1. Planning for melbourne what now?
Presentation by Prof. Roz Hansen
Urban and Regional Planner
MAV National Conference ‘Smart Urban Futures’
25 March 2015

2. Planning should not be about winners and losers
A range of players or stakeholders
We all want to be winners
Specific moves in the game or decisions being made may require the plan to be modified but we need a game plan to make the most of our moves and gain the greatest benefits.
About the concept of the common good and public/community benefit.

3. A legacy of metropolitan strategic planning
Since post European settlement Melbourne has had various town plans or ‘strategies’ From the laying out of the Hoddle Grid to the construction of the tram network and expansion of the rail network connecting people in the suburbs to jobs and services ‘down the line’ to the advent of a car dependent lifestyle fuelled by the construction of urban freeways and ring roads to cope with outward expansion on the edges of the metropolis.
Most of the principles underpinning these strategies have endured the test of time. Why? Because they just make sense.
Aspects of these strategies have proven to be more successful than others. Good intentions and aspirational thinking however is not enough to deliver a metropolitan planning strategy – it also requires strong political will and bipartisan commitment, the resources to make it happen and a community willing to accept change because the benefits outweigh the disbenefits.
There are many good strategic directions and initiatives in Plan Melbourne. However there are also important things missing in this blueprint for the future which can be rectified and will need to be resolved if we are to embark upon a journey of smart urban futures.

4. Good Cities, Better Lives (Peter Hall)
Five basic challenges:
Rebalancing our urban economies to create good jobs and new sources of work for everyone
Building new homes in enough quantity to meet demand, in the right places and to good standards
Linking people and places through integrated land use and transport planning
Living with finite resources and the impacts of climate change
Fixing broken machinery so as to bring public and private agencies together in the process of development and redevelopment
Peter Hall’s book ‘ Good Cities, Better Lives – how Europe discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism’ sets out these five basic challenges.
You could argue that these five challenges are just as relevant to cities like Melbourne. By looking at best practice examples of dealing with these challenges we can learn a great deal – both lessons learnt and victories won.
I want to explore further these five challenges in the context of Plan Melbourne and how we might tweak this metropolitan blueprint to better meet these challenges.

5. Rebalancing our urban economies to create good jobs and new sources of work for everyone.

6. Population and Jobs You know about this stuff!
Over the last 15 years or so employment growth in Melbourne has been most pronounced in the professional, managerial, community and personal services sectors. But the spatial distribution of jobs is skewed with the growth areas having too few jobs and the middle and outer suburbs generating just over half of the metropolitan jobs. This spatial imbalance is likely to exacerbate rather than solve problems of traffic congestion, underutilised public transport on the outbound trips from the Central City and the increasing cost of living for those living in high car dependent communities.
If we are to create more jobs, especially full time jobs, we must understand the the spatial distribution of jobs and where existing and future job agglomerations are likely to occur. People living in Epping North are currently able to reach one tenth of all of metro Melbourne’s jobs within a 45 - minute drive. Good access to public transport expands the job opportunities. Let’s not underestimate that geography is now your destiny in terms of the number, type and choice of jobs available to you as a worker.
We know where the job densities are located across metropolitan Melbourne. Equally we know where there are fewer jobs and why this is so. Not everyone wants to work in Melbourne’s Central City nor are there the range of jobs to even make this a possibility. Our public transport and road network already struggles to get people to jobs within the Central City or immediate inner urban areas. So we will need to embark on a strategy to suburbanise the job market as much as possible.
Plan Melbourne includes Future Job Growth figures for each of the subregions but there is little else in the plan to actually explain how we can and will attract more jobs in these areas and how, in particular, we should be using an infrastructure spend to facilitate job growth in the middle and outer suburbs as well as the urban growth areas.
For the growth areas much of the job generation will be driven by population growth but if we fail to build the education, health and wellbeing facilities needed by these new communities then already we are robbing these areas of local jobs. If we are building new town centres catering mainly for the retail sector without providing affordable floorspace for new businesses in the service sector and opportunities for local entrepreneurs to innovate and create then we will not get the diversity of jobs needed to support diverse and vibrant communities.

