Leadership Goal
Objective
To deliver healthy and inclusive places founded on equity for people of all ages and abilities.
Target
To enhance Landcom’s international status for delivering world class liveable places founded on equity, affordability and inclusion. Residents report overall 90% satisfaction with quality of life.
Relevant SDGs
Overview
Landcom’s Healthy & Inclusive Places pillar is focused on a leadership goal to ‘enhance Landcom’s international status for delivering world class liveable places, founded on equity, affordability and inclusion by 2036
This leadership goal was developed to reflect our commitment to meaningfully contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals17, and reduce the impact of shocks and stresses to communities and infrastructure, such as social cohesion and affordable housing as identified by Resilient Sydney18 (part of the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Program).
Within this pillar Landcom focuses on how well a place delivers quality of life to its communities and the resilience of those communities. It encompasses economic prosperity and affordability, social stability and equity, accessibility, education, health and wellbeing, and integration of culture and heritage.
Liveable communities are healthy and inclusive. A well-designed community takes into account the needs of people today, and the needs of our future generations. We consider where people will work, learn, spend their leisure time and how they move from place to place. Landcom also believes that the built environment should incorporate green spaces and retain a connection to our natural habitats for the benefit of the environment and our communities.
Landcom addresses liveability through the following focus areas:
- Health, Equity & Inclusion
- Community Connection
- Affordability and Diversity
- Safety & Wellbeing
- Design through Engagement.
Each of these focus areas includes a suite of targets to measure our success.
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17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2018) to see our full alignment to the SDGs see APPENDIX D: Sustainable Development Goals Alignment
18 Resilient Sydney (2018)
Case Study
Expanded Live Life Get Active partnership
Landcom is committed to improving community health and wellbeing. Since 2019, we have partnered with Live Life Get Active (LLGA) who are a registered health promotion charity that offers free fitness classes five days a week during school terms.
READ MORECase Study
National Theatre for Children
In FY21 we partnered with National Theatre for Children (NTC) to create and launch a new theatre-based education program called Mind Masters. This is directly aligned to Landcom’s commitment to deliver communities that are healthy and inclusive. Focusing on mental resilience, this initiative will run over three years and was rolled out to ten primary and nine secondary schools across the Campbelltown, Liverpool and Southern Highlands LGAs, reaching over 7,600 students.
READ MORECase Study
Edmondson Park diverse housing
Landcom is committed to creating more affordable and sustainable communities, and housing diversity forms a part of that commitment. By delivering a masterplan with varying housing typologies we are able to accommodate the diverse needs of residents living in the communities we create.
READ MORECase Study
Engaging online amid the COVID-19 pandemic
In response to COVID-19 we adapted our engagement approach to combine traditional outreach methods and digital activities.
READ MOREManagement Approach
Landcom adopts a holistic approach to the delivery of healthy and inclusive places founded on equity for people of all ages and abilities.
For new projects we undertake social needs assessments to understand what amenities, services or programs are currently available to the immediate and surrounding community, and what gaps may need to be filled. We use this information to inform our future planning for infrastructure and community development programming.
As residents begin to live onsite we commence a continuous feedback loop via our Healthy & Inclusive Places survey (HIPs). This is an engagement tool used to gather data from residents of Landcom communities measuring satisfaction across dimensions such as design, community connection, safety, wellbeing, housing affordability and diversity based on the residents’ lived experience. We have adopted performance targets across these dimensions, striving for continuous improvement to meet the quality of life expectations of current and future residents.
To benchmark Landcom’s results against industry standards the survey also incorporates the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI)19. The PWI is designed to measure satisfaction with quality of life across seven domains: standard of living, health, life achievement, relationships, safety, community connectedness and future security. Landcom uses resident satisfaction across the core elements of the PWI to measure success against our leadership goal to ‘enhance Landcom’s international status for delivering world class liveable places, founded on equity, affordability and inclusion by 2036’.
We use the results and resident feedback from the HIPs survey each year to drive performance improvements in the way we deliver our projects. This can include adjusting our approach to the design and delivery of future stages of a project or influencing the way we deliver community development programs and services.
Based on low FY18 performance results against our Community Connection targets we committed to undertake an evaluation of our Community Development and Welcome Program to determine past successes and areas of opportunity. The assessment found Landcom would benefit from an overarching framework to guide the way we approach and deliver community development. A shift to impact reporting would also support consistent evaluation of success and ability to communicate value creation.
These recommendations were adopted during the reporting period, however due to the impacts of COVID-19 Landcom’s implementation against these recommendations has been delayed, and only began to take effect from late in this reporting cycle.
For our FY21 performance results measured by our Healthy & Inclusive Places survey, see Health, Equity & Inclusion, Community Connection, & Safety below.
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19 International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index: 5th Edition. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University
In FY21 Landcom updated our Housing Affordability & Diversity Policy (now referred to as Housing Policy), setting new targets to drive the delivery of diverse, affordable and accessible homes. The Policy is a clear reflection of Landcom’s commitment to create more affordable and sustainable communities. Our new targets will come into effect on new projects from FY22.
