By Adam Carey
A shortage of tree cover and poor-quality housing in Melbourne’s most disadvantaged suburbs are putting vulnerable people at greater risk of harm in a heatwave, councils and health agencies warn, as the city braces for its hottest day of the summer.
A new ranking of Melbourne’s hottest and most humid council areas has found that inner Melbourne – also the epicentre of rough sleeping – is the wider city’s most uncomfortable place to be on days of extreme heat, closely followed by the northern suburbs and the outer south-east.
Cohealth director Andrea Fischer (left) with heat relief outreach workers Daqan Nabben, Matt Palaia and Matt Stander, who will walk the city in Monday’s high heat.Credit: Justin McManus
The cities of Melbourne, Merri-bek, Greater Dandenong, Darebin and Casey ranked highest on the new “sweatiest cities” metric, while the Yarra Ranges and Whittlesea, both in the outer north-east, were found to have the driest conditions in summer.
The new ranking, by Sydney-based Alliance Climate Control, assessed Australia’s 80 largest local government areas by their average summer temperatures, humidity, tree coverage, wind speeds, population density, average cooling costs and distance to a natural body of water.
Six Melbourne councils were not assessed due to their smaller populations.
Councils in some of the worst-ranked municipalities are preparing extreme heat emergency management plans that include opening libraries and community halls as refuges, as well as longer-term tree planting goals.
Teams of health workers will also walk CBD streets and laneways on Monday in a new heat relief outreach program, which will assist homeless people who may be caught in the forecast 40-degree heat.
Cohealth director of community-based drug and alcohol responses Andrea Fischer said the organisation had set up a “pop-up” heat relief centre last summer but had learnt that the service works better when staff met rough sleepers where they are.
“Often if you are a vulnerable person you are a bit wary about going to places, so you need someone to guide you and just let you know it’s OK to go there and you will be safe,” Fischer said.
Dandenong, Casey, Merri-bek, Darebin and Melbourne have among the least tree canopy cover in Melbourne, according to planning department analysis.
The peak body for Victorian councils called for a greater state government commitment to cooling the suburbs, days after the Allan government dropped a proposal to mandate lighter roofs on some new homes.
Melbourne’s two largest councils, the cities of Casey and Wyndham, had backed a Victorian Planning Authority proposal to restrict dark roofs on new homes in Melbourne’s growth areas, which rank poorly in analysis of places that experience the so-called “heat-island effect”.
But the government’s small lot housing code, released this month, omits the draft version’s reference to mandating lighter-coloured roofs.
The Municipal Association of Victoria said reflective roofs were an important way to reduce urban heat retention.
“Sustainable building design experts see roof reflectivity as a significant opportunity to reduce heat absorption in dwellings,” said association president Jennifer Anderson.
“Good environmentally sustainable design means more comfortable, healthy homes where residents are resilient to energy price shocks.”
Anderson said growth-area neighbourhoods were some of the hottest parts of the city. New homes should be designed for a warmer climate, and councils given state funding to create and maintain parks, forest, wildlife corridors and waterways, she said.
Greater Dandenong, which ranked third in the new sweaty cities ranking, held its first heatwave preparedness summit late last year.
Rhonda Garad, a Greens councillor who successfully pushed for the summit, said it was confronting to learn how ill-equipped Dandenong was for a heatwave.
Dandenong councillor Rhonda Garad fears the city’s vulnerable are “in real trouble” in a heatwave.Credit: Penny Stephens
“Our open spaces are very concrete bound, hot, many people simply don’t have the resources to remain cool and if there were a blackout, which is going to happen in those prolonged heat events, we are in real trouble,” she said.
Dandenong has Melbourne’s largest homeless population, as well as a high refugee population, and Garad said many of the poorer parts of the city had housing that was not fit for staying cool.
“In our areas where there is less income a lot of the houses don’t have a lot of insulation, they’re small houses, with not a lot of tree coverage and even if they do have air-conditioning, a lot of people can’t afford to run it for a long time,” she said.
In a statement, the government said extreme heat killed more people than natural disasters, but simple steps could help, such as drinking lots of water, seeking out air-conditioned spaces, staying in the shade and checking in on those at risk.
Merri-bek Mayor Helen Davidson said the council had set a goal of doubling tree canopy by 2050, and had planted 3500 additional trees this season. It has added seven new parks through a mix of council funding and developer contributions, she said.
A City of Melbourne spokesperson said climate change was causing Melbourne to have more frequent and severe heatwaves, impacting the health of the city’s most vulnerable.
The city has created an interactive map of cool, shaded paths through the city and will distribute cool kits to at-risk people in libraries and community centres.
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