Our achievements this year are a practical demonstration of what we value. We advance best practice sustainability across all of our projects and work to resolve difficult problems for the benefit of the state, while continually trying to build trusting, productive and mutually beneficial relationships with our partners and stakeholders.

This section sketches the highlights of our achievements this  year under the headings of ‘how we operate’. It describes:

• milestones that we have reached on our projects
• new partnerships that we have developed to deliver our projects and to progress research and policy
• systems improvements that we have made
• some of the benefits we have leveraged for communities
• ways that we have contributed to making stronger communities
• a decade of sustainability leadership.

Creating sustainable places

New and Current Projects

We demonstrate sustainability leadership through our projects. Key milestones in 2010-2011 for some of our current projects included:

• At Green Square Town Centre, Landcom secured the Gateway Determination. This is a critical step in the planning process that clears the way for this landmark development. We also settled the acquisition of two key sites that will enable development to commence.
• The Ponds continues to be the state’s fastest growing suburb, with approximately 1,500 lots of this 3,200 lot development now sold. This year we continued civil construction and delivered about 600 lots to the market. The Stanhope Parkway link between Waterfall Boulevard and Hambledon Road was opened by the local member of Parliament in November. Landcom expedited the construction of this long awaited road link by forward funding it. This will help to improve local traffic flows and relieve congestion.
• Also at The Ponds, we launched the first home in our Eco- Living display group in June. The Eco-Living homes showcase innovation in sustainable design, materials and technologies. The two remaining dwellings will be complete by the end of 2011.
• At Bunya, construction of the first 105 lots commenced in August. We worked very closely with our builder partners to develop initiatives that exceed minimum BASIX requirements without unduly adding to development costs. Several initiatives were commenced this year, including an ambitious public domain strategy incorporating cutting edge water sensitive urban design (WSUD). This project has been granted $7.56 million for capital works from the Commonwealth Housing Affordability Fund (HAF). We will pass this on to consumers as a $20,000 price discount on each lot. The first sales release took place in February and 49 out of 54 lots were reserved on the first day.
• At Potts Hill, we negotiated approval of the project application for the western residential precinct on behalf of the landowner, Sydney Water. This approval will allow Sydney Water to realise the value of its surplus asset and enables Landcom to commence delivery of 450 new homes, contributing to local supply and affordability. Construction of the residential precinct will begin in late 2011.
• Landcom finalised the purchase of the North Penrith site from the Commonwealth in May 2010, paving the way for this transit oriented development that will be key to the evolution of Penrith city. Development for this mixed use development will include affordable and aged care housing, as well as an expanded commuter car park that will provide an immediate benefit to the people of Penrith.
• At Oran Park Town, the first residential lots were settled in August and 20 families moved into their homes in early 2011. This year, one hundred and twenty homes were completed this year and construction of the retirement village commenced. Oran Park is the first of the major projects in the southwest growth centre. The precinct will ultimately provide 8,000 lots, a major town centre and regional community facilities.
• At Edmondson Park, the first lots at ‘Talana’ were released in September. This HAF supported project is the first residential neighbourhood in the Edmondson Park release area. Talana demonstrates how quality development can be achieved with smaller lots and provides a model for the development of adjoining land. Landcom has facilitated early precinct and infrastructure planning for the entire release area.
• At Elizabeth Hills, civil works commenced in March and the first sales release is expected in late 2011. This eagerly awaited development integrates surrounding parkland and open space and provides an important supply of housing in Sydney’s southwest.
• At North Tuncurry, a Native Title Agreement signing ceremony took place in November, which is a critical milestone for this significant place-making development on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast. The agreement provides employment opportunities for local Aboriginal people, including work on the cultural heritage study and in the future construction. This project will provide a mix of land uses including up to 3,000 homes, employment lands, community and tourism facilities, education facilities, open space and conservation lands. Landcom opened a project office to manage this project in January.
• At the Royal Newcastle Hospital site, the Sebel Hotel was opened in November. This enhanced public access at this striking beachfront location, delivering on the public domain masterplan that Landcom prepared some years ago.

Completed Projects

This year Landcom also reached significant end-milestones on a number of projects:

• We wound up our involvement at Greenway Views in the southwest and Newbury in the northwest. Both of these projects extended over more than 10 years and they were among the first in which Landcom took an active role in the delivery of built form, applying best practice urban design principles. They were also among the first projects on which we partnered with the private sector – with Australand at Greenway Views and Mirvac at Newbury. Through these projects we introduced our partners to Landcom’s Welcome Program initiative, which they have since adopted for their own projects.
• At Shellharbour, we sold the final lot in the town centre. The Shellharbour masterplan integrated a ‘main street’ style retail and entertainment precinct with an existing commercial centre to service a sub-regional population of over 100,000 people. In many ways, the model was the precursor to the Rouse Hill Town Centre.
• The Waterford project at Punchbowl was completed and we concluded the partnership with our development partner, A V Jennings, in July.

