Michael Green

Freelance Journalist

  • Home
  • About
  • Features
  • Book
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Sustainable Chippendale

In Greener Homes on April 1, 2012

One suburb’s plan to take over the streets.

THE transformation of Chippendale, in inner city Sydney, began three years ago. “We held a ‘Food for the Future Fair’, invited local farmers and closed off three city blocks,” explains resident and sustainability expert Michael Mobbs.

The council donated 200 fruit trees to be given away, and people were shown how to plant them in front of their homes.

“From then on there was a change in momentum in the suburb. Now it’s understood that this is a place where we grow food and do things differently,” he says.

Mr Mobbs is the author of Sustainable House, a detailed guide to the way his family retrofitted their home, together with the lessons and results garnered over more than a decade.

Now he’s drawn a blueprint for overhauling the entire suburb. The ‘Sustainable Streets and Community Plan’ covers matters as diverse as transport, stormwater harvesting, heat-reflective roads, food growing, and greening buildings and businesses. It’s available to download from the Sustainable Chippendale website.

One of the most innovative proposals is to link rate rebates with householders’ sustainability behaviour. For example, residents who compost (and attend a council-run workshop) would receive a discount on their rates; likewise for businesses that grow vertical gardens, or householders who trap stormwater on their blocks.

“I’m trying to link financial and other rewards to public and private actions in our streets,” he says. Many of these changes would reduce councils’ spending on infrastructure, maintenance and waste collection.

Similarly, Mr Mobbs sees a role for a streamlined or pre-approval process for projects that meet defined eco-criteria. “So many councils say they want to be sustainable, but they don’t give priority to sustainable projects. You just go in the queue with the business-as-usual,” he says.

Last year, the residents submitted their plan to the City of Sydney. They’re still waiting for a decision. Although Mr Mobbs fears it has disappeared into the council’s “black box”, he and his neighbours are forging ahead with several activities, including installing bike parking, converting stormwater drains and running a box scheme for local fruit and vegies.

There are about 50 residents who are actively, but informally, involved: they tend to devise their schemes while they’re at work in the garden. “We’ve found that it’s better to do things, rather than hold meetings. It’s projects that bring change faster than discussions, I think,” he says.

Because the suburb comprises about 4000 workers, as well as 4000 residents, they’re also beginning to work with businesses – starting by training an employee from a local café about how to better recycle waste and grow food.

Mr Mobbs says the plan isn’t just about Chippendale; it’s the kind of transformation required – and replicable – in every city. Already, delegations from two Chinese provinces have visited for a briefing.

“It’s really important that we make our suburbs and our cities sustainable this side of 2020,” he says. “Government is too slow. Communities have to show the way – that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

But so far, the biggest change in Chippendale isn’t in the hard infrastructure. It’s become a place where neighbours introduce themselves in the streets.

“The ultimate goal of sustainability is not a conversation about water efficient taps. It’s really a conversation about how we see the world and relate to it.”

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit

Comments

  1. julie jordan says

    April 4, 2012 at 10:09 am

    Many thanks for this article Michael, it arrived in my In Box at just the right time, as my inner city community is embarking on a visioning’ exercise for the future, so very timely & much food for thought, cheers julie

    Reply
    • michael says

      April 5, 2012 at 6:21 am

      Excellent Julie, let me know how it goes!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Articles

