Corporate News

 

One of Australia’s most remarkable recycling achievements is nearing completion at a Villawood Properties community in suburban Melbourne.

Aquarevo, a 460-lot estate built on the former Cranbourne sewerage treatment site at Lyndhurst, is already the country’s most sustainable water/power community with its cutting-edge water technologies and solar-powered homes – and an Urban Development Institute of Australian environmental excellence award-winner too.

Now, it’s about to complete a decade-plus journey with new Australian-first technology that will see it re-assume its original role – and much more – with a sophisticated, in-house wastewater treatment plant.

The new plant at the Aquarevo joint venture by Villawood and South East Water will close the water cycle loop for this ultra-green greenfield community, treating some 52 million litres of water a year to Class A standard for each home.

The closed loop treatment will provide a new urban water benchmark for Australia – one that can be replicated anywhere in the country.

It will significantly reduce reliance on drinking water resources, supplying water for non-drinking purposes like toilet flushing, garden irrigation and washing machines.

The recycling plant has been designed to look like a natural garden within a greenhouse and to blend into the surrounding landscape. For the first time in Australia, it will use the Organica Food Chain Reactor process, which has a low energy footprint and contains odour within the structure.

Widely used in urban settings across Europe and China, this state-of-the-art treatment process combines natural and artificial root environments to provide a highly robust and energy efficient treatment process with a low carbon footprint.

The facility will have the capacity to treat 207kL of wastewater a day, equivalent to the volume of an Olympic swimming pool in 12 days.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny recently announced the Hydroflux Group will build and operate the plant with construction to start early 2025 and the plant operational by late 2026.

Aquarevo residents benefit from having three types of water plumbed straight to their homes – drinking water, rainwater and Class A recycled water – to reduce their reliance on drinking water by up to 70 per cent.

Homes in the estate use 40 per cent less drinking water, on average, than typical homes in the South East Water network with some achieving a reduction of around 60 per cent.

“Aquarevo demonstrates a real, achievable and new level of sustainability by a private and public partnership,” Villawood executive director Rory Costelloe said.

“The real significance is that this completes the closed loop treatment, which will prove that the Aquarevo experience can be picked up and built for any remote community in Australia.

“This project has attracted a great of international interest, and overseas study visitors. It’s a forerunner of what the future can be in our communities and sets a sustainability benchmark we need to achieve to maintain our water security.

“Aquarevo has also been a vanguard in providing solar power to homes and we’ve been able to achieve water savings of 60 and more per cent and up to 100 per cent on electricity.

“The new water recycling plant is a great example of a project going full circle to deliver a sustainability to benefit both the community and the planet.”

The Aquarevo water initiative is one of a raft of sustainability and environmental innovations and achievements by Villawood.

These include:

• Biodiversity donation of two lots to forest reserves for every lot sold; 600 hectares to date, with 1700 hectares about to be added.
• A net-zero carbon community at Aldinga, SA.
• UDIA sustainability excellence award for its Delaray wetlands restoration in Melbourne.
• Fully gas-free communities at new projects in Melbourne and Adelaide.
• Seven-star energy precincts well ahead of government regulation, with lot layout designs and building guidelines to improve efficiency of passive heating/cooling.
• Micro-grid networks in Melbourne and Adelaide to minimise energy costs.
• Three different and highly-engineered stormwater systems at Wandana

Which helped Villawood win the 2022 UDIA (Vic) Best Residential Development Award under 250 Lots.

• Survey stakes and pegs that have financed tens of thousands of new Landcare trees in southwest Victoria’s Otway Ranges.

Other Villawood sustainability initiatives

• VillaRange suite of small homes with key affordability/sustainability features, including: 9-Star Victorian Home Energy Efficiency Rating, gas-free, minimum 2.5kW solar panels, 15-amp EV charge point, electric-boosted solar hot water system, induction cooktops, reverse cycle split systems.
• Sustainability principles and practices integrated into all aspects of the Villawood business such as:
  • Low‐energy street lighting
  • Recycled timber and aggregates
  • Low embedded energy playgrounds
  • Sustainable landscaping elements requiring less water and maintenance

• New Villawood projects are aiming to deliver:
  • Up to 25% of all housing as affordable housing delivered by VillaRange (9-stars NaTHERS Standard Rating)
  • Up to 25% of housing net zero
  • 8-star NaTHERS Standard Rating housing precincts
  • 7-star NaTHERS Standard Rating to all housing
  • Minimum 3.3kw Solar PV to all housing
  • Provision of battery capabilities
  • No reticulated gas
  • Public electric bike charging stations
  • Public EV charging stations
  • Solar street lighting

There’s another, sweet, side to Villawood’s sustainability efforts, as well.

Villawood’s donated biodiversity bushland, in Bendigo, provides habitat for bees that underpin the environment’s health – and produces two tonnes of Kamarooka honey which it gives away in 1kg tubs to customers and associates each year.