WA: EV grants for greener apartment buildings ‘a no brainer’

This Media Release about EV grants for greener apartment buildings.

WA’s electric vehicle grants should be extended to apartment and other strata communities if we’re serious about greener cities, WA’s peak strata industry body said.

Strata Community Association (WA) President Catherine Lezer said the McGowan government’s budget announcement of a $60 Million Clean Energy Car Fund was a welcome start but didn’t go far enough.

Ms Lezer said residential strata companies owning apartment buildings and other strata schemes should also be eligible for grants to assist them to retrofit the properties with the necessary infrastructure to support electric vehicles.

She said more environmentally friendly residential buildings and complexes would help make for more sustainable cities, including Perth and other major hubs across WA.

She called on the WA government to act.

“We can help tackle climate change one building at a time,” Ms Lezer said. “It’s a no brainer that if you make the built environment more environmentally friendly our cities will be more sustainable as a whole”.

“Helping apartment and other strata communities install the necessary infrastructure to support EV charging would be an important part of that.”

“Under the budget, grants are being offered to small and medium-sized businesses and not-for-profits. That should be extended to strata companies too.”

Ms Lezer said strata living offers governments an opportunity to invest in better and smarter ways for communities to live, while at the same time reducing the environmental footprint.

She said an owner of a residential house can change the sustainability habits of one household, but a Council of Owners can incorporate changes for many households.

WA has over 342,334 strata lots across more than 76,965 schemes. About 86 per cent are in the Perth metropolitan area with high numbers in the cities of Stirling, Melville, Perth, Bayswater and Canning.

About half of all new land subdivisions in WA are strata titled and Australia-wide at least one in five Australians live in strata complexes, including apartments and townhouses.

SCA (WA)’s call came after nearly $60 million was allocated in the WA budget to accelerate the use of zero-emission vehicles in the State, including $10 million to help not-for-profits and small and medium-sized businesses with the costs of installing charging infrastructure.

The Clean Energy Car Fund also provides for:

1. Another $5 million to support local governments with up to half of the cost of infrastructure installation.
2. A total of $22.6 million for new charging infrastructure to expand WA’s electric vehicle charging network.
3. And up to 10,00 rebates of $3,500 are available to West Australians who buy a new electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle up to a value of $70,000, at a total cost of $36.5 mil-lion.

Strata Community Association (WA)

This post appears in Strata News #570.

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