Partnering with others

Development Project Partnerships

We believe strongly in collaborating with others to achieve better outcomes for our projects. This year we entered into agreements to work with a number of agencies. Examples are outlined below.

• Along with our Oran Park development partner (Greenfields Development Company), we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University of Western Sydney in February to explore development and educational opportunities for Oran Park Town including:
  – a medical and health precinct
  – information technology and communications infrastructure
  – an ‘education town’ engagement model.
• We entered into agreements with Defense Housing Australia, Mission Australia and St George Community Housing, to work together on a number of potential projects and explore future joint opportunities.

As well as the above, Landcom was appointed by Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC) during the year to deliver 50% of its ‘Stronger Together 2’ program. This will involve 150 projects over the next five years, mostly in the Sydney metropolitan area.

Research and Development

As well as partnering on development projects, we also collaborated with others to progress development of sustainability planning tools and new research.

• With a $52,000 sponsorship from the former Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW), we enhanced the energy module of Landcom’s PRECINX® sustainability assessment tool. This work was co-managed by Landcom and DECCW. We made PRECINX® available to our government land organisation colleagues in other states.
• We commenced a partnership with the University of New South Wales, the National Heart Foundation and NSW Health on an Australian Research Council Linkage Project. This three-year research collaboration will explore the relationship between urban planning and health using four Landcom projects as case studies.

Solving problems

Improving supply, diversity and technology

One of the things that distinguishes Landcom is our problem solving capacity. Landcom unlocks complex land planning and development problems that are of significance to the development of the state. For example:

• A major change in the direction of the organisation occurred in April when the Premier asked Landcom to increase its production to 10,000 home sites over the next four years. This is a 25% increase on our previous targets.
• This year Landcom continued to provide development, project and construction management services to HNSW for the commonwealth’s Nation Building Program. Our involvement in this program, which had a combined value of $350 million, has delivered affordable housing for 1,100 families.
• Working in close co-operation with the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co), in February Landcom was granted approval for the provision of optical fibre in the current stages of The Ponds, Bunya, Renwick and Talana. We signed the first national developer agreements with NBN Co in March. These are the first agreements with NBN Co in Australia and will result in significant savings in the way we provide this technology to our customers.
• This year we commenced work on our 21st Century Terrace project. Sydney’s housing needs are changing, driven by factors such as smaller family sizes, increases in the cost of living and affordability issues. However, the industry has been slow to respond to the need for different types of new housing. Landcom is leading the way with development of a terrace model that can be ‘mainstreamed’ and, importantly, delivered by the project home industry. The first demonstration of the model will be at our North Penrith project, and a toolkit will be developed to assist the industry to implement this housing type in its projects.

Improving our own systems

"The conference was a credit to Landcom. I’m not sure where the public and commercial interest discussion that is presented at your conferences would occur elsewhere. Congratulations. I took a lot out of the occasion."

David Chandler, Chairman, Hunter Residential
 

This year we made a number of improvements to our systems to help us manage our own performance and also to make it easier to do business with us.

• We developed an eTender portal to help us manage tenders via our website. The portal was used for the first time in October for The Ponds. The system reduces the potential for errors and delays, and includes features such as automated receipting, activity logs and direct filing of submissions. By the end of the reporting period there were around 500 registered users of the eTender portal. We also made improvements to our land registration portal during the year, which is now more sophisticated and user friendly.
• As part of our Business Improvement Program, we held a civil contractors panel forum in August, and further civil and landscaping forums in May. These sessions are part of an ongoing program of engagement and feedback with the people with whom we do business, and they have been very well received.
• In March, we began work on a web-enabled sustainability reporting tool, designed to enable a more efficient and user-friendly way of collating and analysing our sustainability performance data. The web portal will be complete and ready for use by our staff by the end of 2011.

Leveraging benefits

Securing natural and built assets for the community

We are pleased that our work secures assets for current and future communities. Examples are outlined below.

• At Prince Henry at Little Bay, Randwick City Council accepted dedication of Little Bay Beach in December. From February, residents and retail tenants began moving into Stockland’s Manta building, the project’s first mixed use development. This provides much needed shopping facilities for residents and includes a small supermarket and professional services. Landcom is now in the process of concluding its involvement at Prince Henry, with all lots sold, roads and beach dedicated to council and a reserve trust established to coordinate the ongoing management of the community assets.
• At Victoria Park in Zetland, we transferred the heritage listed Tote Building to Sydney City Council. Council is using the building as a community centre and offices.