    • ►Features
      • ►Environment
      • ►Architecture and building
      • ►Social justice
      • ►Community development
      • ►The Age
      • ►The Big Issue
      • ►Arts
      • ►Nature Climate Change
      • ►Nature Energy
      • ►Overland Journal
    • ▼Greener Homes
      • Cooking without gas
      • Community wind
      • Fair Food Week
      • Shouting from the rooftops
      • Kulin calendar
      • Food Know How
      • Energy use portals
      • Waves of change
      • Breaking the gridlock
      • The right kind of urban growth
      • Regenerating after the bushfire
      • Local investing
      • Superannuation's carbon footprint
      • The story of change
      • Zero emissions in Yarra
      • Ready for disaster?
      • Better Block
      • Peak demand
      • Corporate greenwash
      • Distributed infrastructure
      • National recycling week
      • Owner-builder
      • Smart Living Ballarat
      • Retrofitting the suburbs
      • Effective speed
      • The New Joneses
      • Mining the nature strip
      • Power information for the people
      • Connecting backyard innovators
      • Electric bikes
      • How green are renovations?
      • Laundering
      • Fix it
      • Dog poo biogas digester
      • Comfort creep
      • The power of social norms
      • Breaking habits
      • Significant behaviour change
      • Carbon tax and voluntary abatement
      • Thermal imaging camera
      • Energy monitors
      • House relocation
      • Simple living
      • One Planet developers
      • Community-funded solar
      • Greening of Gavin
      • Garage sale trail
      • Composting coffee grinds
      • Fridges
      • Fungi
      • Sustainable Chippendale
      • Local harvest
      • Heyfield's flags
      • Seed saving
      • Green Town
      • Cape Paterson ecovillage
      • Car sharing
      • Heritage fruit trees
      • Buy Nothing Christmas
      • Edible weeds
      • State of Australian Cities
      • Mandatory disclosure
      • Backyard ponds
      • Climate change in Victoria
      • Bugs in the garden
      • Household solar energy
      • Backyard aquaponics
      • Over-consumption
      • ClimateWatch
      • Indoor plants
      • Ten per cent challenge
      • Backyard biodiversity
      • Condensation
      • Bottled water
      • Food-sensitive cities
      • Carbon tax and households
      • Repair
      • Lifetime affordable housing
      • Greenhouse calculator
      • Design for long life
      • Pocket neighbourhoods
      • Commuting by bike
      • Light pollution
      • Flying
      • Home occupancy
      • Smart garden watering
      • Solar panel rebate update
      • Home composting
      • The electronics life cycle
      • Cool roofs
      • Walking
      • Sharing websites
      • Reincarnated McMansion
      • Urban harvest food swaps
      • Urban stormwater
      • Recycling in apartments
      • Wicking beds
      • Earthships
      • Onsite wastewater treatment
      • Bottling with Fowlers Vacola
      • Build it back green
      • Beekeeping
      • Wastewater recycling
      • Transition Towns
      • Cross-ventilation
      • No impact November
      • Planning for sustainability
      • Place making
      • Hepburn Wind
      • Concrete and paving
      • The nine-star house
      • Recycled interiors
      • Resilient cities
      • Packaging waste
      • Sustainable House Day 2010
      • Passive house
      • Soil preparation
      • Container housing
      • Urban orchards
      • Replacing halogen downlights
      • Residential stormwater
      • Sustainable housing developments
      • Retrofitting older homes
      • Solar energy bulk purchase schemes
      • Embodied energy and life cycle assessment
      • Community-supported agriculture
      • Green renovation advice
      • Community composting
      • Straw bale construction
      • Small houses
      • Wall and floor insulation
      • Community gardens
      • Sustainable prefab
      • Household energy ratings
      • Compost toilets
      • Rebate update
      • Cohousing
      • Permaculture
      • Thermal mass
      • Reducing building waste
      • Preserving
      • Indoor air quality
      • Low-energy lighting
      • Sustainable Living Festival
      • Cooling your home
      • New parents and babies
      • Water restrictions
      • Green Christmas
      • Smart meters and power-mates
      • Useful home sustainability websites
      • Shading your home
      • Recycling e-waste
      • Skylights
      • Household cleaning
      • No-dig veggie garden
      • Carbon calculators and offsets
      • Drought-proofing your garden
      • Reducing household waste
      • Green roofs
      • Greywater
      • The new solar panel rebate
      • Balcony gardens
      • Solar hot water
      • Earth building
      • Window coverings and retrofitted double-glazing
      • Landlords and renters
      • GreenPower
      • Sustainable timber
      • Green Loans Program
      • Kerbside recycling
      • Heating systems
      • Appliances
      • Draught-proofing
      • Eco paints
      • Keeping chickens
      • Composting
      • Solar photovoltaics
      • Ceiling insulation
      • Glazing
      • Rainwater tanks
    • ►Blog

Recent Articles

  • She Called Me Red
  • how are you today
  • Keeping it real
  • No Exit
  • Faces of the Rohingya
  • Contested territory

Topics

  • Articles (390)
    • Features (151)
      • Environment (81)
      • Architecture and building (39)
      • Social justice (50)
      • Community development (38)
      • The Age (74)
      • The Big Issue (19)
      • Arts (12)
      • Nature Climate Change (1)
      • Nature Energy (1)
      • Overland Journal (1)
    • Greener Homes (180)
    • Blog (60)
Tweets by @michaelbgreen

© Copyright 2017 Michael Green · All Rights Reserved