fix. As Mitchell said other industries such as the Australian Air Conditioning Manufacturers Association has already started supply chain integration. Other issues that plague the building industry are its reliance on the lowest bid strategy rather than a value for money proposition. There is poor understanding of optimized and properly documented designs. According to Mitchell the “Getting it Right” study in Queensland in 2005 identified this problem. That was seven years ago and it still lingers.
market quick enough to respond to demand, which ultimately puts upward pressure on prices. • “In 2013 HIA released its Housing Australians blueprint to address housing affordability and create economic activity in the sector, and many of these action items were re-iterated in the HIA submission to the Taxation White Paper this week. “A number of these points were also taken up in the recommendations of the recent Senate Inquiry into Housing Affordability, so Government has the answers,” said Dr Dale. Key points for governments to address housing affordability include: • Appoint a dedicated Federal Minister for Housing. • Phase out stamp duty on new homes to reduce costs and improve labour mobility. • Reinvigorate the planning system for faster approvals. • Support alternative funding models for residential infrastructure so new home buyers don’t pay upfront for whole-of-community assets. • No increase in the GST on new housing.
There is also inadequate and ineffective use of technology and a lack of appreciation of the benefits of open communication. In 2010 Mitchell’s organization commissioned a survey with the Commonwealth’s help that looked at adopting BIM in the Australian construction sector.
Implementation Plan. The starting point was the outcomes of the MESH conferences in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney in early 2011. The roadblocks are these: • Lack of model building protocols • Little product data for BIM object libraries • Legal and insurance impediments
We do need it, we need to build better, we need to make better use of resources. “The economic potential is extraordinary, extraordinary, a $4 billion potential per annum - $4 billion productivity potential per annum, this mirrors many other studies around the world,” said Mitchell. “We do need it, we need to build better, we need to make better use of resources, we need to be more efficient and deliver higher value for money.” The lessons from the 2D CAD current technology are clear, after 20 years there are still no common guidelines, no consensus in either government or industry and the documentation instead of improving is deteriorating. “There is significant risk if we do not align with international BIM developments – it’s a worldwide turn to BIM,” said Mitchell. buildingSMART Australasia was commissioned at the end of 2111 to undertake the development of a BIM
• Poor standards for information exchange • Inconsistencies in information handover protocols • Skills gaps • Lack of strategic research focus • Industry resistance to process change The participants at the stakeholder consultation workshops conducted by buildingSmart proposed key recommendations. First and foremost was that a BIM adoption roadmap should be completed. Commonwealth, State and Territory governments should be encouraged to require full collaborative BIM for their building procurements and they should develop procurement processes and assistance packages to encourage its adoption. Legal and technical instruments needed to support the introduction of BIM should
7 - August 2012, TIMBERMAN
Lend Lease lends its might to CLT be developed and aligned with relevant international codes and standards. We must think globally. Education is a must to enable the industry to meet the demands of technology for new workers and re-training for those already in the industry. Easy access must be facilitated to building product manufacturer’s certified information for use in all types of modelbased applications through an Australian on-line BIM products library. Open standard data exchange protocols should be established that support collaboration and facilitate integration of the briefing, design, construction, manufacturing and maintenance supply chain throughout the entire life of a built facility. Governments around the world are seeing the advantage of BIM as it can be used to support automated code checking, ensure buildings meet environmental and energy performance requirements, make certain asset and management information is available at all tiers of government for operational, maintenance, fiscal and strategic planning. The global construction software industry is well advanced in the change to BIM. All the major vendors Graphisoft ArchiCAD, Nemetscheck Allplan and Bentley Triforma have IFC certification, and now Autodesk Revit has committed to IFC compliance. Only by adopting BIM, by accepting new processes and by sharing information will the building industry stay competitive.
A
FTER LISTENING to Andrew Neiland from Lend Lease it was difficult to understand why it has taken so long for Australia to embrace CLT, and even harder to understand why it has taken the major construction companies this long to make it all add up. Initially it seemed odd that Neiland, who comes from the accounting side of the Lend Lease business, was presenting to a timberoriented audience at the Frame Australia conference. That soon passed as he recounted the reductions that Lend Lease faced through the use of CLT in its new multi-storey Forte apartment building in Melbourne. Admittedly it won’t be just reduced costs – but that’s the main take-away point, the other reductions relate to significantly lower construction noise, less occupational health and safety issues, and a smaller environmental footprint. The big cost reduction will come courtesy of reduced construction time, reduced truck movements, less labour, reduced building weight leading to reduced foundation requirements and more. “It’s lightweight, timber is roughly a fifth the weight of concrete,” said Neiland. “[with precast concrete] you only get a couple of pieces on a truck and that’s about it, you can truck a vast number of CLT panels in one go, so get a huge reduction in truck movements. “In terms of how the site looks the general comments we have from our construction teams is clean, and how quiet and how orderly the site is,” said Neiland. “One mobile crane, a couple days of CLT ready for installation and a crew of four guys putting it into place - very quiet and efficient process.”