For more information on the full range of community facilities we provided during the year, please refer to our social sustainability performance.

Sharing our knowledge and promoting continued industry innovation

Landcom openly shares our knowledge and promotes industry discussion and innovation to leverage our work beyond our own projects. One of the ways we do this is through our sustainability conferences.

In May we hosted our highly successful DiverseCity conference, which was attended by 340 of our stakeholders. The conference, which featured 10 Australian and international speakers, focussed on the importance of housing, population and landuse diversity for the creation of sustainable places. At the conference, the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, The Hon Brad Hazzard MP, launched our new Residential Density Guide, Housing Diversity Guide and Built Form Guide (second edition). Of the conference attendees who gave formal feedback, 95% rated the conference 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 is poor and 5 is excellent). Similarly, 95% rated the topics 4 or 5.

Building stronger communities

Landcom understands how land use planning and development affects social wellbeing, and we are committed to creating places where communities can develop and thrive. We work closely with state agencies, service providers, councils and local communities to make sure we get this right. Some of our community-building achievements this year are outlined below.

Delivering community facilities and services

At Oran Park Town, the first ‘Collaboration for Social Service’ meeting was held in April. This is a network of community and social service agencies working together to co-ordinate delivery of community and social services to the Oran Park and surrounding communities. Landcom settled the sale of the first Oran Park Town school site to Sydney Anglican Schools in May. Construction commenced with a sod turning ceremony on 9 June and the school is planning to open its first primary school classes in 2012. We also negotiated the sale of the Kindergarten to  Year 12 school site to The Department of Education and Communities (DEC) at the end of June. This will eventually be one of the biggest public schools in the state, catering for over 2,000 students, with the primary school expected to be open by 2014.

At One Minto, Redfern Park was opened by the Mayor of the City of Campbelltown in December. Delivery of the park is part of a major program of public domain and open space upgrades that is revitalising the neighbourhood. The park was designed in close consultation with the community and features a state-of-the-art and innovative playground, an extensive amphitheatre for live performances and cultural activities, and modern picnic facilities. It also features a half basketball court, providing recreational opportunities for local youth, and a circuit for bikes and trikes. Redfern Park is set to become an integral part of Minto’s social infrastructure.

At Bunya, Landcom and Blacktown City Council are collaborating to build the South Blacktown Community Resources hub. This $4.5 million much needed community facility will serve the new and existing communities.

At Vantage, major public artworks were installed in November, contributing to the cultural identity of the new neighbourhood. This development makes the most of the natural Corlette setting and provides for relaxed living, right by the heart of Nelson Bay.

Responding to emerging housing needs

This year we handed over 24 ‘group homes’ to ADHC. We also entered into a contract with Eurella Community Services Inc in March to build a group home on their behalf at Abbotsford. Group homes enable people who are unable to live independently to live in a home-like  environment as part of the community. Group homes are usually in accessible locations close to services and supports, to meet the needs of clients and their families. They are designed to help people increase their independence and live full and productive lives.

Using social media to support community development

We launched our ‘Landcom People Places’ (www.peopleplaces.com.au) website in 2011 to support our existing community development programs. People Places uses social media (Facebook and Twitter) to connect Landcom and other communities and provides a forum for discussion,  news and education. People Places also features People TV, a video forum where we feature educational and community stories.

Protecting the public interest

Open and accountable reporting

Our 2010 Sustainability Report received a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) A+ application level, which means we have achieved the highest level of sustainability disclosure available under the GRI framework and the results have been independently verified. Our 2010 Annual Report  (which includes the Sustainability Report) was distributed electronically to over 2,000 stakeholders and announced to an international list of sustainability advocates. In the first week following its announcement, the report had received 400 unique views.

This is our first full year of reporting under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA). This Act encourages government agencies to be proactive in providing access to any information considered to be in the public interest. During the year, we reviewed our suite of policies and posted those relevant to our stakeholders online for full public access. Further information on our compliance with the Act can be found on the corporate activities page.

Global Reporting Initiative

Our sustainability leadership was recognised when, in 2009, the GRI invited us to be one of 10 companies worldwide to help develop the Construction and Real Estate Sector Supplement. This year, the group completed the supplement, which is to be officially launched for use in September 2011.

As part of our participation, in October Landcom co-sponsored a seminar at the Museum of Contemporary Art titled ‘Who’d Trust a Modern Corporation?’. Attended by over 200 people, this GRI-hosted event examined the ethics of modern business, the value of sustainability reporting and the importance of social and corporate responsibility. Landcom’s Chairman gave a welcoming address and set the scene for a stimulating panel discussion involving business leaders and sustainability experts from companies across Australia and around the world.