IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v3y2015i2p31-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Provision of Visitable Housing in Australia: Down to the Detail

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret Ward

    (School of Human Services & Social Work , Griffith University, Australia)

  • Jill Franz

    (School of Design, Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

Abstract

In response to the ratification of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), Australian housing industry leaders, supported by the Australian Government, committed to transform their practices voluntarily through the adoption of a national guideline, called Livable Housing Design. They set a target in 2010 that all new housing would be visitable by 2020. Research in this area suggests that the anticipated voluntary transformation is unrealistic and that mandatory regulation will be necessary for any lasting transformation to occur. It also suggests that the assumptions underpinning the Livable Housing Design agreement are unfounded. This paper reports on a study that problematised these assumptions. The study used eleven newly-constructed dwellings in three housing contexts in Brisbane, Australia. It sought to understand the logics-of-practice in providing, and not providing, visitable housing. By examining the specific details that make a dwelling visitable, and interpreting the accounts of builders, designers and developers, the study identified three logics-of-practice which challenged the assumptions underpinning the Livable Housing Design agreement: focus on the point of sale; an aversion to change and deference to external regulators on matters of social inclusion. These were evident in all housing contexts indicating a dominant industry culture regardless of housing context or policy intention. The paper suggests that financial incentives for both the builder and the buyer, demonstration by industry leaders and, ultimately, national regulation is a possible pathway for the Livable Housing Design agreement to reach the 2020 goal. The paper concludes that the Australian Government has three options: to ignore its obligations under the CRPD; to revisit the Livable Housing Design agreement in the hope that it works; or to regulate the housing industry through the National Construction Code to ensure the 2020 target is reached.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret Ward & Jill Franz, 2015. "The Provision of Visitable Housing in Australia: Down to the Detail," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 31-43.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:3:y:2015:i:2:p:31-43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/57
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dallas Rogers & Rae Dufty-Jones & Wendy Steele, 2015. "Housing and Socio-Spatial Inclusion," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 01-5.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:3:y:2015:i:2:p:31-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.