New homes in Lutruwita/Tasmania must implement all provisions of the new Livable Housing Design Standard from tomorrow (1 October), with the aim of ensuring houses are suitable for people of all ages and life stages.
This development will be especially important for people with a disability, who are ageing or experiencing a progressive illness, say the authors below. Provisions in the standard are also useful for renovators wanting practical guidance to retrofit existing accommodation.
“By ensuring that our new builds are accessible, adaptable, and inclusive, we are building a safer, more connected, and fairer Tasmania for everyone,” they say.
Lisa Stafford, James Newton, Joel Dignam and Vaughn Bennison write:
A home is more than bricks and mortar: it is a place of sanctuary and safety. But only when it is designed to meet our needs and circumstances over the lifespan.
Tomorrow (1 October), the Tasmanian Government will adopt the remaining provisions of the Livable Housing Design Standard (LHDS) from the National Construction Code. This milestone marks the completion of a phased rollout that began in 2024.
The Livable Housing Design Standard specifies six features that must be part of new homes to help make them suitable for all ages and stages. This includes wider doors and corridors and step-free showers, and include a level access path to a step-free entry.
Significantly, the Livable Housing Design Standard becomes a mandatory legal requirement in Tasmania from 1 October 2026. Compliance is verified through the building approval process, with occupancy certificates withheld for non-compliant homes. Breaches may result in fines, audits, and licence suspension under the Building Act 2016.
For too long, housing design has been reactive rather than proactive. When an injury occurs, a progressive illness develops, or as we simply grow older, our homes often become obstacles rather than sanctuaries.
The Livable Housing Design Standard changes this. It allows individuals to age in place and ensures that friends and family can visit regardless of their physical mobility. It is essentially preventative health infrastructure.
This matters in Lutruwita/Tasmania, as we have the highest proportion of people with a disability in Australia – nearly one in three Tasmanians. Furthermore, more than one in two Tasmanians live with chronic illness.
Our population is not growing, and it is ageing faster than the national average. So it’s essential that our housing stock is built to meet this need.
Costs of inaccessible housing
When homes aren’t suitable for the population, it leads to many harms.
We know:
- Older Tasmanians are forced out of the communities they love and into residential care prematurely due to physical housing layout mismatches. This is quantified in the AIHW Housing and Living Arrangements Report and the AIHW Bulletin on the Desire to Age in Place.
- People and families with disabilities have limited options in purchasing accessible homes and are often unable to afford the significant retrofit costs – which average tens of thousands of dollars – needed to make homes accessible and safe.
- These barriers compound existing state-wide housing pressures, including growing unaffordable housing, rental vacancies hitting catastrophic lows, and social housing waitlists stretching into multiple years.
- When a home fails its occupants, there are human and economic costs. Inaccessible layouts vastly increase the risk of slips, trips, and severe falls – placing preventable, heavy pressure on our already strained healthcare system.
Forcing a family or an older citizen to relocate means forcing them to absorb large transaction costs, including thousands of dollars in stamp duty, real estate agent fees, and moving expenses.
This is money stripped directly from household savings at the exact moment a family is already dealing with the vulnerability of a developing disability or the realities of caring for ageing parents.
Worse still is the emotional toll. It fractures social circles, disconnects people from their trusted local GPs, and causes profound psychological stress.
Benefits
By embedding universal accessibility into the bones of every new build right from the start, we eliminate the cycle of upheaval.
Integrating these features also guards against future financial strain.
A study on the ‘Perceived costs and benefits of mandating and regulating Livable Housing Design’, by Dr Courtney Wright, Dr Jacinta Colley and Dr Margaret Ward, surveyed over 1,300 participants. It found that overwhelmingly the majority of people perceive livable housing as a significant benefit to Australian society (54.93% massive and 37.57% significant), with over 70 percent perceiving additional upfront construction costs to be relatively low (35.39% minimal or 35.29% some).
This proactive integration allows families to stay put, adapt to life’s changes, and age in place safely. This baseline principle aligns with the national campaign data compiled by the Building Better Homes Campaign, which demonstrates that proactive universal design saves billions in systemic health costs while preserving family continuity.
By designing for accessibility from the start, homeowners also prevent expensive emergency retrofitting if health or mobility needs change.
The practical impact of these design standards is clear. The Summer Foundation’s research shows that simple features like a continuous step-free pathway from the boundary line and wider doorways eliminate structural elements that lead to injuries and hospitalisation, or prematurely push people into residential aged care.
By building to the LHDS from day one, it costs less than one percent of the total build price, compared to average costs of about $19,000 for reactive retrofitting later down the road.
The Tasmanian Government has taken commendable steps in implementing the LHDS. Across Australia, most jurisdictions have already been building to the LHDS for several years now – it has just become part of the way things are done.
You can access official industry resources directly through the ABCB Livable Housing Design Standard Handbook and the HIA National Construction Code (NCC) Resource Hub.
From 1 October, we can look forward to new homes that are fit for purpose and provide a decent home for an elderly relative, or someone with disability, or a new family.
Renovating? While the mandate strictly applies to new builds, it also offers practical guidance for retrofitting existing homes.
Features such as reinforced bathroom walls, step-free showers and level entrances can make homes safer, more adaptable and ready for future changes in health, mobility or lifestyle.
Don’t wait for a life change to force your hand. If you’re renovating, ask your designer or builder to use the National Construction Code Livable Housing Design Standard as your minimum benchmark.
Building accessibility into your renovations is a smart investment to ensure your home can adapt to future needs.
Housing is a human right. By ensuring that our new builds are accessible, adaptable, and inclusive, we are building a safer, more connected, and fairer Tasmania for everyone.
Authors details
Dr Lisa Stafford is an ARC Future Fellow at Griffith University and Adjunct at the University of Tasmania
Dr James Newton, Habil, is an independent researcher and disabled person advocate.
Joel Dignam is Building Better Homes Campaign Lead at the Summer Foundation
Vaughn Bennison is CEO of Disability Voices Tasmania
See Croakey’s archive of articles on housing as a social determinant of health
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