Sustainable Development, Subdivision, Surveyors & Sun Angles.

Grant Calvin, Collins Walshe & Fitzsimmons, Engineers & Surveyors

The idea of treading lightly on satellite earth in our caretaker role for future generations has been around for much longer. In 1978 Bill Mollison and David Holmgren co-wrote Permaculture 1 and coined the term Permaculture. Often considered a model for sustainable low-energy, high-yielding agriculture, Bill Mollison says that his term permaculture stands for "Permanent Culture."

Permaculture design is easy, says Mollison, you just follow your NOSE.
His acronym stands for:-
Needs - define the needs of the elements in the permaculture system
Observations - collect information, observe interconnections with other elements
Strategies - Work out strategies for minimising inputs and maximising outputs
Execute the Plan - Put in place the above and observe the results - redo the above.

This paper covers a brief "NOSE" analysis for Surveyors in development of subdivisions.

Subdivision & Surveyors
As you know surveyors must be involved in any subdivision of land parcels into two or more lots. Surveyors, through their training, are amongst the best equipped individuals in any community with to carry out land development, spatial concepts, mapping and reporting. We surveyors lay out the base living spaces for human habitation, the lots roads and byways. When we surveyors lay out a subdivision of land we create the building envelope for the end user, the household. Today it's not uncommon for us to use plans that define land tenure over 100 years old. Barring catastrophe future generations of surveyors will be using plans drawn today, based on decisions we make, for centuries to come.

Sun Angles
Most surveyors will recall doing sun shots. These days however, you'd be hard pressed to find a theodolite that won't be irreparably damaged if you point it at the sun.

The Australian Government, through its Department of Housing and Constructions, and Experimental Building Station printed the definitive sun-angles document in 1948 in Sunshine and Shade in Australasia (now EBS Bulletin 8). This was followed up with Designing Houses for the Australian Climate (EBS Bulletin 6), first printed in 1952. The implications of these 50-year-old-documents are now finally being written into government policies and Development Control Plans with a vision to create residential sectors which are energy efficient.

This paper sets out to provide some of the policy whys and wherefores and provide surveyors with a better understanding of the background information involved.

The NEEDS Analysis
The standard requirements of services in subdivisions are not viewed in this paper. Sufficient to say that the expectation of authorities is that roads, drainage, sewer, electricity and telecommunications are to be provided to all urban lots. There maybe some potential for improvement in drainage in developments through maintaining more moisture in the soil. However, this is usually at logger heads with the road pavement design and maintenance.

Simply put human habitation requires food, water and shelter.

The food and water supply are beyond the scope of this paper. Other esoteric variables such as designing for the spiritual well being are also not considered.

For shelter to be effective the inhabitants need to feel comfortable. Human comfort depends on several variables including air temperature, humidity and air movement.

Comfort Zone
The easiest way to describe the comfort zone is by temperature.
Some proponents maintain the comfort zone is between 15ºC and 25ºC.
Designing Houses in 1952 described the comfort zone as between the 20ºC and 25ºC.
Later studies in Energy Efficient Australian Housing 1992 described the comfort zone as between 18ºC and 28ºC with relative humidity between 30% and 70%.

The other variables include:-
· Air Movement 0 to 1.5 m/s
· Radiant Temperature within 3ºC of air temp.
· Max Temp. Variation 1.5ºC per hour
· Clothing Light.

These climate variables and temperatures may also be high or low depending on personal ancestry. If you're a descendant of an Inuit Eskimo or an Ethiopian then these comfort zones may be high of low.

So, in order to satisfy the need for shelter in the home we should try and maintain the interior within the comfort zone. Essentially in NSW this comes down to the inhabitants being:-

WARM in WINTER and COOL in SUMMER.

One seldom thought-about aspect of human habitation is our requirement for light. A well designed "passive solar house" will usually address the light factor through window placement.

THE OBSERVATIONS
Temperature
The average temperature for a region is quite easily ascertained. The CMA prints the average temperature chart on all its 1:25,000 map sheets. The chart below is off the Cundletown Map (near Taree) The same panel provides the magnetic and grid variations from True North.

COOLING is required for up 3 to 5 month of the year depending on the Comfort zone you work from.

And

HEATING is required for around 7 months, between April and October

Heating is by far the greatest energy use in domestic households.

Table of Domestic Energy Use
Heating 41.5%
Water Heating 26.6%
Cooking 9.8%
Appliances 8.8%
Refrigeration 8.7%
Lighting 3.4%
Cooking 1.2%
TOTAL 100.00%

So, you can easily see, that if we can lower our requirement for heating by utilising the sun's energy in our homes then the input of energy can be dramatically reduced.

The fuel used for heating our homes is derived from fossil fuels. These fuels are ultimately finite and conservation of the available fuels is extremely important for future generations.

Sun Charts reduce the suns declination to simple Azimuth (bearing) angle and Altitude angle as shown in the diagram on the right.

The Sun Chart below is from Sunshine and Shade in Australasia for 32.5º South.

Some people, unfamiliar with working with bearings, found this style difficult to understand.

The diagrams have been modified and updated and now come in a variety of shapes.

Both the charts on this page are for Perth at 32º South.

(Cundletown is also at 32º South.)

The Bearings across the bottom have been altered for the architects.

As you can see the latitude for Perth has been fine tuned and the time lines corrected for variation from the standard time longitude.

Surprisingly though, the charts provide very similar answers.

Ie. Maximum Altitude Angle
Summer Solstice 82º
Equinox 57º and
Winter Solstice 33º.

Around Taree we've satisfactorily used the equinox sun angle of 57º to define eave lengths on northern walls. Sun penetration through the northern wall windows starts just after March 21 increases till the winter solstice and then reduces till exclusion after the spring equinox in September.

Solar Radiation and Wall / Window Direction
The Chart below is from EBS6- Designing Houses for the Australian Climate. The graph depicts the Solar Radiation on a 2m2 window at 30º South latitude.

The Northern wall window receives large amounts of energy during the winter months and none during the summer months.

The Southern wall window receives no solar radiation during winter and only a small amount during summer.

A house set skew to the cardinal direction will receive 70.71% of the combination of both charts. In summer, this means that the two eastern walls are heated up in the morning and the two western walls in the afternoon.

Pegouts and Idents

Bread and butter jobs for the private practice surveyor include pegouts and idents.
From doing this sort of work over for over 20 years the following generalisations occur in the housing sector.

· Most houses are built with the long side across the block.

