31st May 2017

Strata Energy News

The New Development Triathlon

What are the batten changes between property developers, strata managers and the first strata committee needed to tackle rising energy costs.
 
While most of us aren’t triathletes and the dream of completing the Ultimate Forster or Hawaii Iron Man are a bit far-fetched, there is one thing in common with new development hand-overs. Energy needs to be conserved through each of the batten changes. Time can’t be lost in transition.
Proposed Genesis apartments in Shepherd's Bay

Different terms will be bandied about….embedded networks, do we need one of those or two? Electricity? Hot water? ….and what about those Tesla owners who want to charge in the basement car park? Split system A/C’s for each individual apartment might help us get a better NABERs for apartments rating than a central cooling tower, driving property valuations higher.

Property developers will hire a consultant to complete a BASIX report, just because their new favourite local council requires it. Most of the time they proceed to consider it as “just a compliance step”. That’s where operational running costs of the building on the energy front first take a dive. A block lit up like a Christmas tree will sell fast.

Strata Managers will be looking to lock-in a brand new committee of enthusiastic owners for the long term. However, as they need to keep getting new business from this property developer, that means they are not going to table ‘motion-sensored’ LED lighting retrofit or a 50kW solar system at that very first AGM. After all, the standard LED’s or energy efficient fluoros going cheap will serve just perfectly fine in the near term.

What was missing through the batten changes were the gels, staminade and support crew coming into each transition. Everyone’s seen the race leader come into bike racks ahead and fumble with the stirrups.

It can be done a better way.

What if the property developer could see what the energy run costs of the building common areas and apartments would look like before the first pour of concrete? If they could market their building as eco, green, EV-ready or sunshine-powered they could set their block apart from the pack….and target the segment of fast-driving, carbon resenting owners and residents which lie ahead.

We’ve seen it done at mega developments like Yarra Bend, Whitegum Valley, Central Park and now its making its way out into the burbs.

The Genesis development of 58 apartments, destined for Shepherd’s Bay commissioned a Wattblock report while it was still a ‘hole-in-the-ground’. Let’s watch the transition from Sasco Developments through Sarraf Strata and into the first AGM with a keen eye.

Brent Clark
Contributor, Strata Energy News 

Strata managers can now register buildings in the City of Sydney and in Queensland for a fully funded electric vehicle recharge assessment.  Read more about the program here.
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