Award-winning sustainable developers to move into Hobart

THE company behind an award-winning “deep-green” apartment development in Victoria has lodged an application to build a 30-apartment complex on Hobart’s old Retravision site.

An artist's impression of the sustainable living development, The Commons, at 126 Bathurst St, in Hobart. Picture: CORE COLLECTIVE

THE company behind an award-winning “deep-green” apartment development in Victoria has lodged an application to build a 30-apartment complex on Hobart’s old Retravision site.

Small Giants Developments, a Melbourne-based ethical property developer, claims the six-storey development is the “world’s first carbon-positive apartment building”.

The Commons Hobart will feature a ground-floor cafe, commercial space, a roof-top garden, a publicly accessible garden, a ground-floor communal area, 32 bike spaces and a car-share scheme that will limit the number of car spaces to just five.

The old Retravision store on the corner of Watchorn and Bathurst streets will become an eco apartment complex. Picture: ROGER LOVELL

It will be based on another Small Giants’ complex in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, which won the Residential Architecture and the Sustainable Architecture categories at the 2014 National Architecture Awards and has been dubbed as Australia’s most sustainable apartment building.

It has been designed by local architects Core Collective.

Small Giants’ development director Dave Martin said much had been learned during the building of the Brunswick Commons.

“We’ve taken what we learned from The Commons Brunswick and other developments and applied those lessons to the Hobart context,” he said.

“We are really excited about this development, which we anticipate will be the world’s first carbon-positive apartment building.”

A key factor in the success of the development in Brunswick has been the lack of car parking, which has helped it achieve an impressive eight-star energy rating.

This inspired the creation of Nightingale, also in Melbourne, which was originally pitched with no car spaces. Following Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal intervention, the developers eventually added three car spaces to get the building approved.

We are really excited about this development which we anticipate will be the world’s first carbon-positive apartment building.

The Hobart City Council has invited interested persons to make representations by April 4 and Hobart Alderman Bill Harvey said he believed it was just the project the city needed.

“I think there will be an increase in demand for this type of accommodation in Hobart,” he said.

“Younger people are driving less and aren’t owning cars, they want to live in high quality housing in the right location in the city.

“This helps us address our urban sprawl issue, this helps us address our traffic issues. I think we have to start exploring this concept seriously.”

Sustainable Living Tasmania executive officer Todd Houstein said it was a big boost for Hobart that Small Giants had chosen the city for its first development outside of Melbourne.

“These apartments will set a fantastic benchmark for comfortable and sustainable inner city living for many years to come,” he said.