· The front wall is generally on the front "building line".

· When the lot isn't square the building is usually aligned parallel to a side boundary rather than the road boundary.

· The largest area of glass will usually face the street.

· The building will often be built to the minimum side boundary offset for either the main wall or the eave & gutter depending on the width of the eave.

In a standard urban area on a road running north/south each house shades and prevents solar access to their southern neighbour especially in winter when the warming sun is most needed. In summer both the long sides (front and back) of the houses receive the full blast of the summer sun when the extra energy input is not wanted.

The traditions of facing the road with maximum glass and building to the building lines are extremely hard to break. The time where you showed off your wealth by displaying the glazing of your house to the road should have passed long ago but it seems that old habits die hard.

Tradition and a "view" are probably the greatest things to overcome in promotion of Energy Efficient Housing to the public.

EBS6 is now 50 years old. Of the houses pegged out by Collins Walshe and Fitzsimmons in Taree only 10% to 20% would incorporate information and design promoted by the Bulletin. This is downright disappointing in our "Clever Country".

More Information
There is some further study required that is explained in the Strategies Section.

STRATEGIES

Education
The first and foremost strategy should be for education:
· Education of the public to demand of their building designers designs that actually are energy efficient homes.
· Education of the Survey profession so that we incorporate and embody the orientation principles into our developments. This will assist the building designers above.
· Education of home buyers to be discerning about orientation and layout of their purchase.

Only when well-oriented lots and energy efficient houses receive a price premium in the housing market will the production and profusion of ESD developments in the residential sector really begin in earnest.

It's interesting to note that most people will:-
- Ask about the fuel efficiency of a $20,000 motor car that they might drive maybe 2 hours a day. but
- Don't ask the same question about a $200,000 house that they live in for 12 to 15 hours a day for 10 to 20 years.

Education needs to break TRADITION.
· It's not absolutely necessary to face the road. Our experience has been that the wives and mothers take the most convincing on this point.
· The additional driveway costs will be paid back many times over when you move the house toward the rear of a block to get solar access from behind your neighbours house.
· It's OK to:-
- build a house along the block instead of across it. or
- to make your "back yard" to the side or front instead of at the back of the house.
- Use landscaping to create privacy from the street for a yard area.
And
· On a south facing block its actually a good idea to put the daytime living rooms and large windows in the back / northern sections of the house instead of at the front facing the street.

Government Policy
At the APAS Conference in Salamander Bay, Tony Proust told us how Lake Macquarie Council was introducing their Energy Efficient & Sustainable Housing Development Control Plan. Many Councils have now taken on board the same or similar DCP assisted by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA).

These policies are now promoting the principles of energy efficient housing and sustainable design. Education, however must be maintained and not neglected over time to promote and keep people informed about the original aims, objectives and reasoning behind the policy.

Be aware though that when a Policy, as a guide, becomes the Control sometimes the outcome is not what was originally intended.

For example:-

· The DCP specifies a minimum 3.5 Stars under the National House Energy Rating System (NATHERS) for all new dwellings and additions.

Our experience has seen new houses being designed and oriented as usual. The plan is drawn and submitted, too late, to a NATHERS assessor. The NATHERS assessor then adds roof, wall, under floor insulation and in one case in Taree double-glazing to bring the house design up the requisite 3.5 star NATHERS rating.

What appears to be happening is that most people end up building expensive, well-insulated, energy inefficient homes.

· The DCP advocates that on north/south streets lots be elongated to alleviate overshadowing and provide a building enveloped facing north.

You end up with a wide shallow lot facing east/west. Generally the "face the street tradition" takes over and the new home is built across the block with large windows facing the street ie east or west. When the insulation is added to fix it, as above, the home becomes a solar oven.

· The maximised east/west streets don't always automatically produce good solar alignment when buildings like Duplex of Triplex units are constructed.

On a north facing block (ie east/west street alignment) a duplex or triplex development will often see a configuration where the units are placed one behind the other. The important northern wall often becomes a party wall between the units and only one unit receives the advantage of all day winter sun. All units however get the unwanted energy input from the summer sun.

Like many of the best laid plans The result is not necessarily what the policy sets out to do.

More Information
Solar design theories for buildings have been known for a long time. These theories have been structured into policies and now Development Control Plans. The road alignment / energy efficiency theory however does not appear to have been tested and proved.

Some historic energy usage figure needs to be collected, collated and analysed.

This is a study that I've promoted (more than once) with our local Electricity provider but have not been able to obtain the data for privacy reasons. (Perhaps one of the surveyors from an electricity authority may be able to pick this analysis up and do a paper on it at some time in the future.)
The aim is to collect and analyse the historical energy use age from a series of developed lots on different street alignments over a number of years.

1. Using say three different areas with different socio-economic structure. ie Low, Middle and High income areas. These areas will have different energy usage rates. The high income area is most likely to have a reverse cycle air conditioner, the middle income area a fuel heater and the low income area electric radiators used for space heating.

2. In each area select 10 or 20 lot blocks on each of the three street alignments.
ie Say 10 lots on North/south streets, 10 lots on east/west streets, and 10 lots on skewed (ne/sw nw/se) streets. Collect the energy usage (in KWhr) over a three year period.

As noted, above, the argument used for not suppling this data has been the privacy regulations of the electricity suppliers. In this analysis however you don't need to know individually which lot produces any particular energy usage only that the usage data comes from within a particular group of 10 or 20 lots. I've argued that by virtue of the data being in a 10 to 20 lot group the privacy stipulation of the data shouldn't be breached this has been to no avail.

3. Do some statistical analysis on the data.
ie smooth out sections where occupants may have been vacant (that's why you need three years of data) and edit data outside the standard deviation (where they eat baked dinners 7 times a week)

4. Report the findings of the different energy usages from the three different street alignments and three different socio-economic areas.

This could be an interesting exercise using a spread sheet programme to graph and manipulate the data. I envisioned graphing the individual lot energy data analysing the data and creating a single graph of the mean energy usage of the group of 10 or 20 lots. Comparing then the mean graphs from the three different road alignments and different socio-economic areas and theorising how and why differences may occur.

A statistical study of this nature would test the general theories promoted. The historical data could put some real dollar figures to the energy efficiencies of the road / lot alignment theory.

If the historical data supports the passive solar design theory, a study of this nature may even influence discerning buyers and affect prices in the property market, creating a price premium that will directly affect future design and development.

