Federal funding for co-operative housing could be a game-changer for how we define and deliver affordable housing, according to this report. It finds that by integrating co-operative principles into policy and development frameworks, Australia could address housing challenges effectively, promote community resilience, and create more livable cities.

This report presents the findings of the ARC Linkage Project Articulating Value in Housing Co-operatives, undertaken in partnership with the Australian Co-operative Housing Alliance. It presents the first data set on affordable rental housing co-operatives across New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.

Housing cooperatives are a growing presence in Australia’s housing system, providing a diversity of housing forms to a variety of household types across the income spectrum, typically serving low- and moderate-income households. The research presented in this report reviewed a selection of international cooperative housing sectors in addition to the Australian context.

Recent scholarship has conceptualised initiatives at the grassroots level as niche sites of innovation for sustainable development, comprising a diversity of innovations and sustainable practices that may (or may not) be usefully transferred to mainstream systems (Seyfang & Smith 2007). Sustainable housing communities such as cohousing and eco-villages, based around goals of improved sustainability and...