A RESIDENTIAL apartment building that promises to shake-up traditional real estate models by selling homes at below-market rates is coming to WA, backed by one of the State’s top developers.

Don Fini has teamed up with two architects to bring Melbourne’s Nightingale housing project to Fremantle.

Mr Fini, who has spent a career building housing projects across WA, says the Nightingale project brings low-cost, sustainable housing to inner-city locations and is a game changer.

“The business-as-usual model has flaws, especially with affordability,” he said.

“With Nightingale, profit isn’t the prime driver. They’re trying to balance the books between profit, sustainability, financial and social sustainability and community.”

Nightingale, a concept devised by architects in Melbourne, are apartment buildings designed with future residents, putting sustainability initiatives front and centre.

Funded by ethical investors whose returns are capped, the apartments are sold at below-market rates with owners only able to resell for what they paid plus any average increases in the area.

There is also an element of “co-housing” in the design, with residents sharing certain facilities such as gardens and a laundry.

One prototype apartment block has been built in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, but 18 of the projects are being developed around the country with 2000 people on a waiting list in Melbourne wanting to buy into a Nightingale project.

Mr Fini has teamed up with Dimitri Kapetas and Dave Delahunty of EHDO architects to bring the first such development to WA. Called EHDO Nightingale Fremantle, it will consist of 12 apartments and be built on land owned by Kapetas on the corner of Wood and Blinco streets in Fremantle.

Nightingale co-founder and general manager Jessie Hochberg said the project aimed to give people a say in how they wanted to live.

“Consumers and purchasers have completely lost agency in the housing market and that’s a really bad outcome, not only for them but for the community and our urban environment,” she said.

“What we’ve seen the market providing is the owner-occupier model. For younger families, this generally means they are living on the outskirts of the city and separated from schools, services and jobs.”

Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt is supportive of the project and said the council would be willing to bend regulations to help Nightingale achieve their “deep green” initiatives.

He said the council was also developing a similar concept dubbed “Baugruppen” — or assemblies — for a building in Quarry Street in the port city.

Dr Pettitt said he was impressed when visiting in Germany, where 1800 “Baugruppen” apartment buildings have been built in Hamburg in the past decade.

People interested in becoming part of the EHDO Nightingale Fremantle project can visit nightingalehousing.org for more information.