Suburban renewal – Greenfields of Opportunity

Paper prepared for the State of Australian Cities Conference

Perth, November, 2009

Suburban renewal – Greenfields of Opportunity

Authors

• Carmel Boyce - Corresponding Author

Social Planner, MPIA, CPP, City of Greater Geelong, Australia

P0 Box 104 Geelong, Vic, 3220

+610011 0352574702, +610015 0352574727, cboyce@geelongcity.vic.gov.au

• Jenny Donovan

Director/David Lock Associates/Australia

• Vicki Shelton

Coordinator Engineering Services/City of Greater Geelong/Australia

Word count - 4195

Suggested running head - changing sustainable outcomes for a township

Key words: social sustainability, place-based approaches, suburban renewal,

suburban regeneration

Suburban renewal – Greenfields of Opportunity

Abstract

This paper is a conversation about the opportunity provided to us to makeover our

suburban environments and incrementally improve their resiliance to climate change.

It is a paper about a single place, Leopold, on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, and

the lessons learnt from projects that have allowed us to rethink our response to

community infrastructure, social sustainability, and the centrality of walking to

community life.

It argues that attention be afforded to the suburbs and the latent potential these

places offer for renewal and regeneration. It argues against abandoning these places

in the rush to extend urban boundaries without first making a studious attempt to

provide environments which are thoughtful and have the potential to deliver

increasingly sustainable communities against the backdrop of a rapidly changing

environment.

The City of Greater Geelong has been rethinking its approach to promoting

increasingly sustainable community outcomes in its communities (?). As part of this

work we have undertaken both policy development and fine-grained responses in a

range of different environments, including dormitory communities (Leopold, Drysdale

and Clifton Springs) and disadvantaged urban communities (Corio, North Shore and

Norlane) and coastal communities (St Leonards, Indented Head and Portarlington).

This paper focuses on the experience of Leopold. .

Through the development process we have been refining an approach to regeneration

of peri-urban and suburban environments that we think lends itself to a broader

application. We think this work provides opportunity for thought, and potential for

application of this or similar models in suburban renewal. We have coined the phrase

‘Greenfields of Opportunity’ to encourage decision makers to think around how to reap

latent community benefit in environments where there is already a significant

investment in infrastructure rather than abandon or ignore the old, and build new

suburban environments.

One specific case for Suburban Renewal

For the City of Greater Geelong the starting point for this conversation was the

development of a concept plan for the Armstrongs Creek Growth area, and a curious

councillor’s question about why urban extensions to his extant peri-urban

environment, Leopold, were being treated differently to this. In order to understand the

nature of this conversation we need to understand the context of Leopold.

Insert Figure 1 Leopold – Street Layout

Leopold has long ago lost its rural township character and has become an amorphous

sprawling free-standing relatively low density settlement in the hinterland of a major

provincial Australian city. Leopold has been developed over fifty years as a

residential community in the middle of rural land and reflects the many fashions in

development over that time, including fashions where footpaths were built on both

sides of the road, on one side of the road, or not at all. Leopold’s street network at the

centre of early development ran north south and east west. Urban extensions over

time have introduced circular routes, courts and dead-end streets limiting permeability

and connectivity throughout the settlement. The township is fractured by two

highways, fast moving roads and characterised by poor connectivity.

As with many suburban environments Leopold’s footpath network were generally not

been provided in the course of the initial sub-division, and have had to be retrofitted

as a joint responsibility between the Council and community at a later stage of

development. Many existing footpaths are older, at the end of their working life, and in

a relatively poor state of repair.

Leopold’s community support networks are also limited in the amenity they offer.

Although some community services and community amenities have been provided,

overall the community is not well serviced by community infrastructure that one would

consider acceptable for a community of the current size, or appropriate for the twenty

first century. Much of the infrastructure is on constrained sites, and accommodated in

buildings nearing the end of their working life which limits their ability to provide

services or consequently to meet needs .

