Rory Hunter’s MODEL has landed a $250 million regeneration decarbonisation fund that aims to build sustainable built to rent projects in Melbourne and along the east coast.
In a social media post on Thursday, Hunter, who is Greenlister on The Fifth Estate’s sister site and who was featured in a recent podcast, shared that he was “bursting with pride” that his dream of “Australia’s most sustainable real estate fund in history” had finally been launched.
The plan is to outperform on a range of sustainability measures: Passive House certification, a 50 per cent reduction in embodied carbon, mass timber construction, 6 Star Green Star and 9 Star NatHERS ratings.
By the time the fund achieves its ambition, it will also have added 1000 apartments to Melbourne and east coast locations in Australia, worth $500,000 told The Australian.
The strategy and thinking have been worked on in a white paper by the group entitled Tomorrow’s Too Late.
Kick starting activity will be two build-to-rent projects in Melbourne’s inner city Abbotsford – one a 17 storey mass timber building and another that will “re-imagine” the existing Schweppes Cordial factory and extend the building with 180 apartments.
Equity advisory for the fund is Grant Samuel, debt advisory is from PwC and the architects for the historic building are Warren and Mahoney.
Grant Samuel chief executive Damien Elias said in the newspaper report that that there was alignment of the strategy with emerging market forces.
“There are significant long-term tailwinds in inner-city densification driven by net population growth and an urgent need to address the housing supply crisis,” Mr Elias said.
“What makes MODEL so compelling is how it weaves the thematic of decarbonisation into its developments, offering investors not only a solution to these pressing challenges but also a future-proofed, sustainable asset that aligns with the increasing demand for greener portfolios.”
Hunter has a track record for dreaming big – including buying an island in Cambodia on a whim and introducing sustainability features into a luxury tourism project he embarked on and now back in Australia, a much sharper and more ambitious goal.
Build-to-rent will trap many people into a situation where they can never afford to retire. Building costs have exploded because of shortages in materials, labor and land and further demand from infrastructure construction pushes costs even higher.