NEWS RELEASE
The Hon. Kristina Keneally MP
Member for Heffron
Minister for Planning
Minister for Infrastructure
Minister for Redfern Waterloo
Wednesday 18 November
The NSW Government today released a new tool designed to guide development of not just greener homes and buildings, but entire suburbs.
Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, said PRECINX is the next step in green development - a tool that analyses and guides sustainability performance in the planning of neighbourhoods.
“Making Sydney’s homes and streets more environmentally sustainable is at the core of the NSW Government’s planning for the future of our city,” Ms Keneally said.
“Many more significant sustainability gains can be achieved if you work across suburbs rather than house by house or building by building, particularly when major infrastructure is involved.
“That’s why today the NSW Government is launching the pioneering PRECINX program.
“PRECINX uses real performance data to predict the sustainability of new developments, bringing ways to achieve sustainable but also affordable housing to the forefront of neighbourhood planning.”
Landcom’s Director of Sustainability, Stephen Driscoll, said PRECINX was developed to help Landcom with its business and to promote environmentally sustainable outcomes in the development industry.
“PRECINX is a mathematical diagnostic tool that assesses environmental, economic and social performance of large-scale projects,” Mr Driscoll said.
“It looks across suburbs at six inter-related input modules - onsite energy, embodied CO2, potable water, stormwater, housing diversity and transport - that feed into four key performance indicators:
- Greenhouse gases (tonnes CO2/year)
- Potable water (kL H2O/year)
- Total affordability ($/week)
- Vehicle hours travelled (hours/week)”
Ms Keneally said PRECINX is the next practical, measurable, move toward tackling issues such as climate change and water in the context of everyday household budgets.
“This program will inform developers on the most sustainable way a housing estate can be built in a specific location, factoring in the local geography and climate,” Ms Keneally said.
“Landcom will be piloting the program at all new developments, with a longer-term view to making the software more widely available with private sector developers and public agencies.”
“This follows on with the good work that the Government has already done on the BASIX program, which makes individual new houses more sustainable.
“Since BASIX was applied State-wide in 2005, more than 42,000 new BASIX houses have been approved, leading to a dramatic decrease in energy and water usage.
“The BASIX initiative for new houses has helped cut 173,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases over three years, and has saved 5.7 billion litres of water, the equivalent of 2,275 Olympic swimming pools.
“PRECINX, the next step, has potential to increase these sustainability achievements exponentially, and the Government looks forward to seeing the results of Landcom’s pilot program.”
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