For much of the fifty years residents have relied on two small shopping strips, each

containing a small local supermarket, one containing a post office, located mid-block

on each side of the highway. Until a new shopping complex was opened down the

Leopold hill in 2006, most residents would drive for most other things and particularly

for weekly shopping but also including unmet kindergarten and childcare needs,

library and community health provision to the nearest urban or regional centres,

respectively either seven or twelve kilometres down the highway. This trip was most

likely to be taken by car. There is no formal town centre, no main street, and no formal

town meeting place.

The dispersed nature of social infrastructure provision and impermeable street pattern

requires residents to make many single purpose trips and maximises the distance a

resident needs to travel to meet their needs, such as delivering children to school,

getting to the shops, accessing public transport, childcare or sporting opportunities.

This inconvenience is felt particularly strongly by those people who do not have

access to a car..

Leopold resident’s social outcomes reflect their social and environmental

circumstances. Typically resident incomes and workforce participation, particularly

amongst women, and early retirees were lower than average for Greater Geelong.

Multiple car ownership rates are higher. Lower educational outcomes were evidenced

in a higher proportion of skilled tradespersons compared to other local areas.

A quarter of residents self-selected as not exercising sufficiently to meet the National

Physical Activity Guidelines, and where residents did walk they were more likely to

walk to the local strip shops more than anywhere else. No-one in Leopold admitted to

walking to community infrastructure (Boyce, C.; 2007).

Defining Sustainability to change outcomes

Clearly at Geelong we needed to think around the qualities of sustainability,

particularly those relating to social sustainability in order to transform Leopold’s

social, economic and environmental outcomes.

In 2006 we commissioned Urbis (Cooper, Maxine.; 2006) to develop a paper on the

qualities of social sustainability for implementation in a local government context. At a

high level, socially sustainable communities were defined as creating communities

that are vibrant, liveable and resilient. In Cooper’s paper sustainable communities

characteristically maintained and enhanced health well being and quality of life. They

satisfied people’s social needs and create supportive social environments.

Sustainable communities were healthy, safe and liveable. Sustainable communities

engage social resources sustainably to build strong resilient communities.

Sustainable communities do this in a fair and equitable manner, allowing people a say

in shaping their future.

In Cooper’s model, qualities were refined into themes: access and equity; health and

well-being; identity and expression; developing community life with others; and

sustainable resource use. Although arranged a little differently, the model is

consistent with that currently being taught in the sustainable communities course by

the HCA Academy in the United Kingdom (HCA Academy; 2009; p.3).

Insert Figure 2 here

Taking a finer and more detailed approach, the elements of each of these qualities

were further detailed in order to develop particular and appropriate local responses.

For access and equity detailed elements were: local access, housing choice, mobility,

connected to the outside world, socially cohesive and inclusive. Health and well being

promoted the use of design to create safe, high quality attractive environments,

pedestrian friendly so encourage active lifestyles, access to open space and

opportunity. Identity and Expression referred to the capacity of a place to offer

opportunity through activities and design that was memorable, distinctive, place

making, and promoted civic pride. Developing community life with others promoted

the opportunity for people to engage in cohesive, quality processes to engage, foster

belonging and involvement promoting opportunity to join activities, and share

experiences. Sustainable communities were promoted through sustainable resource

use where all resources, human, environment and economic, were monitored and

evaluated to ensure potential for continuous change and improvement.

Our intention was to use these principles, qualities and elements together with the

community vision for Leopold from the Bellarine Peninsula Strategic Plan (City of

Greater Geelong; 2006; p.60) to assist in planning a more sustainable future. This

vision made detailed reference to elements that promoted health, connectivity and

walking as well as quite specific recommendations about the provision of and location

of community infrastructure. Elements of sustainability were further refined to account

for the specific conditions and aspirations of the Leopold community. We understood

this approach to be consistent with application of Hardi and Zdan’s ‘Bellagio

Principles for designing sustainability indicators’ (McCool, S. F. and Stankey, G. H.;

2004; p.300).

