Developing Something Different
On the surface, residential developments come in all shapes and sizes, but essentially they are all the same: they tag themselves with boring, vaguely cosmopolitan or exotic sounding names like ‘East’, ‘La Vida’ or just some address (which is neither cosmopolitan or exotic, it’s just boring), and they are built with the sole purpose of making someone money. Sure, developers vary the way they do this by fancying things up and selling fewer units for higher dollars, or go the way of Walmart by selling heaps for cheap by jamming as many units into a box as they can while still maintaining a sliver of liveability. But the end goal is nonetheless the same. That’s why I find what’s happening in the northern suburbs of Melbourne interesting, something started by a group of architects a few years back in Brunswick and based on a completely different premise.
Property ownership is becoming exclusionary simply because in much of Melbourne, it’s pretty damn expensive. In a study released in January, it was ranked the 4th least affordable city in the world based on house prices versus income (and it’s maintained it’s high ranking on this dubious list for several years running). And the problem is not getting better in part because those who are responsible for bringing new developments into the world — developers! — have no reason to care about this and, worse still, are motivated by encouraging the buyers to pay top price, which exasperates the problem. I shouldn’t be too hard on capitalists, but there is more to life than the bottom dollar. So what to do? What’s the answer?
The group behind what they are calling ‘the Nightingale model’ thinks they have it. By cutting some of the bullshit out of the costs of development, namely the things they say people don’t want or need like marketing, agents, parking, air conditioning (arguable), the cost per unit goes down and correspondingly so does the sale price. The logic is mostly sound. What value does the buyer really get from the marketing people and agents that work for the developer? A less crappy name for their apartment building?
This isn’t drastic, blue sky thinking here. The Nightingale people have really just taken an open eyed look at development costs and chosen to cut some out that do not have drastic effects on quality, in an effort to develop a lower cost product. Indeed some could argue that if some of the cuts weren’t done under the banner of ‘sustainability’ (i.e., the omission of air con), the developers would be ripped to shreds during planning and labelled slum lords. But the fact that they’ve also coupled their cost cutting with the principle that the cost savings will be left on the table and not directed into their pockets makes the Nightingale model special, and an interesting alternative to the standard development model.
Most importantly, judging by reported interest in the developments, apartment buyers are liking the idea, lack of parking spaces and air con included.
