As the man who pioneered the outdoor cinema business in Australia through Moonlight Cinema, James Tutton knows how to bring a community together. After Tutton sold his successful entertainment business in 2006, he turned his attention to a range of social and business ventures including Neometro, a design-focused and socially led development group in Melbourne. Tutton is also the co-founder of Smiling Mind, a digital meditation app and online resource for young people, a founding board member of the micro-donation platform Shout for Good and sits on the Australian board of B-Corporation and 3000acres. Here, he writes for The Real Estate Conversation about the development industry's need to focus on communities.

At times the development industry has a bad name. In the eyes of the general public we tend to sit somewhere on a spectrum between meth dealers and lawyers. It's sad to say, but this reputation is not entirely undeserved.  All too often design is simply used as a sales tool and not really respected or understood. We see this in the marketing - a kind of self congratulatory chest beating contest where by developers come up with inane tag lines like "affordable luxury design focused bespoke boutique lifestyle residences". Sure, I am making a bit of a joke about it but it's not far from the truth when it comes to the corny marketing from some of our less enlightened peers. We repeatedly see developer’s shallow attempts to try and weave insincere language around design and quality into their communications.

Why should we care about quality of design? Because buildings make up the very fabric of our cities. There is a strong argument that developers have a role (if not a responsibility) to play in the quality of our cities. After all, we are creating buildings that will be here long after we are dead and buried. To put it in context, which is the better city - one dominated by Central Equity type developers or one sprinkled with quality design contributions from Neometro, Kaylex, Piccolo and others?  

Maybe part of the difference in the quality of projects relates to the underlying ethos that drives different developers. At Neometro we take a view that the role of business is to return profits AND contribute to the broader community. If we do not feel a project is contributing to the city, to the people who will live in it, then we simply will not proceed. It's an ethical position that exists in almost all religions from Christian thinking, to Judaism and Buddhism - a golden rule which if applied to property reads, "if I would not live there, I can't expect others to”.

We don't see a commitment to positive non financial outcomes as being at the expense of financial outcomes. We are a growing, prospering and highly profitable company. Our non financial goals actually support our financial goals. Our team understand our vision, our capital partners share our vision and ultimately, so do apartment buyers.

Neometro, and our partners Besen, are embarking on what will be one of Melbourne's most interesting and progressive developments at Jewell Station in Brunswick. What we are creating is a kind of urban kibbutz - bike paths, performance spaces, art installations, meditation spaces, social enterprise food and beverage. We're working with our friends from 3,000 acres to build a very significant community garden. We've weaved a breadth of positive community and social assets into the very fabric of the project. We're doing this while also delivering on our design and financial objectives. We are big believers in business as a force for good.

This is one of the reasons why we were one of the first property developers in Australia to become a B Corp - a third party assessment around delivering on community, social and environmental benchmarks. Other B Corps include Patagonia, 5am Yoghurt, the Small Giants family office. It's not a bunch of tree hugging lefties - rather we are serious business people who want to make a positive impact on the world. Developers can embrace this ethos in a number of ways, from driving positive gender balance within their internal culture, supporting the arts, enhancing the streetscape, creating community gardens and designing buildings that support mental and physical wellbeing.  

Recently, the team at Neometro became aware of a study commissioned by the National Heart Foundation, Prepared by Professor Billie Giles-Corti from the University of Western Australia. The study "Increasing density in Australia: maximising the health benefits and minimising harm" investigates the health impacts of medium-high density living. This valuable work reveals many truths about the flow-on effects of increased density in Australian housing — some of which present wonderful opportunities for Neometro and the wider development industry to learn and hence improve our projects. These include incorporating elements within a development that encourage physical activity – bike/walking paths, exercise stations, and generous gardens. Factors like crowding, noise, air quality, poor light, social interaction and diminished access to public open spaces are key potential causes of poor mental health within a residential development. Our hope is that with such clear insights we can collectively use the power of good design to combat these issues to ensure the wellbeing of our residents.

We believe we can do better as an industry in creating spaces that positively impact the community and the residents whilst also making good business sense.