For Leopold we were able to confirm a set of principles, and then develop multiple

projects each with discrete components to incrementally move to an increasingly

sustainable community. In simple terms this meant establishing targets for overall

elements of sustainability, and then for each discrete project, and then understanding

what was possible to achieve within each potential project addressing accessibility

and amenity etc, and delivering those components. Monitoring and evaluating

progress towards sustainability was a necessary component both a pre-and post

project to assess progress.

In Leopold we settled on two projects ‘Leopold Strategic Footpath Network’ (David

Lock Associates and PBAI; 2007)and ‘Leopold Community Hub, Concept Design’

(David Lock Associates; 2008) to deliver significant components of the Leopold vision

through a sustainable community prism.

Insert Figure 3 Leopold Strategic Footpath Network here

Insert Figure 4 Leopold Community Hub here

Together these projects were designed to deliver a high quality and high amenity

footpath network and community hub. The footpath network was designed to change

the balance of influences on people’s behaviour to encourage more people to walk

walk more often. The community hub was designed to reconcile several whole of

community aspirations including delivering amenity for youth, a library, community

meeting spaces and environmental interpretive centre, appropriate and connected

services for families and children, a business enterprise hub, a town square, potential

farmers market space, and amphitheatre, with community gardens bounding

environmentally sensitive and educational open space (Cooper, Maxine; 2006).

Design That Articulates Issues Relating To Social Sustainability

Reports provided by Urban Design consultants addressed desired social sustainability

objectives required from the design. For the community hub the design referenced

back to underlying social sustainability principles, qualities, elements and local

responses including;

• Providing equity and accessibility for all people

• Connecting to key activity centers and to public transport

• Integrating multiple functions to foster community partnerships and efficient

sharing of resources

• Showcasing tenets of ecological sustainability

• Incorporating Safe Design Principles including surveillance, legibility, integrated

lighting, appropriate signage (David Lock Associates; 2008; p.10-11).

In designing the Strategic Footpath Network the designers took an educational and

advocacy approach. They argued that ‘Where people do not walk much their quality of

life will be compromised in terms of the quality and range of social opportunities

available to them and the vitality of their community.’(David Lock Associates and

PBAI; 2007; p.9) In doing so the designers placed walking as a core characteristic of a

socially sustainable community.

They went on to flesh out their argument for walkability being located centrally to a

sustainable community.

“With the retreat from the street as a setting for social exchange (Engwicht

1999) and the loss of the common ground, friends are made amongst your

neighbours despite, and not because of, the environment, and if children do

play they do so at great risk to themselves and great worry to their parents.”

In relation to community vitality, in places where people don’t walk the public

realm will have to a large extent been abandoned as a setting for social

interaction and with it both the quality and quantity of social interactions

available to people will have been diminished. The degree to which this is a

problem is not borne equally by all members of society. If your environment

does not facilitate walking, but walking is the only option you have to get to

places you want to go then you are immediately disadvantaged by your

environment. With the increasing polarisation and specialisation of towns and

cities, opportunities to do things that contribute to our quality of life may be

available somewhere in a neighbourhood or a town, but if you can’t get to

them they might as well be a million miles away. Footpaths that are deserted

are more threatening places to many (Engwicht 1999).

Assessing Design Against Sustainable Community Targets

We have established a detailed roadmap towards an increasingly sustainable

Leopold. By designing the project through leading with a principled approach, we have

been able to identify the exact elements we sought to achieve while identifying how

these would indicate progress towards sustainability.

For us the first challenge was to establish whether we could indeed achieved these in

the design solutions we settled on. This meant going back to the principles, elements,

overall targets and project specific targets to identify whether they had the potential to

successfully deliver sustainable outcomes.