7. Not a ‘triangle’ but a polycentric city
The identification of the expanded central city, six nationally significant employment and innovation clusters complemented by ten metropolitan activity centres are the focus for major public and private sector investment. It is not a triangle – it is a network or system which prevails and we need to strengthen and reinforce this network so that we actively encourage businesses to go where there is good accessibility by workers.
Each of these mixed use higher density clusters and metropolitan activity centres will require significant investment in hard and soft infrastructure – we will need a planning regime in place that facilitates job creation and land use opportunities with an emphasis on key economic growth sectors be they education, health, professional services, advanced manufacturing and other enterprises built around innovation, creativity and servicing population growth.
We will need to set some clear targets for the number of new jobs we want to create in each of the five subregions which now comprise metropolitan Melbourne and develop subregional and metropolitan regional programs and actions to encourage more suburbanisation of jobs outside of the Melbourne Central City area.
To date we have approached the planning of our metropolitan economy on the basis of ‘business as usual’ rather than with a more market interventionist and employment sector focused lens. We continue to zone vast tracts of land for ‘industrial development’ without aligning this land supply response with what the economy needs in terms of the types of business activities we want to promote, the location of land in relation to where the people are living or want to live and the provision of infrastructure to add value to that business location opportunity.
By actively encouraging more people to live close to these clusters and metropolitan activity centres we can supercharge the job market – nurture new business opportunities and sustain a more diverse and robust workforce. We need to work these clusters and centres hard- make them sweat – upgrade and improve their urban amenity and accessibility by walking, cycling and PT and we need to be highly strategic about what are the outcomes we want to achieve.
Zoning and structure planning alone will not do this. Each of the sub regions needs its own economic and investment strategy which dovetails into the bigger picture Plan Melbourne geography of more jobs where we want them and need them to be located.

8. Growth area local town centres
If we focus on the urban growth areas it is evident that not only are there very few jobs available within or close to these communities but we are squandering opportunities to create more jobs sooner rather than later. These are jobs in the health and education sectors, retail and business services and community services.
There is currently a ‘formula’ to town centre design – supermarket anchor plus specialty shops that are often the usual franchised retail outlets. They are usually single storey, maybe two storey in some instances if lucky. They are surrounded by a sea of at grade car parking; often there is no bus service connecting residents to the town centre; they provide little and often no commercial space for local entrepreneurs and businesses; or for community services. They are lacking a true sense of place; do not encourage people to live above shops or offices as a form of cheaper accommodation and they tend to look very similar in architectural style, layout and retail format.
They are often located adjacent to a main road rather than centrally positioned within the estate itself meaning that those who live on the edges of the estate may not be enticed to walk or cycle to the town centre and in many cases are distanced from other community facilities such as childcare and preschool centres, primary and secondary schools etc. however being on a main road enhances their exposure and accessibility to passing trade.
Too often the design and content of these new town centres in the urban growth areas are designed to reflect a 1960s suburban drive in shopping centre facility rather than an urban village where people work, socialise, recreate, learn and seek a range of locally based services. We need to address these shortcomings of the town centre and return to the basics – high street, main street design; integration of community facilities and professional services with retail and people not only working in these hubs but living there too.

9. Why aren’t we requiring mixed use, medium density town centres in our growth areas?
Town centres create jobs, foster local entrepreneurs, provide a focus for communities and deliver a range of services close to home.
Too often the town centre is built not at the beginning of the greenfield estate construction process but midway or close to the end of the development cycle. The reason given is ‘there is no demand for the town centre yet’ or ‘ the existing trade catchment is too small’ or ‘ a larger centre with more floorspace will not be filled because of nearby competing centres so keep it single storey and small.’
You know unfortunately in the urban growth areas many people drive to the shops, drive to the medical centre and drive to the hairdresser. They are quite mobile because they have to be or else they would starve! Hence the relatively high levels of car ownership per household in these newly developing suburbs. They drive along main roads where many of these new town centres are to be located and so the trade catchment is quite malleable. For those living in the greenfield estate itself delivery of the town centre at the beginning of the development process provides an important social/community focus; a possible job opportunity close to home and the prospect of walking rather than driving to the local shops. It can act as a catalyst for selling more houses more quickly – just as proximity to a primary or secondary school can be a significant decision as to where people live, the establishment of schools in the growth areas at the beginning of the development process can turbo charge housing sales. Those schools are create jobs – not just teaching jobs but maintenance jobs, jobs in the retail sector and jobs in allied services catering for the needs of the kids who go to those schools.

