Liveable Housing Australia (LHA) is a partnership between community and consumer groups, government and industry which champions the mainstream adoption of liveable housing design principles in new homes built in Australia.

 LHA arose from the Kirribilli Dialogue on Universal Housing Design, which established nationally agreed guidelines on designing and building liveable homes.

For more information please visit http://www.livablehousingaustralia.org.au/

What is Liveable Housing?

Liveable Homes are designed to meet the changing needs of home occupants across their lifetime.

Liveable Housing recommends the inclusion of key easy living features that aim to make homes easier and safer to use for all occupants including: people with disability, ageing Australians, people with temporary injuries, and families with young children.

A liveable home is designed to:

• be easy to enter;

• easy to navigate in and move around;

• be capable of easy and cost-effective adaptation; and

• be responsive to the changing needs of home occupants.

A liveable home seeks to enhance the quality of life for all occupants, at all stages of their life, by including safer and more user-friendly design features.

LHA Performance Levels

Three levels of performance are detailed in the LHA Design Guidelines. These voluntary performance levels can be applied to all homes. In the majority of circumstances, the performance requirements are identical.

The first level, Silver, comprises the seven core Liveable Housing Design Elements and is intended to apply to all new homes.

The second level, Gold, contains enhanced and additional liveable design Elements for new home construction. The Gold level Elements are also intended to apply to all new social and affordable homes that receive government assistance or funding for construction.

The third and highest level, Platinum, is intended to be more of an aspirational set of guidelines for people wishing to design houses with optimum livability features in mind.

Role of a LHA Design Guideline Assessor

The role of an LHA Design Guideline Assessor (the Assessor) is to conduct assessments of dwelling design features against the Elements described in the Liveable Housing Design Guidelines.

Each assessment involves a review of the Design of a dwelling (or As-Built structure) against the Elements in the Guidelines. Assessors systematically collect, analyse and record information about a dwelling’s design features to allow a dwelling to be certified as meeting the guidelines.

Who can assess each stage?

The Assessor at the Design Stage can have a connection to the Client, for example, by way of employment or some other contractual relationship.

The Applicant must ensure that the Assessor used for the As-Built inspection is an independent third party, and not have a connection to the Client, for example, by way of direct employment.

K-Spec Building Consultants are independent building inspectors and have registered LHA assessors that can provide assessment of both the design of the dwelling through to the As-Built structure inspection and assessment. Once the project has been assessed and certified we will issue the LHA logo (this can give your business a competitive edge).

Competitive pricing packages are available along with corporate rates for high volume developments and builders.