Program 3: Engaged Communities
Intensification of development that is required in established and occupied inner and middle suburban greyfield areas (retrofit) is the great challenge for our fast growing Australian cities. The scale of urban regeneration required over the next 30 years has the potential to reduce carbon emissions, improve housing affordability and reduce urban sprawl. It is also financially attractive because it utilizes existing infrastructure and unlocks underutilized land value.
This project will deliver new workable processes, standards and certification procedures, drawing on state of the art design and assessment tools, which enable community groups to work with local governments, state agencies and property developers, to co-design more sustainable, medium density, low carbon housing precincts. These procedures/protocols are designed to enable the type and rate of urban regeneration envisaged in all of the metropolitan strategic plans for Australia’s capital cities (70% infill targets for Sydney and Melbourne) by building trust, reducing conflict and increasing incentives, leading to reduced development costs and more sustainable neighbourhoods.
The project will work with: (i) industry partners to develop a detailed business model for low carbon neighbourhood regeneration, (ii) researchers and existing tool providers to develop the certification product, (iii) a leading practitioner in precinct regeneration and neighbourhood engagement to assure compliance with engagement protocols and (iv) three case study communities and their local governments to trial and validate the proposed processes, standards and activation utilisation procedures.
Program
Project leader
Dr Stephen Glackin, Swinburne University
Project status
Complete
Project period
07/2016 to 06/2019
- Publications
- Partners
Peer Reviewed Research Publications
RP3034: Journal Article: Full-stack engagement: vertical integration and process precursors that promote bottom-up urban transformation
Cities are comprised of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of small parcels of individually owned land. The fractured nature of these tenures, combined with the network of administrative and infrastructural bodies governing them, makes any form of significant and coordinated planning change incredibly complicated, if not untenable. This plurality, of both ownership and regulation, necessitates that stakeholder negotiation across the range of stakeholder groups is required to affect any meaningful change; particularly in an urban context.
This range of stakeholder engagement is referred to as “Full stack” in the presentation title. The term is taken from software engineering and refers to a form of programming that covers all levels of the software “stack”; from the machine code and its distribution through to the well-designed human interfaces. Similarly, “full stack engagement” is an engagement methodology that aims to traverses the complete hierarchy of stakeholders within a field of enquiry and vertically align all levels of stakeholder self-interest.
Rather than simply present yet another methodology, this paper also covers a worked example; illustrating how state government, local government, community members, infrastructure suppliers and a range of industry experts have been organised so as to promote precinct scale regeneration of the urban greyfields.
RP3034: Conference paper: Designing precincts in the densifying city - the role of planning support systems
Australia’s cities face significant social, economic and environmental challenges, driven by population growth and rapid urbanisation. The pressure to increase housing availability will lead to greater levels of high-density and medium-density stock. However, there is enormous political and community pushback against this. One way to address this challenge is to encourage medium-density living solutions through “precinct” scale development.
Precinct-scale development has the potential to include additional hard and soft infrastructure that may offset the perceived negativities of higher densities. As part of Australian research into precinct-scale development, and as part of our broader Smart Cities approach, or more specifically City Analytics approach, new digital planning tools - Envision and ESP - have been developed to support scenario planning and design needs. They utilise a datadriven and scenario planning approach underpinned by Geographic Information System (GIS) functionality.
This paper focuses on a case study in the City of Blacktown, Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. By 2036 Blacktown is forecast to grow to approximately 500,000 people (an increase of over 30%) and 180,000 dwellings. Most new dwellings will be delivered through urban infill. The Blacktown master plan promotes higher density housing, mixed employment uses and continued improvements to the public domain. Our study provides a unique opportunity to implement this broad strategy within a specific case and location. Specifically, this paper provides information on how these digital planning tools supported Blacktown planners in identifying, co-designing and implementing a new approach for precinct level planning. It also presents the results of an evaluation of digital-planning tools in the context of the Blacktown case study.
Designing precincts in the densifying city - the role of planning support systems (1067911 PDF)
CRCLCL Project Reports
RP3034: Report: Community co-design of low carbon precincts for urban regeneration in established suburbs
The intensification of development that is required in established and occupied inner and middle suburban greyfield areas (retrofit) is the great challenge for our fast-growing Australian cities. The scale of urban regeneration required over the next 30 years has the potential to reduce carbon emissions, improve housing affordability and reduce urban sprawl. It is also financially attractive because it utilises existing infrastructure and unlocks underutilized land value.
This project aimed to deliver new workable processes, standards and certification procedures, drawing on state- of-the-art design and assessment tools, which enable community groups to work with local governments, state agencies and property developers, to co-design more sustainable, medium density, low carbon housing precincts. These procedures/protocols were designed to enable the type and rate of urban regeneration envisaged in all of the metropolitan strategic plans for Australia’s capital cities (70% infill targets for Sydney and Melbourne) by building trust, reducing conflict and increasing incentives, leading to reduced development costs and more sustainable neighbourhoods.
The project initially aimed to work with industry partners, to develop a detailed business model for low carbon neighbourhood regeneration, researchers and existing tool providers, to develop the certification product, a leading practitioner in precinct regeneration and neighbourhood engagement, to assure compliance with engagement protocols and three communities and their local governments to trial and validate the proposed processes, standards and activation utilisation procedures. However, due to the significant timelines to de-risk the project for the municipalities implementing the process, the project required significant Whole of Government workshops in three municipalities, workshops with state government on the practicalities of statutory change, community engagement in only one municipality (due to the legislative requirements of formal engagement), engagement with industry partners and community engagement experts.
Community co-design of low carbon precincts for urban regeneration in established suburbs (5101527 PDF)
CRCLCL Presentations
RP3034: Conference Paper: A data driven collaborative planning approach for developing sustainable medium density housing in cities
Australia’s cities face significant social, economic and environmental challenges, driven by population growth and rapid urbanisation. The pressure to increase the availability of housing, including a move to a more compact urban form, will lead to greater levels of high-density and medium-density stock.
This research is attentive to the lack of medium-density dwellings and associated planning instruments to support and encourage increased medium-density living. It utilises a data-driven collaborative-planning approach, where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are employed in conjunction with local planners and the community to deliver a collaborative solution. In this paper, we focus on a case study undertaken in the City of Blacktown, Western Sydney. Importantly, this research offers a conceptual framework for future participatory-planning processes, though the actual community participation has not yet occurred.In practical terms, this research has several aims, including: identifying attractive urban-regeneration locations, exploring innovative ways to attract landowners to participate in neighbourhood (precinct) urban-regeneration planning, enhancing community-engagement and stakeholder-collaboration structures, and supporting statutory and local-government processes.
This research contributes to the growing knowledge base in the following areas: identifying suitable areas for medium-density housing, highlighting the necessary governance processes required, establishing data-driven approaches and digital-planning tools that can inform and enhance existing planning processes, and seeking to develop and assist in the application of new planning processes in order to streamline medium-density development. This paper also discusses community-engagement approaches that can enable the co-design process, which complements the use of digital-planning tools.