10. Time to review the PSP approach
The current PSP approach works for the developers but perhaps less so for many of the new communities living in these urban growth areas. It often doesn’t work for the local councils in terms of the timely delivering of community services needed by these communities. They are left with the bulk of the infrastructure bill to fund – a challenge which will become even more difficult if they cant convince government to remove a cap on their rates.
We are experiencing the economic and social impacts associated with few jobs, no public transport, no local primary school or pre school centre, no place to meet friends for a coffee and a sense of isolation particularly for women at home fulfilling their primary carer role.
Plenty has been written about the problems and shortcomings of living on the fringe of metropolitan Melbourne and at present I cant see that situation getting any better unless we take a critical review of the PSP approach and fix the problems asap.
Some personal comments about PSPs.
We appear to be obsessed with the aesthetics of the greenfield estate development – hectares of open space which is often devoid of human beings for much of the time; looks good on the plan but becomes a maintenance nightmare for the ratepayer. Wetlands and waterways are popular; as are linear parks and education facilities (often proposed but not guaranteed) engulfed in vast tracts of open space.
We see a massive waste of land in the education sector in these growth areas. Single storey buildings surrounded by fenced off open space with IT, library and recreational facilities demarcated by ownership – be it government versus independent schools – and hours of access on a Monday to Friday timeslot. We should be building vertical schools – at least 3 storeys with 7 day week access as community centres and places for life long learning. We should be requiring shared use of ovals and recreation assets. We should be delivering these schools early in the development process especially as there will be nearby greenfield estates where there are no schools available or where the existing schools a choc a bloc. And if we cant commit to the purpose built school at least in the early years of a greenfield estate then lets dedicate several display homes as ‘school houses’ so at least kids have a place to learn within their neighbourhood.
This image of one of the plans for the Toolern Precinct Structure Plan shows vast tracts of urban zoned land for ‘employment’ (pale blue). What industries and businesses are anticipated in this area given that it represents almost one third of the total land area and the structure plan claims there will be 28,000 jobs and 55,000 residents in this 24 sq.km urban growth area?
Whilst it is pleasing to see the proposed Major Activity Centre around the Toolern Railway Station you would hope the station itself would be underground so that the typical rail line barrier issues is eradicated and there is a seamless relationship between the northern and southern sections of the activity centre. And why would you put industrial zoned land abutting the major activity centre when it could be decades before this land is used for this purpose? Why not put more medium density housing, aged care and independent living units and multipurpose education, health and cultural facilities?
This Toolern PSP is a very big project and the staging and sequencing of development, especially hard and soft infrastructure, will be critical to its success. In many respects I think this PSP is far too large in area and will take decades to develop and a lot can happen in the next 10 to 20 years that may not be easily retrofitted into this ambitious somewhat risky plan.
If the pieces in the jigsaw that create local jobs are not delivered early in the development process (and I am not talking about construction jobs) then this is yet another dormitory suburb waiting to happen on the edge of Metro Melbourne.
As Mike Day will tell you at this conference – think neighbourhoods not suburbs.

