The ABCB has worked with experts and stakeholders to develop minimum accessibility requirements for Class 1a buildings (houses) and Class 2 sole-occupancy units (apartments) for inclusion in NCC 2022. 

The new requirements are based on the Livable Housing Design Guidelines’ silver standards and will ensure that future homes are designed and constructed to better meet the needs of the community, including older Australians and those with disability.

We have established a committee to support implementation of the ABCB Standard for Livable Housing Design – with members drawn from key industry and stakeholder group – to provide advice on areas of this important new standard that would benefit from clarification and guide the development of information to help industry implement the new provisions. A final quality assurance review on the new Livable Housing Standard is being undertaken to ensure compatibility with other provisions of the NCC. The corrected NCC and Standard will be ready to publish on NCC Online in December.

Given the complexity of the Livable Housing Project, we also commissioned an external review of the project development process, with a particular focus on how we engaged with people who had an interest in the success of the project. The report from that review, and the Board’s response, are now available.