Lot Layout for Energy Efficiency

· On a single house lot the east-west road alignment promotes the best alignment for houses and lots. North facing sides (front and back) maintain solar access in winter. The east and west walls are shadowed by the neighbours.

· In any development layout maximising the east west roads and minimising the north south roads can usually be done.

· A duplex/triplex where the units are located one behind the other has the best solar access on a north-south road alignment. Creating lots large enough for this style of development on north-south roads and promoting their development on them can be done.

· When traditional houses are built on a north-south road alignment. The winter solar access is extremely limited by the neighbours shading and the summer sun is unavoidably delivered into the dwellings. An idea for new subdivisions would be to institute a staggered road building setback. Say alternating 5m and 15m so that alternating houses are built to the front and rear of the lots. A variable street alignment such as this would eliminate the loss of winter sun access.

· Where a road is not on a cardinal, ie skewed, the side boundaries may be aligned north south. ie rhomboid shaped. The houses generally get built parallel to the side boundaries and thus can easily be oriented to the north. NB: You also get under-utilised triangle shaped areas in the front and rear corners of the lots and build slightly more road for each lot frontage.

Demonstrate how to do it.

Many Councils have now produced their own energy efficient demonstration homes. These homes are open to the public. They show how the design concepts work and can be an inspiration for new house construction.

This is important because the most of houses we build today will still be sheltering people in 2050 whether they are energy efficient or not!

In Taree we have the Non Conventional Homes Tour every June long week-end. It's a fund-raiser for a local school that nets $10,000 a year. This sort of event showing different budgets and styles of homes brings people from all over NSWE interested in the concepts and materials behind the homes.

EXECUTION OF THE PLAN
Fortunately, in NSW & Australia, many aspects of a plan for developing an energy efficient housing sector have already been implemented. The source information dates back over half a century.

So Far :-
· The definitive publication Sunshine and Shade in Australasia has been in print since 1948.

· Passive solar house design has been explored and incorporated in government publications.
Designing Houses for Australian Climates (1952)
Energy Efficient Australian Housing Edition 2 (1992)

· The simplicity of the passive solar design principles have been picked up and incorporated into a plethora of other publications.
- On the internet a search for "passive solar design" brings up thousands of matches from all over the world.
- Books such as Australian Solar Homes (Cole & Parnell) and The Healthy House are among the many you will find in any bookshop.
- Magazines such as House and Garden, Earth Garden and Owner Builder rarely miss an issue without something about "passive solar design".

· SEDA - have already constructed their Energy Smart Homes Policy.
- This policy has now been incorporated into DCP's of many local Councils in the Local Government Areas of NSW.

· With this paper and that of Tony Proust in 2000 at Salamander Bay the education of some of the Survey Profession into the intricacies of passive solar design and its implications on subdivision design and layout has been initiated.

So What's next
· I'd like to see surveyors take on the principles of solar design and make orientation one of the most important aspects of all subdivision layouts. Innovate & implement some Restrictions as To Users that assist in solar access for all lots.

· Market the development by promoting the passive solar design aspects of the development. As part of the marketing, possibly assist future builders by supplying sun angle charts and climate assessments for the locality.

· Hopefully we'll see a future paper presented that does the further study and can put some real numbers to the energy usage from a variety of road alignments and lot orientations.

· Go on a tour. Come to the Manning Valley in June, see how the passive solar principles can be incorporated into houses and feel the difference.

· Work with your local Council to create a Demonstration Home. Get them to put it on the hardest block, not the easiest and assist in its ongoing promotion.

The HIA's Model DCP Project - streamlining planning & subdivision controls

Wayne Gersbach, Executive Director - Planning & Environment, Housing Industry Association

ADRIAN BARDEN

Our next speaker is Wayne Gersbach, he joined the Housing Industry Association as a NSW Assistant Director of Planning and Environment in January 2000. In that role Wayne assumed primary responsibility for the development of policy on a range of planning and environmental issues and has played an important role in representing the industry on issues of land supply and Council consistency in planning controls. Wayne also oversaw the construction of Sydney’s first Green Smart Village at Homeworld in Kellyville. Wayne has recently been appointed to the position of Executive Director Planning & Environment with HIA where he assumes responsibility for assisting with the Association's lobbying efforts to bring about change in planning policy at the national level. Prior to joining HIA Wayne worked extensively as a town planner at a local Government level primarily as Development Manager of Blacktown City Council. Wayne has considerable experience as a Statutory Planner and in the development of planning policy. Wayne holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, a Graduate Diploma in Urban & Regional Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Environmental Management. Please welcome Wayne as he presents to us on this topic.

APPLAUSE

WAYNE GERSBACH

Thank you Adrian and good afternoon all. I hope it’s been a good day. My topic, I think it’s on your papers as the Model DCP, but I thought I would introduce the Model DCP by initially talking about Better Living Environments. Better Living Environments is HIA's blueprint for planning reform. It’s essentially become the working menu I suppose for each of our States, for each of the regions across Australia. Better Living Environments if you want to go and find some more information following today's talk can be located or at least its major recommendations are located on www.buildingonline.com which is the HIA's website or www.greensmart.com.au which is another subset of the HIA website so just to follow up if you need to find some further information.

What is Better Living Environments as I said it’s a blueprint for planning reform. Why focus on planning reform? I haven’t sorry I wasn’t around for this mornings lectures, but I understand that there was certainly a fairly large planning focus on some of those deliveries.

Essentially its arisen out of what our members want however and they're expressing a fair degree of frustration with the rigidity and complexity of some of our development systems that we work with, increased uncertainty, you never know what the outcome is going to be its always a bit of a gamble, higher costs associated with getting your developments through Councils, and comply with various State agency policies etc and I suppose also perhaps more worrying is the dissatisfaction with the actual outcomes, the build urban environments both from a community point of view and from an industry point of view. We do see projects; we see land subdivisions; we see housing developments that we think and that we know could have been done a wee bit better.

The purpose of BLE by the way, sorry the methodology of Better Living Environments which is this document, it actually takes you through a couple of case studies, from a regional context so it has a look at what's happening in WA or Tasmania or in Victoria, picks out some good examples and essentially asks the questions well if it can happen there in a fairly unique environment why can't that environment be harmonised across Australian boundaries and across Council boundaries.

