Rory Hunter has turned his first approval into an argument, with the MODEL founder and chief executive claiming Australia’s planning system has finally started rewarding developers who refuse to trade away sustainability, design quality, and affordable housing. That is according to a statement issued on Monday, three days after the six-storey MODEL on Lithgow cleared Victoria’s Development Facilitation Program as the two-year-old developer’s first permitted project.
“Australian developers have been forced to trade off the things that matter most,” Hunter said, naming sustainability, design quality, and affordability as the price of a permit. The Lithgow approval, he claims, shows that culture is finally starting to change, with the fast-track sign-off proof that developer ambition and government policy have started to align.
Beyond the permit, Hunter warns recent shifts in investment and tax settings are pulling traditional rental stock off the market and squeezing tenants, demand he claims build-to-rent operators are best placed to soak up. Sustainability, he argues, is what will give institutional investors the confidence to back the sector at scale.
Hunter has put numbers on the ambition, with MODEL building toward a $4 billion national build-to-rent platform by 2031 from its $330 million Abbotsford seed portfolio. Tier one builder Multiplex stays engaged under an early contractor involvement agreement, holding costs steady before construction starts this year.
“It’s clear the broader design community supports our aspirations,” Simon Topliss, the Warren and Mahoney principal behind both Abbotsford designs, said. His pair of schemes are the only Australian projects shortlisted in the World Architecture Festival’s Future Residential category, among just 20 from Australia on a 416-strong list drawn from 630 worldwide.
Behind the retained 1886 Schweppes façade, the mass timber extension will rise all-electric, aiming for Passivhaus certification and a 40 per cent cut in embodied carbon. One in ten of the 158 apartments stays reserved for affordable housing inside the $120 million build, which also targets a 9-Star NatHERS rating and a 6-Star Green Star rating.
It comes as planning continues on MODEL on Johnston, the 17-storey cross-laminated timber tower 500 metres away, designed to become Australia’s tallest residential timber building. Both Abbotsford schemes will be presented live to international judging panels in Fort Lauderdale from 18 to 20 November, with category winners facing a Super Jury of 164 judges from 37 countries. Construction is due to start before the end of the year, with the first of more than 5,000 mass timber apartments Hunter has pledged to deliver under the banner Rent for Good.