11. Building new homes in enough quantity to meet demand, in the right places and to good standards.

12. The housing narrative needs to be told
Its time to have the frank and fearless discussion with communities about the need for more diversity in the housing sector – to tell the housing narrative. A narrative not only about different housing types to cater for different household types and incomes but innovative ways of constructing dwellings at a cheaper price without loss of quality. Many people do understand that their housing needs change as they pass through life but they also like the neighbourhood they live in and don’t wish to leave. That’s why we need to think about different ways of building housing – future proofing the family home so at the outset it is designed, plumbed and wired to become two dwellings almost overnight. It still looks like a single dwelling from the street but internally it is one smaller dwelling and one larger dwelling.
Plan Melbourne has failed to tell this narrative. It has failed to connect mixed use and medium and higher density with the ability to support more services, create more local jobs and sustain public transport services.
Yesterday Michael Short in his new Ideas Zone column in The Age explored some way out and wonderful ideas for new housing. I hope you had a chance to join the conversation and explore some of these ideas. Unfortunately some of the people who joined the discussion online immediately got onto the population growth/anti-immigration band wagon rather than thinking about how we are going to solve today’s housing problems in metropolitan Melbourne.
Plan Melbourne relies heavily on housing supply to address our current issue of housing affordability. Unfortunately the strategy talks about facilitating the supply of affordable housing but is lacking the answers as to how we will do just this. On the issue of social housing the Plan talks more about undertaking further investigations into how we might increase the amount of social housing stock rather than learning from other cities about how they have grappled with this issue and getting on with the job of actually doing something about it!
The plan also seeks to protect the established suburbs from inappropriate development and yet we know there are an increasing number of households in housing stress; that there are more homeless people on our streets and in overcrowded and often unsafe temporary accommodation; that a growing number of first home buyers and single income families cannot afford to rent accommodation let alone buy a home; and that despite the sustained and unprecedented housing boom over the last 10 years or more the price of housing to buy or rent is escalating.
So supply alone is not the silver bullet. We will need a more interventionist approach in the planning arena, a more innovative approach in the construction of dwellings and financial mechanisms to help those in greatest need to have the security of a roof over their heads.
Melburnians – we need to grow up and start thinking about the housing problem as a community problem and not just a NIMBY issue.
Plan Melbourne also seeks to unlock the capacity of urban renewal precincts for higher density, mixed use development. I endorse this direction – it makes sense to redevelop those large sites where the existing land use pattern of factories and warehouses is past its use by date and yet the land is situated in a well serviced suburb. But urban renewal is a strategy extending beyond E Gate and Fishermans Bend precincts – it is again about the suburban landscape and we need to encourage local government to identify the sites and precincts that it believes have all the ingredients for integrated, mixed use development. We will need a well defined process for unlocking these sites to redevelopment and in so doing delivering public benefits be they social housing and affordable housing, community facilities, public open space, public amenity improvements and more job opportunities close to home.
Plan Melbourne needs to go the extra mile to deliver these outcomes in consultation with local communities and developers.

13. Linking people and places through integrated land use and transport planning

14. Corridors and nodes
Although we talk about integration of land use and transport – we are not doing it very well. We are placing an over reliance on TODs when in many instances local railway stations have neither the market conditions or the investment appeal to be attractive to medium density mixed use development.
We have become side tracked by issues such traffic congestion and lost workforce productivity because of the time people spend in cars commuting to and from work. Integration is firstly about identifying the land use outcomes you want to achieve and the evidence to substantiate the desirability of these outcomes. Having a long range vision and a spatial development strategy are fundamental to the integration of land use and transport.
The political will to execute the vision is also critical. We need to use the infrastructure spend to deliver the land use outcomes we want rather than use this spend to solve one problem, that is traffic congestion. We will never solve that problem unless we get more people out of cars and walking, cycling and using improved PT.
Investment in high capacity, high quality public transit services triggers land use shifts and adjustments in urban form whilst delivering accessibility benefits. Whilst density is one factor influencing travel - diversity, design, destination accessibility and distance to transit are also important. As Jeff Speck in his wonderful book – ‘Walkable City – how downtown can save America, one step at a time ‘ says
‘while walkability benefits from good transit, good transit relies absolutely on walkability.’
The ideas contained in Transforming Australian Cities by Professor Rob Adams and others focus on public transit corridors of metropolitan Melbourne as the locations for mixed use, medium density development. Transit and urban form are co-dependent and they occur at multiple geographic scales – from the neighbourhood to the corridor, the district to the region. Trains, trams and buses all have a part to play in linking people and places. Walking and cycling too can play a vital role as well as a positive public health dividend. We need to privilege these modes in our transport planning rather than focusing on roads as the panacea to our traffic problems.
Plan Melbourne has largely avoided the corridor approach preferring to go with clusters and nodes/activity centres. We can have both. By identifying the public transport corridors that have the ingredients of good urban amenity or potential to foster such amenity, it is desirable I believe to encourage medium density, mixed use development along these corridors be they fixed rail and tram routes or smart bus routes. Many developers have gravitated to these transit corridors for apartment style living and value the urbanity and accessibility to jobs and services that these corridors offer. Not all transit corridors will be suitable for higher denser development. Or only sections of these corridors will be attractive due to availability of larger land parcels, proximity to local shops and services, affordable land values etc. Within this context we need to make sure that the development caters also for family living and integration of community facilities such as vertical schools, child care centres, community hubs etc.
It’s a whole package rather than bits and pieces of the jigsaw.