Its objectives to deliver more responsive and cost effective planning systems, to lift the profile of the problems so that we can actually do something about it, so it doesn't hide from identifying issues where we have failed in the past provided that they can provide the building blocks for doing it better next time around, and it does so by identifying best practice. As I said by going to the States and saying how does it operate there, what are the good components of a system in say Tasmania or Queensland and how can we bring them across to other States. It poses the simple notion that for the benefit of the community generally all stake holders have a responsibility to manage planning that will deliver predictable, affordable and flexible solutions that enhance the quality of our residential and working environments. A fairly simplistic objective but I'm pretty sure that we all here would agree with that.

It uses 3 levers to deliver these. It focusses on predictability, affordability, and flexibility.

Predictability, we've heard this before, I'm sure that you'll walk out of this room and the next project you'll deal with will be dealt with slightly differently in the next Council that you have to go to, consistency within and across States is certainly a big item on Better Living Environments agenda.

Reduced complexity and subjectivity, comprehensive regional local area plans, clear distinction between building and planning matters we hard the previous speaking talking about the advent of the Building Code of Australia in relation to energy, its quite fitting actually that that speech was given on the day that our industry submissions closed on the new provisions on the Building Code of Australia dealing with energy.

Essentially there what we're saying is that if it is a building matter, the Building Code of Australia is the appropriate place for it to be controlled and of course once it is introduced into the BCA it should be a mandatory provision across all local Government areas so that local Councils can't actually up the ante on some of the provisions. The Building Code of Australia of course is about finding cost effective controls which eliminate worst practice in the industry, the market certainly looks after it and looks after well, best practice.

Predictability, key recommendations the BCA to be given legislative pre-eminence. In Tasmania that is a fact. It is written in the legislation that Councils and State governments can't come in and override the provisions of the BCA. Development of model planning legislation based on best practice from different States, standard zones definitions, certainly a large component of the work of the Development Assessment Forum otherwise known as DAF some of you may be aware of its work but it is looking essentially at harmonising some of those planning systems across Australia. Unfortunately it’s a little bit slow but there are a couple of DAF projects under way at the present which should speed up some of the reforms its talking about.

Affordability, again a huge problem in Sydney. Its becoming a bigger problem in other markets as well. Some of the measures or some of the issues that Better Living Environment explores transparency of fees and charges including infrastructure charges, cost of government regulation, competition into development assessment process ie the advent of private certification, update of e-commerce by local government, role of government in land development and supply and incentives for affordable housing projects as opposed to taxes on the industry for providing housing. These issues are dealt with in a variety of manners across the States.

Some of the key recommendations. Infrastructure external to new residential developments funded out of the communities taxation base, certainly a hot topic in Sydney at the moment, I don't know whether the Minister mentioned this morning but certainly in looking at the new release areas of Sydney the government is contemplating the imposition of a transport levy on new housing, up to its been said round about $30,000 contribution per lot. Greater transparency and accountability for the levying of fees and charges on new development, there seems to be a lot of I suppose inconsistency across Council in the way they have applied their fees since the Part 4 reforms here under the EP&A Act. Promote the operation of private certification across the full range of development so that’s exploring the possibilities for a planning certification in various aspects, it doesn't necessarily mean planners coming along or outside planners coming along and making decisions for Council it does mean however planners being able to assist Councils as that development process from go to whoa throughout that process and planning and environmental reform to be covered by Affordability Impact Statements. The industry has certainly argued very hard over the last 18 months or so against the imposition of affordability levels on new housing with some success, they have been deferred but whether we can win that battle in the long run remains to be seen.

Flexibility, inflexible regulatory conditions, housing choice and innovation they're the issues that we tackle. One of the key recommendations the adopters of performance based planning systems to focus on outcomes rather than meeting fixed rules or regulations. Again a process very similar to that adopted by the BCA where deemed to satisfy provisions are listed that immediately tick off your compliance with some of the performance statements within that document.

The recommendations set the challenge for Federal, State and local Government, planning professionals and the housing industry by planning professionals I should really expand that to say all professionals working in the property industry to deliver more cost effective and responsive planning systems. I think importantly there we're saying that the housing industry is prepared to work with professionals and levels of government to achieve these outcomes.

The successful implementation of BLE or ‘BLE’ as we call it in-house, increased certainty for business and the community about how developments will be assessed, fewer delays, greater housing choice, more affordable housing, economic growth, livable and sustainable communities.

Pretty hard to see this one but its actually just a page from the Better Living Environment's document as I said the blue highlight there is the case studies so the pages are littered with various case studies from around the States. This one talks about the Tasmanian legislation where the BCA has pre-eminence. It talks about the introduction of the Integrated Planning Act in Queensland where 5,000 pages of policy were able to be reduced to 500 pages probably got some way to go I think on that one. It talks about regional planning and has a case study there the SEQ 2021 where some good regional planning has been able to take some of the more difficult issues to deal with at a local level to a regional level in order that they can be addressed including regional growth management and population management and it talks about well some of the diagrams there are some examples of the master planning which is done in NSW or States which I'm sure you’d be familiar with.

The model DCP project the topic of my talk, what is it. It’s essentially again arisen from concerns raised by our members about inconsistency across Councils. Its very difficult for a Housing Industry Association as I imagine it would be for the Surveyors Institute to actually go from Council to Council to try to get changed brought about in house to their particular controls so we decided to take the rather ambitious step of actually producing our own DCP that we could then take to the Councils on a regional basis and say hey look something has already been done for you can you give this consideration and how does it match up to your existing controls.

Those controls have arisen through a variety of concerns and we all share those concerns. There is certainly an increase in dwelling size over recent years and I don’t have the statistics here but it’s a fact, dwellings are getting bigger, even though our household occupancy rates are actually getting smaller. So it’s obviously reflective of our living standards, we tend to like bigger homes, or at least can afford to pay for bigger homes.

Despite that the lot sizes are getting smaller and I suppose more worrying for the Councils is that despite the trend for smaller lots there is still the trend in demand for bigger homes. The streetscape of new subdivisions, I'm sure you’ve all walked around new estates and said ‘we can do this better’ it doesn't really ring for me it’s a place perhaps where I've worked in, it may not be a place that you actually particularly desire to live in and that’s a bit of a worry I think you should be producing urban outcomes that you yourself would be prepared to live in.

Garage dominance and facade treatments, a big problem with new housing today and something that the industry has to address, it’s coming up and emerging in all the Council DCP’s. Privacy and overshadowing effects, not surprising I suppose given the increase in dwelling size trend on the smaller lots and of course sustainability is increasingly being introduced into Council DCP’s and State Government policies.