Landcom defines Affordable Housing as dwellings managed or owned by a Community Housing Provider (CHP). CHPs are not-for-profit organisations that build and/or manage housing for eligible people on very low, low and moderate incomes or who are unable to access appropriate housing in the private market.
Landcom’s targets in place for FY21 require 5-10% of housing in our projects to be provided as Affordable Rental Housing, owned or managed by a CHP. The CHP may build the homes, and will manage eligibility and waiting lists, tenant services and property maintenance.
We also address housing diversity and accessibility in response to Sydney’s current market conditions. We aim to deliver a range of tenure options for owners and renters, improve the range of home options available in the market especially for first home buyers, and ensure people have the ability to access fit for purpose housing throughout their lifetime.
We complement this by advocating for and requiring accessible homes that embody Universal Design principles and are Liveable Housing Australia (LHA) certified.
For our FY21 performance against our Affordability & Diversity targets, see Affordability & Diversity Performance Results below.
We maintain a commitment to excellence in design and meaningful stakeholder participation from all those who have a stake in the evolution of our cities, including the communities which know them best.
Landcom has an established Design Review Panel (DRP). The DRP provides advice to Landcom on strategies to achieve design excellence and quality of urban design outcomes across our project portfolio. The DRP is comprised of industry experts with experience across design and environmental consultancies, government entities and the development sector. The objectives of the DRP are to support Landcom project teams with a critical design review process and provide access to industry experts for guidance and support.
As part of our management approach all projects are required to present to the DRP as they progress through the masterplan and design stages. In addition, active projects that make significant reviews to future stages must also present to the DRP. Landcom’s aim is that this robust process will ensure enhanced design outcomes for the communities we deliver. In late FY21 we updated the membership and focus of our DRP, and these new changes will be reflected in our updated Management Approach in FY22, as they begin to take full effect.
Landcom’s Join In Framework guides our approach to stakeholder engagement. The Framework includes a charter and protocol that have been developed in accordance with the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) guidelines, ‘which seeks to promote and improve the practice of public participation or community and stakeholder engagement, incorporating individuals, governments, institutions and other entities that affect the public interest throughout the world’20.
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20 International Association for Public Participation Australasia (2018)
We aim to be:
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Collaborative Working with stakeholders with an interest in delivering positive project outcomes |
Purposeful Planning and resourcing engagement to support project delivery |
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Proactive Engaging stakeholders early and throughout project planning and delivery and making it easy for them to participate |
Accountable Being clear about the purpose of engagement, level of influence and how the influence has shaped recommendations and decisions |
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Inclusive Engaging stakeholders with different needs and interests |
For our FY21 performance against our Design through Engagement targets, see Design through Engagement Performance Results below.
Our Sustainable Places Strategy identifies a number of initiatives as future opportunities to enhance our Health, Equity and Inclusion and Community Connection focus areas. There are also previously identified priorities that we are retiring, as they have been materially integrated into our organisational approach. Our future priorities in this area are:
- exploring opportunities to advance innovation in education, health and wellbeing
- identifying mode-shift opportunities to reduce car dependency in appropriate locations.
Performance Results
See below our performance results for each of the reporting areas within our Healthy & Inclusive Places Pillar.
Health, Equity & Inclusion, Community Connection & Safety
Targets
Performance
2036 Goal: 90% of residents report satisfaction with quality of life.
Performance
*FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Targets
90% of residents report high quality public, active and sustainable transport options to key amenities, services, and employment.
Performance
*FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Targets
90% residents report high physical and mental health, reflecting project design, programs or events that encourage active, social and healthy eating lifestyles.
Performance
FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Targets
90% of residents report overall satisfaction with the integration of culture and heritage.
Performance
FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Targets
90% of residents report community cohesion, by fostering the integration of community networks and facilities in our projects.
Performance
FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Targets
Achieve a culture of safety through our organisation, and on all Landcom projects, striving for 90% of residents reporting feeling safe.
Performance
FY19 results carried forward to FY20. The impacts of COVID-19 resulted in the cancellation of the Healthy & Inclusive Places Survey during that reporting period.
Performance Overviews
During the reporting year we continued to focus on rolling out new partnership programs to our communities. A strong emphasis was placed on projects where Landcom partners with Land and Housing Corporation to deliver social and market housing, in order to drive greater equity and access to programs and services. Activities undertaken in FY21 that supported community health, equity and inclusion included:
- Live Life Get Active free fitness classes
- National Theatre for Children – mental health program
- seniors event.
In FY22 Landcom will continue to expand these programs across our portfolio.
Activities undertaken in FY21 that supported community connection and the integration of culture and heritage include:
- community BBQ’s
- playgroup programs
- mobile library
- baby rhyme time
- small scale community events, including seniors afternoon tea, and RUOK event, cinema night and school holiday activities
- seasonal COVID Safe community events including a digital QR code egg hunt and Santa drive-by
- school holiday online program including kids disco, cooking, fitness and Lego classes.
