The attractive feature has an early advantage
Some residential features arrive in a product discussion with an advantage that has little to do with the frequency of their eventual use. They are easy to photograph, describe and imagine during a viewing. A guest suite can suggest hospitality and a richer way of living. A storage room is less dramatic. I do not think that makes the guest suite superficial or the storage room automatically more valuable. It does mean that the product discussion needs to give both uses a fair hearing before the visual appeal of one feature has quietly decided how the shared space should be allocated.
Our fictional 2018 proposal contained six guest suites. In the accompanying review, forty-two of seventy-two participating households discussed overnight visitors while thirty discussed resident storage. These accounts did not produce a mechanical instruction to divide the space in proportion to the numbers. They made two needs visible within the same limited allocation. If the discussion had begun and ended with the six-suite concept, storage could have been treated as a later operational problem or a less important request. I wanted it considered as part of the residential product before the more attractive feature became the unchallenged starting point.
Graham Kelvenby supported the six suites. His view reflected a real commercial consideration: the guest amenity was easier to explain as something distinctive about the community. I agreed that visitors matter to residents and that a shared guest proposition could have a useful place. My disagreement concerned the space it displaced. A product choice cannot be fully examined by considering only the benefits of the feature selected. The alternative use of the same area belongs in the account, particularly when it addresses a problem residents will encounter among the possessions they bring into their daily lives.
A smaller amenity can be a deliberate product choice
We selected four guest suites and two equivalent rooms for storage, with A$2.6 million development. This was not a claim that four suites would always be enough or that two rooms would solve every resident’s storage needs. The detailed product and operating arrangements still needed to be developed and assessed. It was a decision to give both uses a place in the brief. The guest offer became smaller, and the storage offer became explicit. The choice gave up part of a strong amenity presentation in order to investigate a more balanced account of how the shared space would serve the community.
I want the reduction from six suites to four stated plainly. Product stories sometimes describe every revision as an addition, using language that makes it sound as though the team preserved all earlier benefits while creating more. That hides the judgement. In this case, two potential guest suites were removed from the proposal. Another need received their equivalent allocation. Whether that was the right choice is something a reader can consider only if both sides are present. A complete account should not make the alternative disappear merely because the leader ultimately preferred a different mix.
The household observations also had limits. Forty-two accounts of an overnight-visitor need were not forty-two bookings, and thirty storage accounts were not a complete measure of every future storage request. The review did not establish a rent increase or an occupancy effect. I would not borrow those stronger claims to make the development decision sound more decisive. Its purpose was to identify needs worth considering together and choose a product direction for further work. The relationship between that direction and actual usage would need to be examined through appropriate later evidence rather than announced in advance.
There is a tendency to label ordinary needs as functional and attractive features as experiential, then discuss the second category as though it is inherently more strategic. I find that separation misleading in a home. The ability to keep an awkward possession somewhere suitable can affect how a resident experiences the place every day. Equally, an occasional visitor can matter greatly despite using an amenity infrequently. The product question is not which category deserves a more impressive label. It is how the intended community’s uses compete for the available space and what the business is prepared to develop and sustain.
The home after the viewing
This is why I return to the period after the viewing. During a first visit, an empty room can hold many imagined possibilities. After occupation, possessions, routines and service conditions make those possibilities more specific. A shared feature needs a way of being used that residents and operators can understand. The product brief should therefore be connected to the operating account from the beginning. Selecting storage rooms does not settle their allocation, access or management. Selecting guest suites does not settle every booking condition. The feature and the service around it are related parts of the proposition, not separate stories completed by different teams in isolation.
My current subsidiary nominee role reinforces that point, although the 2018 choice preceded that appointment. A promise made in the residential product can become a continuing service obligation for an operating entity. The board account needs to understand whether the responsible team has a workable way to fulfil it. I would not turn the board into the place where every room allocation is designed. I would want directors to be able to see that the product priorities, operating responsibilities and resources are consistent. The attractive feature should not reach approval with its ongoing service conditions treated as an issue somebody will solve later.
For a CPO, the practical discipline is to make the displaced use visible before the feature list hardens. Ask what the selected amenity removes, whose activity is then left unsupported and whether another mix deserves examination. Keep the research in its proper scope and report the actual stage reached. The four-suite decision is useful to me because it contains a cost as well as an intention. I chose less of a feature that could be presented persuasively, in order to give an ordinary need a deliberate place. A residential proposition becomes more substantial when it can explain that choice without relying on the photograph to finish the argument.