You can contact me at DanielLyons.net.

Why House Strategy - Granny Flats Extend Lives

Why (short): Missing leg, need accessible flat. Why (long): I volunteered and fought against things for 20 years in my younger years (with mixed success) but now I'm middle aged, disabled, and can't afford to buy a property. It's crazy that Australia has the lowest population density and our biggest retail store is Bunnings yet no-one has figured out how to build low cost, simple, accessible granny flats. I've studied architecture, worked in the building industry, made 50 websites, and I still want to volunteer so why not dedicate resources to getting seniors and the disabled into accessible housing. Our Vision: for seniors and others to lookup their property on a slippy map, design a granny flat for their backyard, and build it. Our Mission; For property owners: provide floor plans via an editable HTML page (form options) and provide an exportable SVG file which can be used to import into architectural drafting software (or for a slippy map). Target groups; - seniors spending part of what they have and building a granny flat, or - younger people with a disability to save and build a granny flat. Accessible housing is housing designed for people who require step-free and barrier-free access and is able to accommodate wheelchair users in all areas of the home. Accessible housing allows the maximum time seniors can live in their home. The 4 main ways of getting into accessible housing (other than an aged care home or renting) is; 1) Buy an existing accessible dwelling in; - the private real estate market (rare), or - an over 55s lifestyle village with maintenance fees, a deferred management fee (DMF), or a departure fee. 2) Buy or convert an existing owned house/villa and convert it to accessible housing, 3) Buy land and build an accessible primary residence ($$$). 4) Build a granny flat; - by buying land with an old run-down house on it and building an accessible granny flat out the back, or - own an existing property and build an accessible granny flat out the back.

Links

Learn About Accessible Building Design: Living Housing Australia has a good PDF on accessible building design with silver, gold, and platinum standards. Accessible Stuff To Do: If your disabled in NSW/ACT then check out The Adaptive Movement for wheelchair sports, kayaking, sky diving, horse stuff and more. Calculate Wheelchair Range: If you need to calculate distances when going somewhere in an electric wheelchair then you can use SIX Maps (Govt. mapping site) on a desktop browser (not a mobile phone). It has a line tool that measures distance. SIX Maps also has a decent "imagery map" that zooms in with a fairly good resolution to check accessibility (also use Apple Maps and their street view photos).