In assessing progress we undertook a number of discrete exercises. The first was a

relatively simple audit of both designs to understand whether each project delivered

the components we identified in the project brief, and understand whether they were

likely to deliver against sustainability targets set in construction and delivery. By better

and more detailed understanding how the specific elements might be delivered

through design, and to what extent we could hope to achieve targets set, were able to

refine targets and refine them in respect of outcomes indicated in the design, and or

refine the design to achieve particular aspects. This exercise resulted in clarity around

ultimate on-site achievements.

The audit extended to potential off-site contributions to social sustainability. In the

audit we clearly experienced the challenge from competing objectives from the sale of

other Council land identified or currently used for community purposes for funding the

redevelopment, against the use of these assets both for sale and to further a

sustainable community agenda.

We assessed where the proposed community hub sat in respect of prominent

planning theorists and schools of planning theory. Christopher Alexander’s in ‘A

Pattern Language’ (1977; p.164) refers to the objective... “to create concentrations of

people in a community, facilities must be grouped densely round very small public

squares which can function as nodes – with all pedestrian movement in the

community organized to pass through these nodes.” The combined Hub concept

design together with the intersecting strategic footpath meets Alexander’s higher order

objectives. However it only addresses Alexander’s multiple activity nodes where it

refers to the roles played by the two smaller shopping precincts.

We assessed the hub in respect of accessibility and equity both from a disability and

access perspective but also by extending this analysis to test for innate design bias

towards a population sub-group, gender or ability in line with critique by planning

commentators including Clara Greed(2006).

We undertook a formal Health Impact Assessment of the Strategic Footpath

component [HIA] (Boyce, C. and Shelton, V.; 2008) to assess for the strategic

footpath’s design capacity to promote health and well being. In this report we

examined the global evidence on health, physical activity, walking and community

design, and tested whether the remedies proposed for network design had the

capacity to deliver better health and physical activity outcomes for more people. In

general the HIA found that there was very little we could do to make it worse. The HIA

recommended strategies to ensure that staging of the project was prioritized against

risk, that missing elements particularly traffic treatments across the highway were

addressed, and that the construction phase did not inappropriately disrupt those who

are most generally walking dependant.

The HIA recommend monitoring and evaluation throughout the projects course and

including in the post build stages. Separately we agreed to undertake monitoring and

evaluation of both the community hub and strategic footpath design. We are keen to

understand how this design works, how it might be tracking in terms of achieving

social sustainability, and how it works for the community to ensure we learn both from

the process, and the learning’s that result from the project.

Lessons Learned

For us it would have been helpful for Council have agreed on the higher order social

sustainability objectives for the whole of the township Township rather than project

specific targets at the outset. It would also have been helpful to have agreement on

how these might be delivered in through specific projects, and cascaded down. As it

stands, it remains possible that some of the broader possible sustainability potential

on other sites may be compromised in an enthusiasm to deliver the combined

projects.

It would also have been helpful to have decision makers knowledgeable about a more

complex accounting methodology capable of incorporating sustainability principles,

objectives and targets. It would also have been helpful to have Council more

comfortable with testing the market, and generating responses capable of achieving

social sustainability outcomes that underscore its sustainability agenda, before

undertaking this exercise.

Where to from Here – Pursuing Greenfields of Opportunity in other Locations

We argue that despite lessons learnt it is important to commence a journey towards

increasing social sustainability within existing suburban environments. The fact that

there will be mistakes made should not stop us from pushing the envelope.

We acknowledge the significant body of literature decrying outcomes from sprawling

suburban development and for suburbanites from Lewis Mumford (1961), Jane

Jacobs (1961), more recently James Kunstler (1993) as well as recent literature on

specific literature on the Australian context (Dodson, J.; 2006; Harris, C.; 2007; Troy,

P.; 2004). We understand the evidence on the impact of the environment on public

health (Deipeuch, F., Maire, B. et al.; 2009; Frank, L. D., Engelke, P. O. et al.; 2003;

Frumkin, H., Frank, L. et al.; 2004; Greed, C.; 2006; Mead, E., Dodson, J. et al.; 2006;