It’s not about complying development by the way. Complying development is that development which is generally regarded as routine development for which you can get a combined development consent and construction certificate so in other words it’s a one step process, at least here in NSW it is, there's not a lot of development that actually qualifies as complying development however a recent survey in western Sydney found that around about 10% of development was classified as complying but only about 1.5-2% of that was actually for detached housing, so there is not a great deal of housing out there, even though housing is probably the most routine or detached housing at least, the most routine form of development in some of our new estate areas.

But we're not pushing complying development under the model DCP we're saying that Councils retain the consent authority, we would like to work with those Councils to sort of smooth out some of the controls and generate consistency across the borders. It’s about industry working with the local government as consent authority.

The model DCP approach, what are we going to do? Initially we've looked at existing council controls and best practices administration so we've had a look at what happens in Resco in WA and their livable environments or livable neighbourhoods policies, we've had a look at Amcord, we've revisited some of the Council policies and we've sat down with a couple of Councils at this stage who actually go through their controls and we're lucky enough in a way that Wyong DCP 100 and Baulkham Hills DCP 200 were actually being reviewed at the time we commenced this project. DCP 100 in Wyong is about to go on public exhibition DCP 200 in Baulkham Hills is in the final sort of stages of preparation before it gets re-exhibited.

So we've looked and basically tabulated the existing Council controls and that certainly shows the discrepancy across Councils in their administration. Surprisingly even things like driveway gradients etc even though there is an Australian standard for driveway gradients, many Councils actually have a different code requirement for that.

We discussed the benefits of standardised controls, it has a lot to do with the project home industry although the DCP is not necessarily about project homes but one of the ways that the project home industry operates of course is that it can engender economies of scale by producing things en masse and that goes with design of homes etc but it all goes to the affordability of the product. Whilst there may be some project home designs out there we all don’t like, ultimately it’s a matter of individual choice and ultimately they do provide perhaps in Sydney’s case the only affordable housing choice that there is today.

We suggest controls, we list objectives and the means of addressing those objectives, including commentary on good subdivision practices, we will prepare a green paper for circulation and comment to the Council so we're actually taking on to a degree the role of government in preparing these draft guidelines we will be circulating those to Councils probably in about two weeks time we'll have a document ready to circulate. We will seek their comment and their input and obviously at the end of that process we will be workshopping with Councils and industry to go through those controls.

Feedback from sign off. Obviously we need that. I said before it doesn't only address project homes but it’s about all housing and about all locations. It has a metro fringe, I suppose, an opportunity to be delivered in those outer Sydney Council areas basically straight away but it is also very relevant in other Council areas where new housing is relatively common.

What it will address. It certainly focuses on these 3 things, livable accommodation, so from the point of view of the occupant we want to make sure that new homes are comfortable. Integation of housing into the public domain so from a community perspective, we want to make sure that our new estates look and function well and relationship of new housing with adjoining properties and obviously solar access and privacy is some of the key provisions that will determine that outcome.

Its contents include subdivision principles, we've done this on purpose, we want to make sure that good subdivision practice is highlighted, we want to make sure that it actually becomes part of the DCP we're not writing a subdivision code so to speak, but we do talk about the elements of good subdivision practice and its layout essentially you are delivering the building blocks for these homes to be placed on.

The industry would also argue that over recent times it has been perhaps an unfair focus on the look of homes as opposed to the context in which those homes are placed and their meaning in terms of a suburban or an urban context so we're very keen to get that up front part of the process sorted out.

It does look at housing design controls. This used to be small and not so small lots but they're becoming smaller and smaller lots unfortunately. The focus of the DCP would be initially on lots of greater than 400 square metres, but there will be an integrated housing component for lots of less than 400 square metres. We're actually hoping there to piggyback Baulkham Hills new integrated housing DCP which again shows that we are prepared to work with Council. We think that they've come up with a pretty good model as I say I'm waiting on that to be exhibited so I'm hoping that it comes out the way that it was discussed around the table when we met with them.

It will include standard conditions. Hooray, there are many Councils out there that have different interpretations and different wording to conditions and we think it would be a pretty common sense approach to actually have some standard wording for those conditions and it will make reference to Greensmart guidelines on your table I don't know whether they've got around to all the tables but there is a Greensmart flyer, its the environment initiative of the Housing Industry Association and it takes up from the voluntary industry perspective about how the industry can respond to this increasing environmental demand. The Greensmart guidelines that’s the flyer again you can go to www.greensmart.com.au if they didn’t get around to all the tables here and the guidelines we have prepared in the industry include waste management, a guide for residential building, insulation management, energy management and stormwater management so these will actually form part of the initial DCP circulated for Council comment and we're looking for ideas of how we can incorporate those provisions into the written document.

I'll quickly go through subdivision principles. I know that Evan Jones spoke to you this morning from Planning NSW and Evan is quite an avid believer in getting the subdivision right in the overall development process and he comes with good experience from WA where they're liveable neighbourhoods program has been delivered with outstanding success. Some of the principles and again the previous speaker spoke on some of these elements, lot housing and open space mix, not just about doing 3 bedroom 4 bedroom large homes, it is about providing housing choice that leads to the markets needs, high density close to services and parks, there is no need to put your small lots at the back end of the subdivision on the lot you can't configure a shape for a standard detached housing, the small lots really should have the best sites in a new subdivision close to the services and close to parks also there should be many parks scattered throughout rather than the large football field a car drive away from the streets.

The street system that responds to the site obviously topographically in terms of solar access etc and in terms of what are the key issues or key features of that particular area that you are subdividing a layout that allows energy conservation and water quality measures to be included up front in the consideration of the lots that are provided. A layout that encourages walking and inter connection between the services, between bus stops and houses etc and public surveillance of public space so in other words your houses aren’t too far away from the street, there is no reason why they particularly have to be, they also overlook public gardens and open space connections and drainage reserves etc.

Those principles will feature up front in the DCP not as a mandatory provision but as a listing of what we're looking for in new subdivisions.

Housing design principles, no more garage dominance. We have written out garage dominance in a DCP that we're proposing to put to Councils and even though it actually emerges as an issue in Councils, there is not always a control to actually prohibit it so we're saying we can do that we'll have houses at 4.5 metres, and garages at 5.5 metres plus another string of objectives which go to the actual design of the house itself and the front facade, which unfortunately, despite what the last speaker had to say, is still the norm of the way we do put houses on lots.

Corner lot designs, we will prescribe that houses located on corner lots need to have specific design inclusions to make sure they fit that corner lot. Australian standard driveways, really shouldn't be such a huge issue but it will be a huge issue if we can get that across Councils in western Sydney or wherever else the DCP may apply.