Victoria Harbour was the instigator Melbourne’s Victoria Harbour has been a development hot spot for some time and Lend Lease was trying to make the most of the limited land available. On North Wharf the company was faced with a problem. “The building conditions are not great, it’s on silt so we looked for a lightweight construction solution and came up with CLT,” said Neiland. “That was most viable option and we found a lot more benefits than just light weight. So they assembled a team of designers and engineers to go and have a look at it. “They saw the opportunity immediately – for an all expenses paid trip to Europe.” It paid off, representatives from Lend Lease visited 14 projects in Europe, they visited the CLT producers and met with architects who had worked on similar projects and came away very impressed. “They came away very impressed that it was a proven solution where the owners and occupiers really enjoyed the outcome, and really enjoyed living in these buildings,” he said. Due diligence on the project took three years to complete. What Lend Lease did discover and what the company has brought into play with the Forte construction in Bourke Street, Melbourne – only a few doors down from Lend Lease HQ – is that using CLT is a design process. “It’s not taking a concrete building and replacing concrete with timber, it’s a new process. It’s about completing all your design up-front rather designing as your going,” said Neiland. “It’s about a factory process where you sign off on the drawings, you work out all the crane movements, you work out the logistics, the truck movements then you manufacture. By doing
this we are minimizing waste and reducing errors and building faster. “If you design it well it will last, if you design it poorly it won’t.” Australia’s building code doesn’t take into account timber buildings taller than three storeys so for Forte Lend Lease had to undertake a fire engineered solution and that’s not something that everyone can do. It may be a barrier to highrise CLT construction in Australia unless it is addressed. Forte is nine storeys tall (with a ground floor retail area) with 23 apartments and four townhouses. Lend Lease was faced with a certain amount of dismay when it came to fire approvals. “Melissa Chandler who is our building codes expert said it was the most interesting conversation she’s ever had with the fire brigade in her life. “Saying we’re building 10 storeys of timber, the lift well, the fire stairs and we’re leaving the fire stairs exposed timber. The look on their faces was priceless. We convinced them it was a good idea,” said Neiland. “We did the fire testing of the CLT panels with the CSIRO to achieve our approvals. “While it is not of a size that requires sprinklers we are installing sprinklers for this one,” he added. As the ground floor is to be a retail space that floor is designed very differently to the apartments and so it is mounted on a concrete slab which was laid in February this year. The CLT installation started in June and it is anticipated that it will take eight weeks to put up and should be finished in August. The whole building should be finished in October this year. Neiland said that for his company it wasn’t just about building a building in CLT it needed to be a step change in sustainability and that is
certainly what has happened. This will be the first 5-star green star building built in a residential environment. Each apartment is dual aspect and will take 25% less energy to heat and cool compared with a typical apartment, which equates to roughly $300 a year saved. All apartments will have a smart meter to link to an in-home display, which shows real time and historic data on energy consumption. Not only that, but simply by using timber 1451 tonnes of carbon is saved (cradle to site). Like every new idea there were challenges, the biggest was the logistics of shipping a building from Europe to Australia. KLH in Europe is the manufacturer of CLT for the Forte construction and so the panels had to be shipped to Australia and then stored awaiting installation. Out it came – 485 tonnes of timber, 759 CLT panels shipped in 25 containers in two ships. Lend Lease then did some other due diligence on the project, at 32.17 metres tall was it the tallest timber building in the world? “We came across Nikolai (Sutyagin) who was friendly old chap in Russia who was lonely and in 1992 he started to build a timber house for himself. He went a couple of storeys up and just kept going and he didn’t stop until he got to about 44 metres. “So we couldn’t go out with the claim that it is the tallest timber building so we modified it with a clause that it’s the tallest apartment timber building,” said Neiland. For the future Neiland said that Lend Lease is considering building up to 50% of its residential apartments using CLT. “For us Forte is not a one-off demonstration building,” he said. You can see live webcam vision of the Forte building under construction at http://www. forteliving.com.au
1300 880 335 aalhyster.com.au
Combilift Long Loads Forklift 3 Machines in 1: Forklift, Sideloader, Reach Truck Safer product handling Saves space – saves time Handles long loads safely Semi rough terrain
Adaptalift Hyster offer a complete range:
Pallet Trucks
The same industry-leading news, views and ad’s you’re reading in this issue are now available on-line as well. While we know print is the most convenient form for reading in the yard, lunchroom or highlighting an important point for the next reader, we also know that many of our readers want to go straight to websites or send emails or links from the articles and ad’s they’re reading.
Reach Trucks
Combilift
Order Pickers
Counterbalance
Big Trucks
Aisle-Master
Agria
Customised Materials Handling
MA100004DN
Hyster Counterbalance Forklift ift We offer a full range of internal combustion on and ve range battery electric lift trucks, a comprehensive of LPG, petrol & diesel units, from 1.5 tonne nne to 50 tonne reach stackers.
Now available on-line
...and covering New Zealand
Visit www.timberbiz.com.au/atm today to view your copy online
MEDIA
I N D E P E N D E N T & FA M I LY O W N E D
8
AUSTRALASIAN TIMBER
JUNE 2015
www.timberbiz.com.au