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Activity centres are not just the intense centres of our most significant urban areas; they come in many forms including ports, airports, universities, hospitals and any other concentration of activity that requires a multi-functional heart to meet the needs of the local community.
All of these ‘centres’ share one element in common – they are highly contested places subject to many competing demands. As a result they require diligent and carefully gauged planning to maximise their performance in terms of community values, place capital and economic function.
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Today master plans are more than just beautiful drawings, they are sophisticated city-making tools that shape the future success of our urban centres. Preparing master plans requires time, foresight and long-term commitment to ensure they are widely supported and practical to implement. To be effective, a master plan must not sit on a shelf gathering dust but needs to inform every subsequent investment decision, big or small.
For a master plan to be successful it must perform a number of functions. Firstly it must communicate a simple, unifying message that provides a clear and practical path to implement. As a marketing tool the role of the master plan is to communicate a common vision, build visibility, generate interest and garner public support. Another key success of a master plan is the ease with which it is able to be implemented. In this context, the capability of the plan to attract funding, identify priority projects and inform council expenditure budgets is essential. This in turn has the potential to attract private sector investment and development. Finally, master plans must be flexible, providing clear guidance on priorities whilst maintaining the ability to respond to changing market conditions.
The realisation of outcomes identified in a master plan has the ability to successfully ignite a centre initiating a period of investment and change and unlocking latent value of an area.
Urbis has been privileged to have worked with both the public and private sector on over 25 strategic activity centre projects in Queensland alone over the past decade. During the course of competing these commissions, and building relationships with clients along the way, we have learnt a number of truths. It is these leanings that we have sought to crystallise and briefly explain in this document. The aim being to share knowledge and boost the performance, in every dimension, of our most valuable urban asset – our towns and city centres.
“Master plans and strategies for activity centres are changing. They are no longer just beautiful plans and images illustrating the future of centres. Master plans are decision-making tools. Frameworks to identify projects, inform budgets, attract investment and guide decisions for city-making”
James Tuma
National Director Design
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A singular vision is a powerful vision. We have noted that the renewal, development and master planning strategies for activity centres that have the most traction are those with the most clarity of purpose. They are underpinned by a singular idea that permeates the master plan from vision through to strategies, implementation plan and projects. Lengthy, complex visions that are not directly relevant to the outcomes that are desired, stumble at the first hurdle.
A vision must have meaning for everyone who reads it and, ideally, will be a reference point for every single and subsequent city-making decision.
Linked to this theme of clarity is the idea that everything that is important in a plan should be able to be communicated in one page, preferably in a simple diagram. That is not to say that strategies are not well thought out of explained in depth elsewhere. Rather to say that if you can’t explain the key concepts in terms that anyone on the street can understand, it is likely too complicated to be delivered anyway.
KEY LEARNINGS
Urbis led the preparation of the 2013 Brisbane City Centre Master Plan and its simple vision ‘OPEN BRISBANE’. Another terrific example of the effectiveness of a singular idea is the long-standing ‘City in a Garden’ vision for Singapore. First instigated in 1960 this simple overlay, when applied to almost every development, infrastructure, public realm, environmental management and investment decision, has had a prevailing and unifying impact.
Peter Hyland
Regional Director, Urbis
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There is a school of management thought that extols the idea that the most successful and influential individuals are those that overplay their inherent strengths rather than focus on addressing any weaknesses. The same is true of centres. Those centres that focus all of their effort and capital on repairing the perceived gaps in their offering, at the expense of truly leveraging what they are already good at, often fail to achieve any real and sustainable change. This is not to say that gaps in essential services are not to be filled, but rather to say that celebrating and investing in the areas where there is already strength plays higher dividends.
In many ways centres are now in a highly competitive setting. They are competing skills, ideas, people, capital and growth. The best way to ‘out compete your competitor’ is not to try to better what they are already doing, but rather to develop an entirely new market in which you are the sole participant. This is not about trying to transplant ideas from elsewhere. Rather, this is about transforming under-appreciated parts of our cities into significant assets, a process which requires imagination, ambition and foresight. Think outside the box, be imaginative and look for the potential in everything.
KEY LEARNINGS
Examples of places that have transformed under-appreciated parts of their cities into significant assets abound the world over. Some that spring to mind are Hay-on-Wye in England and its book festival which singularly underpins the identity and the economy of the town, Melbourne’s laneways, Townsville’s Strand, Boston’s working waterfronts, Toowoomba’s gardens, Amsterdam’s canals and Brisbane’s subtropical latitude.
