Smart growth down under

Australia and New Zealand are making their own way along a new urbanist path. While Australia and New Zealand share many of the challenges facing North America, there are also some important differences in both context and outcomes. Proactive government programs, a greater acceptance of the importance of planning, and vital city centers all play a role. Among the outcomes are several significant new urbanist city- and state-wide codes and infill projects initiated by the public sector in collaboration with private developers. Australia is roughly the size of the continental US, but with only 19 million people, concentrated mostly around the seven major cities and along the coasts. New Zealand, a country of 3 million people, lies some 2,500 miles to the east. Auckland (pop. 1 million) is the largest city. Inner cities are more popular and valued than the urban fringe. Good rail-based public transport networks exist in Melbourne, Sydney, and Wellington (NZ), and are being improved in Perth, Brisbane, and Auckland. As a result, cities do not have the strong “donut” effect that many US cities have, where the inner areas have died, and the population moved out to the fringe. Australian and New Zealand cities are an interesting hybrids of European and US cities, taking the best from both. This dense, mixed-use, urban fabric has played a vital role in inspiring New Urbanism in Australia. Conventional suburban development Australia and New Zealand share with North America the affliction of sprawl, but important distinctions exist. Because of an ongoing link to UK planning philosophy and a greater community commitment to “public good” over individual rights, planning is more accepted. The Australian states have relatively strong planning controls, whereas local governments do not have anywhere near the level of power and competitiveness present in some areas of the US. As a result, sprawl has been more carefully managed by town planning departments, usually at the state government level. Its negative effects are less pronounced, because infrastructure is more thoroughly planned, and cities have expanded in an orderly sequence. Conventional development patterns and planning and zoning philosophies are widely entrenched at all levels of government and in the development industry. Yet, the strong planning structure has also provided an excellent basis for a transition toward New Urbanism over the last twelve years, as public-sector planners and designers have joined forces with forward-thinking politicians. Genesis In the late 1980s, the Ministry for Planning in the State of Victoria began to systematically transform growth in Melbourne with strong programs for both urban consolidation and more sustainable urban extensions. Codes, including VicCode and the Good Design Guide, were introduced as regulatory instruments across Melbourne in the early 1990s and still guide growth there. By the end of the 1990s, state and local governments had virtually all revised their policies, generally espousing sustainable growth management philosophies, transit-oriented development, and urban consolidation. However, as in North America, the built results are generally disappointing, due to limited skills in design and implementation, and a lack of political stamina. outcomes Compared with the US, the progress of New Urbanism in Australia and New Zealand is less dependent on isolated showcase projects. Several cities and towns (Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Auckland, Waitakere, Midland, Gerringong, and others) have new urbanist growth strategies and/or codes which are achieving incremental but systemic transformations with multiple projects of various sizes and types, and on sites with many owners. Some of these cities officially use the term New Urbanism, while others do not. Local governments are applying new urbanist principles at the regional level, as well as focusing on details of individual projects. Infill projects are more advanced in Australia and New Zealand than projects on the urban fringe, in part because most cities still have vital centers. Moreover, many of the bigger projects are joint ventures, initiated by the public sector with private sector funding and development expertise. With these projects, the public sector has been leading both the market and design toward New Urbanism. Western Australia The State of Western Australia (WA) is becoming a new urbanist leader, in terms of regulation, subregional structuring, and new urbanist fringe and infill developments. The state has only 3 million people, with 1 million living in Perth, but has a growing economy and population. A key to WA’s transformation toward New Urbanism is its strong state regulatory structure. The state government controls all subdivision, regional decision-making, and location and quantity of retail, laying the foundation for a relatively quick and decisive turnaround toward New Urbanism. In 1995 Evan Jones, WA planning implementation director, triggered an enquiry-by-design exercise comparing the present sprawl design for a 5,000-hectare (12,350-acre) section of Perth’s northern growth corridor to a new urbanist design. Ecologically Sustainable Design co-led the exercise with Taylor Burrell. Key sustainability indicators were compared for both designs, and the results inspired the state to fundamentally change its direction for growth and development. The WA Liveable Neighbourhoods Community Design Code was launched in 1997 as a regulatory option. It now underlies about 75 percent of major development extensions in the state. A strong culture of public/private partnerships has developed to further professional practice in the state and to achieve mutually beneficial project outcomes. Dense and often mixed-use infill development in Perth has been selling well, and four urban centers are undergoing