My Best Home

DIY toolkit

We have designed a DIY Toolkit for residents to download below. The toolkit tries to make it easier for home owners/residents 50+ to consider housing options to age in place in their suburb.
 

How can the DIY design kit help me?

• Have a conversation with family and/or friends about the future and your potential housing requirements
• Have fun using our kit and looking at potential design options for your land and home
• Encourage an early conversation with our planning team who can provide you with some great ideas and information to make the process less daunting 
• Keep you in your existing suburb if that's what you want

My Best Home – Age Friendly Housing in Cockburn’s most established suburbs

The My Best Home project will improve the information available to residents, builders, designers, architects and real estate agents on how to design age friendly homes in Cockburn’s most established suburban areas.

Photo credit: Kim Vo

About the project

The City of Cockburn adopts a neighbourhood level place-based approach to identify future housing needs for its established neighbourhoods through revitalisation strategies. To date, revitalisation strategies have been undertaken for Spearwood, Hamilton Hill, Coolbellup and the Lakes suburbs (North Lake, parts of Bibra Lake and South Lake).

The revitalisation strategies seek to guide the planning and delivery of future housing types and housing choices and to identify a range infrastructure and amenity improvements across the neighbourhood.

The “My Best Home” project aims to build on the success of the revitalisation strategies by undertaking a further level of research to understand and promote the housing needs of people aged 50+. This is important to our oldest, most established, suburbs of which will continue to see a significant increase of older households in the future.

Engagement with residents 50+ is an important part of the research and design process involving seniors in a co-design process to promote “rightsizing”.

A key objective of the project is to promote a dialogue between residents and landowners and stakeholders involved in the planning, building and development industry.

Status of the ‘My Best Home’ project

Stage	Status
Survey of residents 50+	Completed - February 2018 (60 participants)
Workshop 1	Completed - October 2018 (39 participants)
Workshop 2	Completed - April 2019 (16 participants)
Publish results for all stakeholders to access	Complete - in related document section below

Project outcomes

Our final step will be to document and publish our findings in such a way that will promote the housing needs of residents 50+ and promote the design of homes that our residents want to live in. We are seeking to do this through the preparation of, for example, diagrams and design briefs supported by key information aimed at ensuring residents 50+ are better informed of housing possibilities. This documentation will be prepared for a range of stakeholders to utilise including builders, developers, designers, architects and real estate agents.

The City will also produce a publication, including details of the engagement and co-design process for other Councils to access. The intent is to share our process and outcomes so that others can build on our experiences. This recognises the significant challenge all Councils in Perth’s metropolitan area face for planning for housing needs for an increasing ageing community.

Background of the ‘My Best Home Project’

The ‘My Best Home Project’ is aligned with and contributes to the objectives of the City of Cockburn’s:

• Housing Affordability and Diversity Strategy (2018);

• Age Friendly Strategy (2016), and;

• Revitalisation strategies – Spearwood North (Phoenix), Hamilton Hill and Coolbellup.

The ‘My Best Home Project’ also aligns with the objectives of the World Health Organisation Global Age-Friendly Cities. Specifically, aligning with Housing and Communication and information.

Helpful information sources

Information	Source
The Livable Housing Guidelines.   The LHD Guidelines provide useful information for consumers seeking to introduce livable design features into a new home and could be readily applied within an existing home during renovation or refurbishment.	http://www.livablehousingaustralia.org.au/
Downsizing contributions into superannuation   From 1 July 2018, if you are 65 years old or older and meet the eligibility requirements, you may be able to choose to make a downsizer contribution into your superannuation of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of selling your home.	https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Super/Growing-your-super/Adding-to-your-super/Downsizing-contributions-into-superannuation/

More information and contact

Please contact the Strategic Planning for more information on the ‘My Best Home Project’ on 08 9411 3444 or at [email protected]