Environmental stress

Our conventional housing system to date has created, directly and indirectly, much environmental destruction. Here are some of the consequences:

There is high embodied energy in housing design and typical construction materials.
Poor quality construction materials have shortened lifespan that necessitates recurring maintenance and renovations.
Toxic construction materials and household products have adverse health impacts.
High household utility use of energy and water depletes our natural resources and and costs are increasing rapidly, especially for energy use.
Household waste and effluent are sources of environmental pollution and require costly management.
Productive land has been lost to hard infrastructure for sprawling housing developments, displacing opportunities for local food production and food security.
Transportation of food from remote localities (farm to fork) causes arguably the greatest environmental destruction and increases risks of food insecurity.
Storm water runoff from hard surfaces exacerbates problems of suburban flood events.

The sprawl of housing developments continues in new periurban suburbs that are swallowing up previous agricultural land, such as in the Hunter region and Western Sydney.

Elsewhere, town and city centres are becoming more densely developed with high rise apartment complexes, many being funded as build-to-rent projects.

The Sun Villages Model offers an alternative approach that gives more of us more choices for

development of responsible housing projects
investment in property and
life-long home ownership.