Stephenson, J., Bauman, A. et al.; 2000; Victorian Auditor General; 2007). We

acknowledge a persuasive case has been made for not continuing to build new

outlying suburban environments. We would however question, regardless of identified

deficiencies of these environments from spatial inequality and disadvantage (Baum,

S., O'Connor, K. et al.; 2005)and the resulting environmental and social costs,

whether this is sufficient reason for abandoning the suburbs and suburbanites

While we might well build newer, and potentially more sustainable environments in

newer sub-divisions and developments, these by and large provide only limited, or

incremental improvements in the social sustainability on existing suburban

environments. Importantly existing urban environments have the benefit of existing

infrastructure still capable of use or re-use through creative and sensitive design

interventions, and contain existing populations that remain attached to their shared

surroundings and their bonds with the people they share their neighbourhood with and

who are arguably quite capable of adaption, and deserving of our investment in their

social and overall well-being outcomes. We argue that our obligations under the Local

Government Act (State of Victoria; 1989) and the Charter for Human Rights (State of

Victoria; 2006) demands nothing less.

For Greater Geelong, after developing and rolling out the process described above,

and thinking through the potential for change, we have commenced a long and

convoluted exercise in regeneration of existing environments. As a next nascent step

we recently led a community planning exercise in Corio, North Shore and Norlane

headlining with a discussion of social sustainability principles and what local

governments role might be in delivering on them. We have been working with

communities to project their future through this prism. It is interesting to watch people

respond to these the promotion of qualities and to track differences in aspirations

between diverse populations. It is fascinating to ponder the practice stretch required to

deliver within these neighbourhoods contexts that are walkable, provide for the basic

requirements of daily life, and deliver on amenity required to support vibrant liveable

and resilient communities.

As planners responsible for the built environment in a local context, we have an

important role to play. We argue this role includes promotion and facilitation of

community engagement in better informed and community based planning. We have

a responsibility to educate communities on ways of achieving social sustainability

locally and empower them to do so. We argue that our role is appropriately delivered

through promoting knowledge about the qualities of social sustainability, the

relationship that planning has on a persons potential to thrive and reach their potential

and in creating tools for planners and community to implement sustainable outcomes.

Within the current planning context and framework in Victoria there are limited

opportunities to achieve significant change in suburban environments. For local

government it would require taking a significantly different approach to place. In

Geelong for instance it would require re-organization of the current planning system to

install place managers in all environments, rather than limiting them to central and

notable activity centres. It would require articulation of an explicit value system

supporting socially sustainable communities, and for particular strategies to be

developed in the Municipal Strategic Statement for local areas, in local policies, and

for these to be cascaded throughout the municipal policy framework down to structure

plans, and into specific local area plans. It would also require more time and

resources are given to community engagement, rather than relying on individual

officers and consultants commitment to achieving a useful two way dialogue.

We argue that we have an important role to play in influencing decision makers as

well. Reflecting on the Leopold experience, we have a responsibility to educate about

and adopt accounting frameworks and structures that attribute value to a broader

range of qualities, valuing more than the financial bottom line.

One whimsical possibility is that perhaps in learning to account for external effects of

human activity such as carbon emissions, government will be required to make

judgments about the relative impacts of proposed urban forms on the quality of

people’s lives, and might be encouraged to think more broadly about other impacts on

its population. Perhaps Triple Bottom Line Impact Assessments should be

encouraged as suburban renewal strategy

Whimsy aside the conversation on climate change and preparedness is becoming

increasingly urgent. The suburbs will be with us for at least the next fifty years, or the

entire life of a footpath, road surface, streetscape or community building. Sometimes it

is in taking the opportunities to change outcomes in these obvious renewal moments

that we change the world in some small part.

Figure 1 Leopold – Street Layout

Figure 2 Sustainable Community Model HCA Academy

Leeds

Figure 3 Leopold Strategic Footpath Network

Figure 4 Leopold Community Hub

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