A new housing development will have residents eating the suburbs.

OUR public spaces need not only be ornamental, according to Andrew Partos from state property developer VicUrban. “Streets can be productive as well as aesthetic, and fruit trees are often very beautiful to grow,” he says

In its Meridian housing development in Dandenong, VicUrban is putting nutrition into the nature strip. The streets will be lined with a mix of about 20 kinds of productive trees, including apricots, apples, pears, figs, mulberries, lemons, olives and hazelnuts.

“There are also urban orchards in the public open space, and an area set aside for community gardens,” Mr Partos says. The first two stages of the development have sold out and the third is scheduled for release later this year.

A residents’ association will manage and harvest the trees, together with interested local groups and schools, if necessary. The approach was modelled on similar schemes in Europe and North America.

Here, many councils have long been opposed to public fruit trees, for fear of maintenance bills or litigation should something go wrong. “Those arguments can be addressed,” Mr Partos says. “Some areas of California have had productive landscapes in their streets for a long time, with community organisations set up to manage and run them.”

As well as the edible trees, Meridian includes liveable street design, where slow moving cars must share the paths with pedestrians. The stormwater runoff flows into green landscaped edges, where it waters the plants directly.

Unfortunately, there’ll be a delay before the trees bear fruit, because the first planting was damaged during the construction process.

It will be worth the wait. “Productive landscapes deal with a number of sustainability issues. If you can provide locally sourced fruit you remove a lot of the oil used in fertilising, harvesting, transporting and purchasing it,” Mr Partos says. “But we’ve found that the even greater benefit of all this is the creation of strong neighbourhoods and communities.”

Kirsten Larsen, from the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab at the University of Melbourne, says it’s crucial we understand that food is a major part of our household footprint.

“When we talk about reducing environmental impact, we often don’t include food. But it is our biggest source of water use, half our waste to landfill, and nearly 30 per cent of our household greenhouse gas emissions.”

She says the planning model for urban areas must change. “We suck resources into our cities, use some of them and waste a whole lot. We need to think about our cities as productive, as well as consumptive spaces. We have the resources here that we need: water, nutrients, space and sunlight.

“Growing some of our food helps close energy, water and nutrient cycles. It cuts the need for transport, encourages healthy eating, and can create green spaces, cooler urban areas and jobs.”

The Eco-Innovation Lab developed an online ‘food map’ detailing locations of food production across the city. Ms Larsen says interest in city food growing has been “exploding”, with guerrilla gardeners, backyard produce swaps, and people grafting fruiting varieties onto existing ornamental trees.

In that spirit, Yarra Urban Harvest is about to plant a community orchard on private land in Collingwood. The group also encourages people to plant productive trees on nature strips and traffic islands – especially in Yarra, where the council hasn’t been removing public gardens set up by residents.

There’s a big upside to removing halogen downlights.

THE federal government has banned the sale of most incandescent light globes, but one kind is still available: halogen downlights. Unfortunately, they’re still marching two-by-two throughout the nation’s homes.

“As light sources, halogens make really good heaters,” says Lance Turner, from sustainable technology magazine, ReNew. “Like all incandescent globes, they’re really inefficient. Less than ten per cent of the power they use turns into light. The rest is turned into heat.”

That excess heat poses a significant fire risk when debris or insulation strays too close. It’s one of the problems that caused the demise of the federal government’s insulation rebate.

But while shonky installation jobs have rightly been condemned, the real problem lies with the halogens themselves. Not only do they run hot and gobble too much electricity, but the necessary gaps in insulation also fatten our heating and cooling bills. “They can cost hundreds of dollars a year to run and they don’t even light rooms very well,” Mr Turner says.

When Cameron Munro and his wife Karin moved into their house in Malvern, the ceiling was spotted with 23 halogen downlights; their insulation “looked like a Swiss cheese”.

In the process of retrofitting the home, they removed nearly all of them. In the lounge room they replaced five halogens with a single compact fluoro bulb, slashing the electricity demand from 250 to 15 watts. “We only kept downlights where they were appropriate – for task lighting over the kitchen sink and in the reading area,” Mr Munro says.

In those spots, they switched the halogen bulbs with LEDs. They placed protective covers over the fittings in the ceiling and filled up the insulation cheese holes.

“With the covers we can run the insulation much closer and effectively eliminate the fire risk,” he says. Downlight protectors, such as the Tenmat or Isolite, are available at hardware stores for less than $20.

According to Mr Turner, the best light fittings are those for which you don’t need to punch a big hole in the ceiling. He argues there are many better options, from classic pendant or oyster fittings, to new products such as disc-style puck lights or strips of LED lighting that can be hidden along pelmets.

If you want downlights, there are a few ways to replace halogen bulbs. Low-energy ‘infra-red’ halogens are cheap and easy, but don’t make much difference. “The low-energy halogen replacement for a 50 watt bulb is still 35 watts,” Mr Turner says.

You can also directly exchange them with LED downlight bulbs, but Mr Turner argues that without appropriate fittings, they bulbs are unlikely to last their full lifespan. To replace fittings you’ll need an electrician, but it’s a quick job.

For a recent ReNew case study, Mr Turner opted for Crompton CFL downlight fittings (Edison screw, about $10 each) with LED bulbs purchased online from the US (US$25 to $50).

“Generally the ones available in Australia are more expensive because they’re not sold in large quantities,” he says, noting that it’s important to assess the quality and standards compliance of overseas products. For a local supplier of complete fittings, he suggests Brightgreen.

Although the cost of fittings and LEDs varies widely, the expense is worthwhile. “If you upgrade to an energy efficient fitting the payback period is never longer than about five years.”