In FY20 Landcom supported a local social club at Macarthur Heights to become an incorporated residents’ association, and throughout FY21 we contributed towards community events the group organised, such as a ‘Clean Up the Community’ event and BBQ.
Our historical performance results against Community Connection , which are carried forward in FY20, show lower satisfaction by residents for community cohesion (66%) and the integration of culture and heritage (61%). This is consistent with our independent review of previous community development activities showing low participation and engagement rates in general. In FY20 we adopted a new approach to community development, and look forward to validating its impact over the coming year.
Our historical performance results against Community Connection show lower satisfaction by residents for community cohesion (67%) and the integration of culture and heritage (51%) compared to other indicators in the survey. This is consistent with our independent review of previous community development activities showing low participation and engagement rates in general, and is an area Landcom will be specifically focusing on better understanding in FY22 in order to improve performance.
In FY20 we adopted a new approach to community development focused on partnerships with organisations that offer impact measurement. As a result of these new partnerships in FY21 we have seen a small initial improvement in community cohesion (67%) compared to previous results. As a result of these new partnerships, in FY21 we have seen small initial improvements in community cohesion (67%) compared to previous results, and in our communities’ health and wellbeing (such reduced risk of health issues like pre-diabetic risk and obesity) and improved mental health awareness for participants in the Live Life Get Active program.
The impacts of COVID-19 significantly impacted the roll out of our new community development partnerships during the reporting period. We anticipate more positive results in FY22, as health restrictions on socialising and recreation are hopefully eased.
In FY21 residents continued to report high levels of perceived safety (92%) either at home or within their community. We ask residents to rate their sense of safety from ‘very unsafe’ to ‘very safe’ in the following situations:
- at home alone during the day – 98% of residents report feeling safe or very safe
- walking alone within their community during the day – 99% of residents reporting feeling safe or very safe
- at home alone during the evening – 91% of residents report feeling safe or very safe22
- walking alone within their community during the evening – 79% of residents report feeling safe or very safe.
Throughout the design process we continue to adopt best practice Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles.
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22 Restatement: In FY19 Landcom reported 93%. This error was carried forward in FY20 and has now been corrected.
Affordability & Diversity
Targets
Performance
Deliver 5-10% Affordable Housing across the Landcom portfolio.
Performance
FY20:
FY21:
No projects in scope for reporting.
Targets
20% of medium to high density dwellings within all new projects achieve Livable Housing Australia Silver Certification (or equivalent).
Performance
FY20:
FY21:
No projects in scope for reporting.
Targets
New projects to deliver 10-15% diverse housing.
Performance
FY20:
FY21:
No projects in scope for reporting.
Performance Overviews
While no new projects were in scope during the reporting period, eleven projects did release sites to the market, with an estimated 160 affordable and 1,100 diverse homes expected to be achieved. Across these projects, there were 590 homes that embody Universal Design principles*. See Case Study: Edmondson Park diverse housing
*A single dwelling may be both Affordable or Diverse Housing as well as Universal Housing
Design through Engagement
Targets
Performance
All new projects to undergo peer review through the Landcom Design Advisory Panel (or equivalent).
Performance
FY20:
FY21:
Targets
All new projects to conform with the community engagement policy, Join-In Framework, aligned to industry best practice for stakeholder engagement practice.
Performance
FY20:
FY21:
Performance Overviews
Our approach to working with the people, groups and organisations that have an interest, that will be directly impacted, or have an ability to influence our projects is guided by our Join In stakeholder engagement framework. The framework outlines our commitment to stakeholder engagement and to continued learning and improvement in our engagement practice to help create more affordable and sustainable communities.
In FY21 there were ten projects in scope for reporting including SMNW Places precincts at Cherrybrook, Hills Showground, Bella Vista, Kellyville, Tallawong and Epping. Macarthur Gardens North and Fennell Bay were also in scope and focus on how community can help shape plans for new neighbourhoods at these communities.
During FY21 we also adapted our engagement approach in response to the impacts of COVID-19. This included embracing new web-based tools to enable communities to engage with us from the safety of their homes. See Case Study: Engaging online amid the COVID-19 pandemic
During FY21 all projects within our business development portfolio, or active projects undertaking masterplanning or reviewing design and delivery options, presented to the DRP. Within our active project portfolio this included new projects at North Wilton and Fennell Bay, as well as the SMNW Places precinct Cherrybrook.
The DRP provides expert review of projects in concept or masterplanning design, with the aim of achieving design excellence.
Our Sustainable Places Strategy
Our Sustainable Places Strategy with four Leadership Goals guides the way we deliver new communities. Our FY21 performance for each part of our strategy is accessible below.
Climate Resilient Places
Enabling carbon neutral, water positive, zero waste and net positive ecological outcomes by 2028.
Productive
Places
Contributing to the global innovation economy by enabling over 30,000 new jobs by 2036.
Accountable &
Collaborative Places
Driving accountability and performance along our value chain.