Site coverage, we don’t go to floor space ratio or site coverage percentage requirements, we include provisions which go to usable open space and the prinicipal private open space area, which require solar access which generally is attached to the dwelling house and solar access provisions which to a large way determine the layout and the coverage that a dwelling may take on the site.

Equinox measures we propose to do away with the June 21 measure for solar access its not a particular time of year where we all get to go outside and enjoy the solar access in our backyards, we propose a 22 September measure which gives an average and as I say relates to the time of year that you are more likely to use your backyard space and we propose a four star energy rating triple AAA rated tapware and 4 star hot water systems. A little bit dependent on what comes out of the BCA as I said the closing date for submissions on the BCA is today but we're prepared to stick our neck out on a trial basis to get this up front ahead of the BCA provisions coming into play so triple AAA rated tapware, 4 star hot water systems etc and of course there are rebates available through Cedar for the provision of such hot water systems. So it makes economic sense to do so.

Stakeholder advantages to Councils simplify controls, best practice, resources saved. In speaking with Baulkham Hills who are very welcome in their comment that their Director of Planning said there that and his comment was ‘we want to take the aggro out of building houses’ and that just makes perfect sense to us there shouldn't be aggro in building houses we all live in them, we all expect people next door to live in them, we need to create a set of rules where that degree of expectation and that degree of certainty is embedded in those rules.

An advantage to house builders the consistencies, the transparency of process, the interpretation of codes, how many times do builders go along to their clients to say I need to do this because the Council tells me that I must do, of course the client is pretty upset about that. So these rules will be known up front for all players to administer, but of course the most important thing for house builders is a saving in cost.

Home owners: better understanding and cost advantages sorry I think I was confusing home owners with house builders before but the advantages are pretty similar there.

Neighbours: a better appreciation of the rights of neighbours, what can happen next door, certainty of process and a greater acceptance in terms of the designs. There is also some advantages for State government and State agencies, they actually get the opportunity to work with the industry to introduce new provisions to a model DCP rather than introducing guidelines that sometimes Councils may take up or may adopt in a variety of ways.

So model DCP outcomes, a single clear set of criteria for quality affordable and acceptable detached housing across the metropolitan development program Greenfield Council areas and further afield for those Councils that are interested in it. And I've got an audience in front of me so it would be remiss of me not to advise you that there is another conference coming up called Future Cities Backyards and Balconies at which these issues about managing our urban growth will be discussed in fine detail, its on 29 August in Sydney details again can be found at our website, www.buildingonline.com or www.greensmart.com.au. That’s it thank you guys.

APPLAUSE

Urban Salinity in Western Sydney & Regional NSW - the latest development constraint & its potential impact on the announced land releases

Rebecca Nicolson, Project Officer - Salinity, WSROC

Our next speaker is Rebecca Nicholson, Rebecca is the Senior Project Officer for Salinity with the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC). Rebecca has been an Environmental Manager employed in this position for the last 18 months running the Western Sydney Salinity Management Project which involves 13 Councils of the Greater Western Sydney. This project is developing a Code of Practice for salinity management and will conclude at the end of this year.

Rebecca has qualifications in Resource Management, Science & Environmental Law, and has previously worked with both local and State governments on a range of environmental issues.

Please welcome Rebecca.

REBECCA NICHOLSON

Thanks Adrian.

Good afternoon and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to present to you on this topic. You're probably wondering what the relevance is I'm sure. I've been told I've got a very hard topic because you probably don’t really want to hear about it but I hope that I can entertain you at any rate.

To start with, I'm wondering how many of you have heard of salinity as an environmental issue if you could give me a show of hands. Yes everybody has. How many of you are actually aware that it’s an urban development issue. Yes it’s always the case. Its about 15% or so of what the original figure is.

Basically most people when they think of salinity they think of a rural issue, they think of an agricultural problem something that constrains agriculture and can damage agriculatural crops. In actual fact salinity can affect urban areas and that’s what I'm going to go through with you today.

Just up front as well the layout and design of subdivisions and lots is actually quite important for salinity management which is probably where all you guys come in.

This is all these I'm going to show you a series of photos to give you an idea of what urban salinity actually looks like. These photos have all been taken in western Sydney in the area from Hawkesbury in the north to Camden in the south, from about Auburn to the bottom of the Blue Mountains. So these are actual affected sites in the area.

You can see on this photograph there is salt on the wall, the white stuff, but also you can see that the mortar within the bricks has been eaten away quite clearly. This is a close up of another site. This house isn’t particularly old, you can tell by the types of bricks being used. What's happened here is that the salt crystals… what happens with urban salinity is that the salt in the soil is mobilised by water in the soil, that can be from ground water or from another source, the salt and water get into the bricks gets sucked up through the bricks like a wick, and the salt crystals then begin to grow within your concrete or within your bricks and as the salt crystals grow this is basically what they do to those building materials, they expand and force the structure apart and they begin to crumble in the way you can see.

This is another photo, this is on a commercial property in Western Sydney. You can see the way that right along this wall bits of this wall are beginning to get corroded out and this is actually above the damp proof course which suggests perhaps that the damp proof course wasn’t properly installed.

These are some more examples of salt damaged property in western Sydney. You can see here that both the pavers and the bricks are being affected and you can also see some of the long term implications in the lower photograph. Because the mortar has been eroded away the actual tiles and pavings on the window are beginning to fall out and you're beginning to see gaps occur so you can see the damage over not particularly long periods of time can be quite significant.

The kinds of time frames we're talking about…. its not happening overnight. It’s more like 15-20 years is when we see this kind of damage occurring on buildings but it can happen earlier than that. We have had a few houses in around ten years we're seeing salinity damage.

The other thing that’s being affected by salt in urban environment are the roads and pavements. You can see here the salt is in all the cracks, in the road pavement, you can see they've been repairing potholes on this road and its an ongoing problem for sections of road, the base gets eroded away by the salt, and also is affected by the rising ground water and you end up with an unstable road base.

This is an area which shows very clearly what can happen when salinity gets out of control in an environment. What you're seeing here is that the white stuff is all salt, its not snow it is salt and what you're seeing is the effect it has on the concrete in the kerbing, its corroding it away and leaving the conglomerates there and it basically starts to fall apart. You can imagine that the cost to infrastructure to Councils and other organisations to replace this infrastructure can be very high over the term of the life of the project.