15. Living with finite resources and the impacts of climate change

16. Hotter, less rain, more bushfires, rising sea level …
One of my great disappointments with Plan Melbourne is the lack of initiatives to actually mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change. Not surprising given the political divide on this globally significant issue.
We will need more than city structure to drive sustainable outcomes as we grow and develop our metropolis. A more concerted program of actions and initiatives will be needed to reduce the impacts of the urban heat island effect, conserve our water resources and retrofit our suburbs to be more resilient to natural disasters and more efficient with our water, waste and energy usage. It may be time to impose some mandatory provisions at the household level. After all why are we not requiring every new dwelling to incorporate solar hot water systems, third pipe infrastructure and providing the financial incentives to make these technologies more attractive to the householder? In many respects it is local government that is leading on the climate change agenda in terms of clean energy projects, urban forest programs and waste recycling.
We can do so much more in this space of living with finite resources and Plan Melbourne needs to push some of those boundaries further at the neighbourhood, municipal, sub regional and regional levels.
Key climate change risks for Victoria over the 21st century, Steffen & Hughes 2013

17. Fixing broken machinery so as to bring public and private agencies together in the process of development and redevelopment
What does this mean?
Its about governance and leadership, funding and finance, public and private sector collaborations, integration and co-ordination across government agencies and commitment to act rather than to just talk.
We need to better understand how property, financial and land markets work in metropolitan Melbourne and beyond. We would benefit from in-house expertise in the government sector on how to assess the financial feasibility of development projects and what scope exists for generating a public dividend in larger scale developments and redevelopment projects.
There is a lack of confidence in the decision-making processes in the planning and development system.
There is a sense amongst many members of the community that no-one is listening but at the same time we have avoided having those tough discussions with people about how to address the issues related to housing, jobs, infrastructure, health, education etc. Too often we become immersed in the problems and lose sight of the solutions.
I believe the implementation chapter of Plan Melbourne needs to be revisited. It needs to be cognisant of the views of all stakeholders but at the same time not shy away from difficult decisions about how we raise revenue to pay for the infrastructure we need and we need it now. Perhaps its time Treasury and Finance listened to what others have to say about ways of funding and financing health and education, public transport and roads, social housing and environmental improvements. Development contributions are the drip feed approach to funding infrastructure. It takes a long time before anything is built under this model as the residents of the growth areas will tell you!
Overseas experience tells us that putting the required infrastructure on the ground at the outset is a major value add to greenfield development as well as urban renewal projects. It accelerates the development process, creates a healthy return on public investment in a timely and efficient manner and contributes significantly to creating sustainable, liveable neighbourhoods.

18. Whilst there is a continuing role for public private partnerships in the delivery of key infrastructure projects I believe now is the time to also investigate the concept of incentive zoning – an approach which has been operating in northern America for decades and which has generated thousands of affordable and social housing units, inclusion of community facilities into mixed use developments and major public realm improvements.
This would require adopting Floor Space Ratio limits on key strategic sites and larger development sites with the opportunity to go above these FSR’s based on a range of trade offs – all of which would generate a public benefit. We as planners need to have some effective triggers for getting better built form and land use outcomes and incentive zoning would rely on setting controls which, in specific situations, allow a higher floor space yield but with a demonstrated public dividend. We all yearn for greater certainty in the planning approval process but with certainty comes a commitment to give back for the common good.
I am not convinced that performance based provisions have delivered good urban design and built form outcomes. More importantly, the discretionary approach in our current planning system thrives in a laissez faire free market economy but with little if any public benefit. We need to find an approach which delivers a reasonable profit for the developer but also a public benefit for the community. To do otherwise will mean that we have frittered away so many opportunities for securing the liveability of Melbourne across all of our suburbs – from the central city to the fringe.

19. Thank you for your attention