Last updated on January 29th, 2024 at 10:18 am
prior to 2004
The Lochiel Park property once belonged to a succession of orchardists and market gardeners, the first of which was Campbell. He originally built Lochend House which is now owned and maintained by the Campbelltown Council. The two storey Lochiel Park House was originally built by James Mundy in the 1850s. In 1947, the Government of South Australia bought Lochiel Park House which sat on 53 acres to establish a reform school for boys. Over the years, various State government departments used the property to establish training facilities including VET training in horticulture.
The Campbelltown Council wanted to develop Lochiel Park as a low density housing estate. However, many Campbelltown residents including influential councillors at the time wanted better use of the land.
This generated some interest amongst members of our local gardening group who thought the land could be repurposed for a mixed use development. In winter 2002, a group of us walked around the site to imagine its potential. The video below is a montage of photos of the Lochiel Park area before its transformation.anted better use of the land.
2004
The then Rann Labor government believed that a unique development would provide the research community with an opportunity to showcase a sustainable housing project. The land passed to Renewal SA, which was responsible for overseeing the development of the Green Village. The University of South Australia was given the task of gathering the metrics to help generate energy efficiency data.
2007
By 2007, Lochiel Park Green Village was well underway. The parameters and successes of the design are detailed in a presentation by John Blaess, Sandy Rix, Andrew Bishop, Phil Donaldson and Land Management Corporation entitled: Lochiel Park – A Nation Leading Green Village in 2007 at the University of New South Wales as part of papers listed in the Australian Cities and Regionals Network.
2015
By 2015, the main community had been constructed and many of its residents were beginning to think about building a community and restoring the surrounding environment to its original state. Josh Byrne of Gardening Australia fame visited the site to discover not only the energy efficiency of individual houses but the community which was taking root. He produced this video:
2020
Since its inception, Lochiel Park has contributed to our understanding of how communities use energy. Professor Wasim Saman from the University of South Australia discusses the importance of Lochiel Park development as a rich source of data for zero carbon living in housing in the video below. For example, the analysis of the development over the last 10 years has demonstrated that energy consumption is one third of a typical Australian home. The information gathered by the researchers is available for use both nationally and internationally to help community design reach carbon neutrality.