Page 2128 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 May 2013
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Tania Asper from the Yarra Ranges Council outlined its urban triangle project which is seeking to create a self-contained community linking in the suburbs of Lilydale, Chirnside Park and Mooroolbark through urban renewal and local job creation. Lilydale is a major activity centre. Chirnside Park has experienced a lot of growth in residential and mixed use developments. Mooroolbark has a neighbourhood activity centre, a village high street and an old shopping centre. They all have individual structure and master plans and the project is aimed at integrating and implementing the plans through cross-organisational collaboration.
The challenges to be faced include cultural change, ensuring there is a commitment to act and budget availability. Tania concluded with an additional proposal to decommission the Lilydale lime quarry to make way for a new suburb and the implications that this would have on the urban area.
The next presentation was from Clare Wall of SGS Economics and Planning. She discussed planning for affordable housing and asked: what does affordable housing mean and how do we measure it? She outlined some of the measures of affordable housing, including the proportion of income spent on housing, the percentage of income required to achieve home purchase and the proportion of dwellings in areas that are affordable. Other associated issues include the relative affordability for renters vis-a-vis buyers, the quality and size of housing, overcrowding where there is no other choice, the costs associated with journeys to work or services and energy costs, of course—heating for the property.
To address the problem of housing affordability, a number of initiatives on the supply side can be adopted: smaller plot sizes, smaller houses and increased housing densities; planning and regulatory reforms to improve efficiency; setting aside a proportion of the new dwelling estates to be public and affordable housing; direct subsidies; and the deferred payment schemes. The latter two approaches have been realised in the commonwealth’s housing affordability fund and the ACT’s land rent scheme respectively. Other measures that could be considered include better up-front strategic planning, including reducing car park requirements, reducing barriers to innovation—for example, in housing design—and ensuring a consistent approach across jurisdictions.
Sustainable development is the key to the future growth of our cities. In his presentation Steve Rossiter from Elton Consulting addressed an area that often receives less attention in city planning, that of social rather than environmental sustainability. Continuing the theme raised by the Prince of Wales in his broadcast earlier in the day, Steve highlighted the research and everyday experiences that demonstrate the interrelationship between the physical form of a city and the social fabric of society, and observed that we are better at doing the buildings.
However, he acknowledged that the concepts of cohesion, quality of life, sense of community and wellbeing are more esoteric and difficult to grasp and measure, making it difficult to define social sustainability. He outlined an evaluation that was undertaken of the UK’s new towns policy. These are towns that were planned, developed and built after the Second World War primarily to decongest larger
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