revitalization. A site 40 kilometers from Perth’s center, well beyond the present urban fringe, might seem an odd location for WA’s bestselling development, but the transitional new urbanist town of Ellenbrook (projected population of 30,000) has been that for the past three years. Mike Day of the Roberts Day UrbanGroup and developers Morella Pty. Ltd. conceived and designed the project. It’s success in the market can be attributed to the combination of small, mixed-use neighborhood centers, an early primary school temporarily housed in an office building, community activities and services, homes on small lots fronting parks, and attractive, walkable streets. The main town center is in the design stage. Reshaping suburban centers The City of Waitakere, NZ, a large, low-density municipality in Greater Auckland (population 150,000), has long had the potential to transform its centers into transit-oriented urban villages. Most of these centers are located along a little-used rail line. Moreover, the area had a number of under-utilized sites, progressive zoning codes, motivated land owners, and a growing passenger rail system. However, by their own admission, neither the city nor their local consultants were having much success implementing their policies. The turnaround began in 1996, when Council decided to improve its staff’s urban design skills, and involved the public in planning for the regional centers of New Lynn, Glen Eden, and Henderson. A six-day Sustainable Design Training Workshop was held for staff, elected officials, and local consultants. Council staff members were so turned on that they voluntarily stayed up all night to complete their projects for the final review. Two months later that staff joined forces with a small team of outside consultants to conduct the New Lynn charrette. New Lynn had large areas of disused industrial land, no pulse in the development market, and a blighted, under-used, bus/rail interchange. To make matters worse, the enclosed Lynn Mall shopping center dominated the town center, and severely weakened the nearby shops. The charrette provided a new structure for the public realm, and designed several key sites within a ten-minute walk of the town center. Lynn Mall was encouraged to move to a new street in the heart of town. Five years later, New Lynn has over 500 medium density dwellings within the walking catchment of the town center. The new street has a post office, bank, and community center on one side, and the Lynn Mall on the other. The housing market has boomed, and a five-story apartment building has been built near the town center. Initially grateful for any development, Council made a few mistakes. The unexpected pace and pressure of development quickly surpassed Council’s ability to deal with it efficiently and compromises were made. A cul-de- sac of pie-shaped lots, each more than two and a half acres, was sold off for residential development, even though the charrette proposed a resubdivision into interconnected streets and urban blocks. Also, some medium-density developments do not front their streets well. But the early mistakes have not been repeated. Waitakere Council has moved on to other centers with better skills, more experience, and a reorganized staff comprised of multi- disciplinary “place teams” instead of independent departments. Waitakere has even set up a financially successful development arm to lead the market and catalyze further positive development. Infill in Melbourne Beacon Cove is a dense, mixed-use, 30-hectare, infill development fronting Port Philip Bay, five kilometers by tram from the center of Melbourne. Completed this year, Beacon Cove has been the best selling and most lauded development in Victoria for several years. It is a joint venture between Mirvac, a major Australian developer, and the Major Projects Unit of the State of Victoria. The brownfield project began in 1992 with a $30 million (Australian dollars) cleanup cost, amidst extreme controversy between the state and the local community, deep in the trough of the global recession. The state conducted Australia’s second charrette, co-led by Paul Murrain and Wendy Morris. The local community regained trust in the project as a result of the charrette process. The project connects to the surrounding community with an open street network and a public bay front, and has a small mixed-use center at the tram station. The diverse residential development ranges from townhouses to three-story, attached live/work dwellings to twelve-story towers along the bay. Despite initial concern that two-story detached dwellings might not sell in this market, Beacon Cove has far exceeded anyone’s absorption and profit projections and has triggered a redevelopment boom along the adjoining shoreline and inland for kilometers. Sweeping change While there may be different governmental and cultural contexts in Australia and New Zealand, sprawl is an international problem which needs to be tackled with a vigor equal to CNU’s efforts in the United States. The Charter principles are valid for Australian and New Zealand contexts, but our practice will yield new urbanist results different from those in North America. It is important that American solutions are not unthinkingly applied. New Urbanism is being positioned as a sustainable form of development that performs well in the market. The underlying philosophy is to redirect virtually all development toward a more sustainable form, rather than to create islands of new urbanist neighborhoods in a sea of sprawl. To date, the best examples of policies and projects are found in Western Australia, Melbourne, and more recently in Greater Auckland, as that city embraces a plan for a massive upgrade of its public transport system. The authors have worked on several of the projects mentioned above including Beacon Cove, Waitakere, and Western Australia.