Our Building Standards have been developed and implemented by the NEV Community to further our aims to research, design and build a thriving ecovillage which demonstrates our commitment to ecological and social sustainability
The standards seek an outcome based on inclusive decision making, good design, good health and the wellbeing of all community members. They encourage small and inexpensive houses knowingly designed that provide thermal comfort, low water use and low energy consumption. The standards also seek innovation from community members in the design of their homes and the use of recycled and locally sourced materials wherever possible. We are all seeking homes with a significantly reduced impact on the environment when compared to the “average” house currently built in NSW and Australia as a whole.
The Building Standards will be reviewed regularly by a working group of the Building and Infrastructure Team who will report to the Community Association when formed. The working group will focus in their reviews on continuous improvement of the standards with reference to our community aims, affordability and building performance. Please contact the Building Standards Working Group on their Wiki Page if you have any question regarding NEV Building Standards
1. Home Design and Development Controls
The Development Consent for Stage 1 community title subdivision at the Ecovillage references the Hills-Thallis Design Report in its approval. This documents establishes development controls for home designers which have been incorporated into the NEV Building Standards.
In summary the development controls applied to a residential lot limits the gross floor area of a single residential dwelling to 180 m2. The community’s strong preference however is for single dwellings not to exceed a gross floor area of 150 m2.
Lots incorporating secondary buildings such as Granny flats can have a gross floor are not exceeding 240 m2 in total.
Building heights are limited to a preferred height of 8 metres with minor encroachments - arising from the slope of the terrain, minor roof top elements and environmental systems such as solar collectors - permitted. The maximum height of a building including these elements is not to exceed 10 metres.
It is preferable that all homes in the Ecovillage receive direct sun to habitable rooms during daylight hours of the day. It is a design requirement that a minimum of 3-hour sun access is achieved to all major living spaces of a home between sunrise and sunset measured at the winter solstice each year.
2. Building Performance Scorecard
The Building Standards utilises a scorecard whereby community members submitting their design to the Building Review Panel for approval must achieve 70 points from the 105 points available. The achievement of 70 points represents a 70% reduction in energy and water consumption compared to NSW’s average consumption for a dwelling.
The Community encourages all building designers to exceed the minimum target of 70 points on our scorecard and to fully explore all aspects of building performance combined with cost effective design. We will be very interested indeed in hearing about your discoveries and pathways to success in this endeavour.
The scoresheet includes 3 ratings that new homes must achieve. They are:
- At least a 7-stars NatHERS rating for building thermal performance.
- Reduce water consumption through installation of the highest rated WELS tap.
This requirement will be assessed using BASIX which is the Department of Planning and Environment’s building sustainability index tool used by all local Councils when approving housing developments in NSW. Our building standard however will require 40 points to be achieved earlier in the assessment process than is generally required in a BASIX assessment. - Energy generated by a home much exceeds annual average consumption.
Typically, solar photovoltaic panels (PV) will be used by home owners at Narara to generate power. To meet mandatory requirements, we call for PV sets to be sized at 2 kWp for the first bedroom and 1kWp for each additional bedroom.
Compliance with these 3 requirements will yield home designers 37 points on our assessment scorecard.
With 37 points achieved through designing in the mandatory performance items the home designer then needs to achieve a further 33 points to reach the minimum targeted score of 70 points. These additional points can be attained by selecting from the 40 other options available on the score card. These include:
- Reduce embodied energy in house construction - For example a typical 2-bedroom, 140 m2 reverse brick dwelling will yield another 8 points. More bedrooms and smaller homes will give a better score, as will the appropriate selection of construction materials.
- Using sustainable materials such as mud-brick, straw bale and cob etc.
- Avoiding material with high human health impact such as VOC paints and PVC piping.
- Adding more than the mandatory number of solar photovoltaic panels.
- Selection of high star rated appliances (clothes dryers, air conditioners for example) or not having them at all.
- Managed energy consumption to reduce peak loads.
- Waste management during both home construction and after construction.
- Maximising the home’s environment quality by designing in such things as daylight accessibility and cross ventilation.
- Liveability considerations such as permitting disability access in the future
Bonus points have been built into the scorecard to account for the fact that some home owners may have difficulty in reaching 70 points because, for example, the NatHERS star rating system does not recognise innovations such as earth-ship construction, food production, water tanks and composting toilets.
3. The Design Approval Process
4. How to Submit Your Design
5. NEV Recognised Assessors
6. The Building Review Panel
7. Appealing a Design Approval Decision