This is also what happens in urban areas, we're not just talking about the impact on building and building materials, you’ve got to remember there are parks and reserves so the vegetation effects are also important in urban areas. This is in an easement, we've got a salinity scald happening half way up the hill which is important to note in western Sydney people often think salinity only happens at the base of the hill. In western Sydney salinity can happen mid way up a hill or on top of the hill so we're talking about something that affects the whole environment.

This is a playing field in western Sydney you can imagine that if a playing field starts to be affected by salinity, its not much use for playing on.

So that gives you an idea of what the salinity looks like that’s the problem we're talking about. This is to give you an idea of the distribution of the problem in western Sydney. Basically the pale yellow areas have a localised salinity hazard, the orange areas have a more extensive hazard and the red areas are areas where we know we've got salinity problems. You can see the areas affected go across the whole of western Sydney this isn’t something just affecting a single area there is a level of hazard across the whole of western Sydney. Now we're not saying all those areas are affected by salinity, what we're saying is their geology and their landscape type means they have a potential to have salinity as a constraint.

Salinity is caused by a variety of processes. Basically its caused by excess water in soils with a salt source. Where that excess water comes from can be from a variety of sources. In the case of salinity most people think of this ground water rising model coming up from the bottom like filling up a bath this is the model most people would be familiar with in rural areas. But in western Sydney and in a number of other areas, ground water isn’t the only thing causing salinity problems.

In western Sydney we see salinity relating to the movement of the water, the through flow of the water between the different layers of the soil between the various soil profiles, its very much related to the poor soil drainage on the clays we have in western Sydney, there is a very high cyclic salt input in western Sydney. By cyclic salt we mean the salt that comes in on the rainfall. There is about 12-15 kilograms per hectare per year of salt coming in on the rainfall as it is so it adds up and that’s not something we can make go away, we have to learn to live with it.

The other issue is some local soil formations. In a few areas there are heightened salinity hazards because the soil formation in that area has high levels of salinity built into it. So we need to know where those areas are.

This gives you a visual picture of what some of the salinity models are. This is how the salt ends up affecting your structure or your road or building. The most basic one is like rising salt damp which some of you might be familiar with from Adelaide. What happens is that the soil becomes saturated, the salt in the rainfall and salt in the soil becomes mobilised and the bricks suck them up like a wick. As the water evaporates out of the bricks the bricks suck up more water and so the cycle goes on and you end up with quite high salt concentrations in not particularly long periods of time.

The same thing can actually happen when you're dealing with water bodies as well. If you’ve got a permanent water body the water body constantly saturates the soil and you'll often get a salt halo developing around that water body.

This is the other dominant process that’s happening in western Sydney and this is this through flow I was talking about. You're probably aware that in western Sydney the soils are mainly duplex, you tend to get the water flowing between the A and B horizons, as the water flows down the slope of the hill it accumulates in the flatter low lying areas. The salt in the rainfall and the salt in the soil moves with that water and also accumulates in that flatter lower area. That’s why you tend to get salinity problems happening along Creek lines and riparian drainage corridors that sort of thing. The thing to note is if you build a structure half way down a hill as you could imagine, visualise cutting into the hill, not far below the surface but enough to impede the flow down the hill, you'll end up transferring that salinity problem from the base of the hill to the side of your structure. And that’s why we can often have salinity happening half way up slopes in western Sydney. Often it’s related to that impeded through flow. As you can imagine the placement of things like the lots and the roads across the landscape in a new development can be really important in terms of managing how that type of salinity expresses itself on the landscape.

In terms of how to mange urban salinity it’s a little different to what you’d do out in the bush where the management technique tends to be planting new trees and revegetating riparian areas. The key thing in western Sydney is to identify the level of hazard and the kind of processes operating on the individual site you're dealing with. If you know whether your site has a hazard you know whether to worry about it or not and if you do have a hazard and you know what the salinity process is, you can start to design management tools for it. If we're just talking about that single site that gets saturated and the evaporating up the wick, the wicking of the bricks, things like properly installed damp proof courses are probably the easiest solution and good site drainage. If you're talking about that through flow model as I said maintaining the through flow and drainage is important so you need to know what type of salinity you're dealing with.

Reducing water input and maintaining the natural water balance is really important. If you're dealing with the ground water salinity, increasing the input to groundwater will raise that groundwater closer to the surface and you'll get more salinity if you're dealing with through flow or the soil saturation you don’t want more water in the system that drives that process faster.

Maintaining good drainage and minimising infiltration is also important for exactly the same reason. The important thing to know about salinity is that water is what makes salinity happen. Salinity isn’t so much about the salt as it is about the water, water drives the process and if you can manage the water you're going to go a long way towards managing the salinity you can't take the salt out of the environment you can't take the salt out of the rain, but you can manage the water better. By that we mean not only the water we're putting into the site, but we're talking about the drainage and the flows that are happening under the soil surface.

The other thing about managing urban salinity there is a role for vegetation. There is probably not a role to plant deep rooted vegetation to suck up the water or to manage the salt but its very important the evapo-transpiration of the plants to maintain the water balance and particularly things like shrubs and grasslands can be really important in maintaining that water balance on a block or across a new release area. The other thing that’s very important you notice that on the map the riparian corridors the creeks article the areas with the most extensive hazard or the orange areas were along creek lines, maintaining vegetation in creek lines can go a long way towards stabilising those areas and reducing the impact of salinity on the environment.

The other part about managing urban salinity is there is a opportunity to use building controls to protect your development from salinity there is salt resistant bricks there is you can make concrete salt resistant you can use sulphate resistant material if you're dealing with sulphates which in some cases you are. So there are ways you can build houses and roads and structures that will resist the salinity in the landscape and its important to use those when you can.

In terms of salinity management strategies, basically there are a few different types of strategies that we can use. The simplest ones and cheapest ones are the ones that are just part of the existing building process. They're things like having a well installed and well maintained damp proof course, for example we often see damp proof courses that have been breached by the paving or breached because people have planned the landscaping right next to the house and the landscapers have built the soil up above the level of the damp proof course. Its not a great idea in salt affected areas to have the landscaping right next to the structure you're building.

The other thing is that water use on site is important. You want to decrease the amount of extra water your putting into the site and also the use of water wise gardening and landscaping is very important if you can get low water use plants, low water requiring plants, that will improve the salinity management on your site.

