Inclusive Housing Design – Placemaking in Wyndham

People with physical and intellectual disabilities are under-served by mainstream housing, reflected in both a lack of overall supply, and of flexibility in housing models. Delivering solutions for adults with a disability is critical to an inclusive housing market.

There are many opportunities for innovation, placing consumers in control, including: implementation of the NDIS, launch of a Commonwealth “bond aggregator” to improve social housing financing, changes in planning schemes, and emergence of alternative forms of design and development.

CPRC seeks to improve understanding of market dynamics and the policy environment through the “placemaking” process. Working directly with consumers, we will examine how they can be more engaged in placemaking to ensure housing is efficient, better-located, affordable, and provides better or more flexible tenure.

What is placemaking? The creation of public spaces that promote health and well-being by adopting the local community’s assets, inspiration and potential. Placemaking projects will often be experimental, exploring obstacles to innovation in planning schemes, tax and financing structures, ownership and management structures, and other structural features of the sector.

The first of these projects at CPRC is a collaboration with a consortium including: adults with intellectual disabilities and their parent-carers, Deakin University’s HOME research network, the City of Wyndham.

Supported by international expertise, participating adults and their carers will be enabled to create new housing solutions in collaboration with council and not-for-profit developers.