Colac Otway Adaptable Precincts Project

The Colac Otway Adaptable Precincts Project is a housing innovation and planning project aimed at developing a repeatable model for affordable and key-worker housing, using sites in Colac and Apollo Bay as demonstration locations.

The project is funded through the Australian Government’s Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program (rPPP), with $2.018 million in funding. It is intended to produce two master-planned, construction-ready housing precincts and a model that could potentially be replicated in other regional communities across Australia.

The concept provides for 50–100 modular homes across the two precincts. The homes are intended to be adaptable, sustainable and capable of relatively rapid deployment.

For each site, the project is preparing a master plan package capable of forming the basis of a planning permit application, supported by work including architectural plans, a planning report, landscape planning, traffic analysis and investigations covering issues such as cultural heritage, bushfire, native vegetation, waste and stormwater.

Who is involved?

The project is a partnership approach including Colac Otway Shire Council, Urbis, Deakin University, FormFlow, Modularity, and University of Wollongong as key partners.

Why Colac and Apollo Bay?

The two towns have somewhat different housing problems:

Colac: The project identifies affordability pressures affecting workers in industries including manufacturing, health, retail and construction.

Apollo Bay: The issue is particularly the shortage of long-term rental accommodation, with second homes and short-stay accommodation contributing to the pressure.

What makes it "adaptable"?

The precincts are being designed to accommodate different modular building types, enabling housing and potentially the precinct itself to respond to changing community needs and incorporate future technologies and solutions.

The broader research is looking at housing that is:

• adaptable;
• sustainable;
• resilient;
• affordable and energy efficient;
• inclusive; and
• capable of being reproduced in other regional communities.

FormFlow is developing the modular housing system, while Modularity is building a proof-of-concept prototype to test and refine the housing designs and production system.