Homes NSW General & Seniors Housing Access Compliance Program

The Challenge

The Homes NSW program covers many social and affordable housing projects, with different locations, building styles, and teams.

The main challenge was keeping access consistent while meeting each project’s unique design and construction needs.

For Access Compliance Services, this meant focusing on accessibility from the start, helping project teams with questions during the process, and checking that all requirements were met on site.

AI Consultancy’s Approach

AI Consultancy worked with the program from the design stage all the way to completion.

1. Design reviewAI Consultancy checked architectural plans for access requirements, found any issues, and gave recommendations before building began.
2. RFI supportAI Consultancy gave ongoing technical advice to address project questions and design changes as they came up.
3. Construction inspectionsWe checked the site to make sure the finished work matched the design and met all access requirements.
4. CompletionAfter reviewing and inspecting each project, we issued Access Completion Statements for the finished work.

Our process includes design review, RFI support, construction inspection, and issuing a completion statement. With this approach, access compliance was part of every stage, not just something checked at the end.

Technical Compliance Framework

We based our assessments on the requirements that applied to each project, such as:

• Building Code of Australia
• AS 1428.1
• AS 1428.4.1
• AS 2890.6
• Disability (Access to Premises, Buildings) Standards 2010
• Applicable Housing SEPP 2021 provisions
• Livable Housing Australia Livable Housing Design Guidelines

This formed the technical foundation for assessing accessibility in different types of social housing projects.

Accessibility at Social Housing Scale

Homes NSW’s current design rules also focus on making housing accessible and livable. Because the housing program is spread out, we need to think about accessibility at every stage to apply these requirements consistently.

Outcome

Since 2022, AI Consultancy has helped deliver access-compliant results throughout the ongoing program. This approach has helped project teams to:

• Identify and resolve access issues during design, before construction.
• Maintain consistency across different sites, housing types and delivery teams.
• Verify accessibility on site, rather than relying solely on documentation.
• Document completion through Access Completion Statements.

Access Compliance for Housing Projects

AI Consultancy offers Disability Access Compliance Services for social, affordable, seniors, and other residential housing projects. Our services include design reviews, access audits, livable housing and seniors housing assessments, inspections, and completion statements.