The other point is that you need to avoid the water logging and the impeded flow that I was talking about and the placement of the property on that lot can go a long way towards doing that. The amount of cut and fill can be very important for salinity management for two reasons, one is that the cut tends to impede the drainage and you will often get salinity associated with the retaining wall and around the base of the house. The other part of that is that by cutting into the B horizon you're exposing your property to the saline sub-soils and these soils are corrosive to your building materials, so you want to try and design the layout of your property to try and reduce its exposure to the soils that might be corrosive to it.

So that can be quite important also the placement as I say of other things like water features and landscaping and roads around that house can affect how much water builds up on that site.

There are more complicated salinity management strategies and these do cost more money but the simple ones tend to be things you’d be doing anyway they're not adding that much cost to your property the more complicated ones are things like using salt resistant materials - salt resistant bricks and reducing soil exposure by taking the house out of the soil there are a few sites around Sydney where they're looking at using the raised pier raised slab houses to try and reduce the amount of exposure the building material has to the soil. That can get quite expensive.

In Wagga when they did an investigation they were looking at how much cost was added by doing some of these building materials and they're looking at about $2-3,000 per house for the building materials.

Pottable water replacement can be a way of improving salinity one of the key issues is the amount of water going in to the site. The amount of water we add in urban areas is about 2-3 times the natural rainfall so the amount from watering gardens and things like that you’d bump up your water on the site by about 2-3 times the natural rainfall so if you collect some of that rainfall and substitute the pottable water with that rainfall you're going to reduce the amount of extra water you're adding to the site.

The other thing is the special use of key areas, for example I pointed out the riparian corridors tend to be susceptible to salinity there may need to be consideration to reserve those areas for uses that will have minimal salinity impact rather than placing high value assets in those areas.

I just want to go back, in terms of managing salinity in western Sydney we have a few issues when it comes to managing salinity and I'll be up front about those, we're at the beginning of it. The Councils in western Sydney have been working with WSROC as was stated in the introduction there are 13 Councils in western Sydney working together on this project, also involved are State agencies and Wayne is involved from HIA. What we're trying to do is come up with a common approach a cooperative approach to try and address this problem. We want it to be consistent from Council to Council, we don’t want to introduce a whole range of different guidelines that different Councils are doing, we're trying to get it to be consistent, we're also trying to be a little proactive. At this stage the problem isn’t huge, but it is anticipated that it could be quite significant. When you think of the value of the infrastructure and the density of infrastructure in western Sydney we need to make sure we're taking steps to make sure that isn’t a problem in the long run.

In terms of when it comes to managing this, we have some real issues, we have a limited knowledge about salinity there hasn’t been enough research done yet so we can't tell you exactly where salinity will happen and why its happening in western Sydney but there is work happening at the moment to try and explore that further.

There is a real need for national building codes that address salinity. As Wayne pointed out the building codes are a very important way to provide that kind of guidance to the development industry and it is being reviewed at the moment with salinity in mind so hopefully in the future there will be some guidance from that level about salinity management.

Section 149 notifications of salinity hazard aren’t happening at this stage. It may or it may not happen that’s something the Councils are exploring but it’s an issue because if it’s a hazard perhaps it needs to be notified as such.

The other issue is the liability for damages that’s still being explored by State government and hopefully we'll get some clearer directions on what kind of liability is involved and where that liability sits and who needs to take what measures to address that.

Finally the really big key issue for managing salinity in western Sydney is the low level of awareness. Basically as I showed at the beginning no one realises salinity is an urban issue, let alone an issue affecting western Sydney. And that’s one of the key things that the Councils in this project are doing is trying to raise that awareness, particularly amongst the consumers, amongst the people building the houses so that in the future we actually can start to move forward with some of these strategies that we're coming up with. That’s basically it, thank you.

APPLAUSE

ADRIAN BARDEN

Has anybody got any questions for our panel that spring to mind.

Q: Allan Cavanagh

Just a question for Rebecca actually. I think you partially answered this as you went through there but I presume that salts are not only sodium chloride as we understand it but all sorts of other types of salt.

Response: REBECCA

That’s correct, its not just sodium chloride we're talking about. Of particular significance are things like magnesium and sulphates. Sulphates in Western Sydney actually have a high proportion in the types of salt that we find we have sodium chloride as well as sulphates but the thing that’s important about that is you remember the corrosivity guide for soil, sulphates are far more corrosive to building materials than chlorides are so it is really important what types of salts you're dealing with.

Q: Allan Cavanagh

Apart from the effect of the detrimental effect of the salts on building are there any good salts?

Response: REBECCA

I guess it depends what you want to do with those salts. For example in Victoria and in the Murray Darling basis they're looking at extracting the salts and drying them out to both form table salts and also industrial salts so I guess the salts can be useful it just depends on what you're wanting to do with them.

Q: Barry Yardley

Rebecca, the Blue Mountains suffers from the bushfires, we don’t have the floods so we're okay there, what about salinity does the Blue Mountains have problems with that.

Response: REBECCA

One of the things I should have explained about that map was how we came up with it. I hinted at it its to do with hazard from salinity is related to geology. What we find is that the hazards related to the Wiamatta shale group which the Blue Mountains tends to have less of, areas on Hawkesbury sandstone tend to be very well drained and not have the inherent salt material in the rock so therefore you can get less salinity but you need to watch out for areas of shale caps and also for example some of the sandstone groups like Minchinbury sandstone can have salinity so yeah I think maybe the Blue Mountains probably has less to worry about than some of the others.

ADRIAN BARDEN

I think we have time for one more question.

Question

Rebecca I know its fairly common out west to drive bores, is there any plan to use bores in the Sydney basin region as a principle to solve the problem

Response: REBECCA

As I said we don’t know enough yet about what exactly is causing our salinity in western Sydney. For bores to be successful you have to be dealing with the rising ground water salinity like they are in Wagga then you can then pump the ground water out to lower the ground water away from your key infrastructure that you want to protect. So until we actually know exactly which areas are being affected by ground water salinity rising ground water salinity we won't really be in a good position to even judge where we might put bores in. The second thing is if you're going to use bores you need to understand the whole network of the system and whether you're dealing with fractured rocks or aquifers or whatever because some places that have tried the pumping have found that the water doesn't disappear from where they think its going to disappear from when they pump and sometimes they're drawing water from sources they don’t want to be drawing it from so you need a lot more research before you can actually start to put bores in.

ADRIAN BARDEN

Anybody else got any more burning questions. Okay I think we might wrap up. I'd just like to thank each of our panel for their time and efforts this afternoon if you'll join with me in appreciation.

APPLAUSE

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