Ben Slack
Director Planning, Urbis
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For a range of reasons, including the historic planning of our cities and the nature of consumption in our society, retail remains, without question, the single best method to sustainably activate a place. That is not to say that events, community festivals, live performance, and other initiatives are not significant – they surely are. It’s simply a matter of return on investment for effort.
Good quality retail provides activity, offers employment, captures local spend, becomes a social hub and more importantly, drives the life of the public realm – every single day. Retail comes in many forms too: city centre malls, high street retail, department stores, laneways and suburban shopping malls are all essential and viable retail investments.
This means that rather than roll out a single retail model across all activity centres we need to consider what works for a particular centre and respond accordingly. Essential to the success of retail in our centres is the role of planning in facilitating, rather than compromising, the continued growth and evolution of the retail offer.
In our experience, retail is often the first new use to move into an area after investment. Of course this has to do with the planning certainty that these processes are able to give to investors. However, we think it is also to do with the flexible nature of retail to adapt to existing buildings or slot into new precincts and the fact that it tends (sometimes) to be a less capital intensive land use during the development phase. For whatever reason, every great activity centre has great retail.
Brisbane City Centre’s Edward Street has recently benefited from significant private sector investment to establish itself as the ‘luxury brands’ retail precinct. Knowing that beautiful, attractive places are good for business, Brisbane City Council has now identified streetscape upgrades to Edward Street as a priority project for investment in the new 2013 City Centre Master Plan. These planned works will leverage and support the private sector investment.
Natalie Hoitz,
Director Design, Urbis
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Great streets and spaces are the backbone of successful centres. They are the stage set for local urban life, encouraging social interaction, shaping cultural identity and fostering exchange. Too often, the instrumental role of public amenity in attracting economic investment and driving value is underestimated.
Physical interventions that enhance the urban environment and make them more attractive for users – particularly pedestrians – produce measurable benefits to the local economy by attracting more people to the area. A good physical environment is a strong contributor towards, and can act as a catalyst for, a strong economic environment.
These is often a need for the public sector to deliver this amenity. And, as one of the largest ongoing investments that a government will make, it is essential that public realm investment delivers a ‘place-making dividend’ attracting people to visit more often, stay longer and in doing so contribute economically to the centre.
In addition to providing a new public space for events and festivals, the $10 million investment in Brisbane’s China Town Mall paved the way for a concentration of new investment in restaurants and retail along the mall. In New York, the removal of traffic and the creation of new public space in Times Square in 2009 has resulted in rent for street level stores doubling. It was recently named one of the top ten retail locations in the world.
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Ian Shimmin
Director, Retail, Urbis
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Cities are dynamic places, always changing, growing and evolving. The core purpose of a master plan for an activity centre is to facilitate and guide that change. Centres that do not evolve, die.
It is ultimately the market that determines the pace and scale of change in any centre and in this context, when the market is ‘ready’ the plan must also be ready. The plan, in whatever form it takes, should be able to guide the form of that change and, most importantly, amplify it in order to bring the widest possible benefits to the place. This means that the vision for the centre establishes the future direction, the master plan guides decision-making along the way and the development industry delivers change. In this context the plan must bend to meet the needs of the market and offer flexibility (rather than prescriptive outcomes) whilst ensuring the vision and intent of the master plan is realised.
Development is the vehicle for delivering significant change, bringing new built form, streetscape improvements and economic activity to centres. The reality for development is that if it is not viable it will not occur. Fostering positive and mutually beneficial relationships between developers and councils goes a long way toward achieving great outcomes for both parties.
Urbis worked with State Government and Ipswich City Council to develop a comprehensive master plan and delivery strategy that has resulted in the first major commercial development in the Ipswich CBD in over 20 years.
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James Tuma
National Director Design, Urbis
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No one knows your centre better than the people who live in it. It may seems an obvious statement but the worst place to commence a process of centre revitalisation is from the position of preconceived ideas. In this instance, process becomes important. Evidence based decisions that are popular with the community and backed up by the views of key stakeholders inform the most successful urban interventions. That is not to say there is no room for new ideas, there most certainly is, but they need to be offered up in a wider framework that is wholly built around the existing capital of the place.
The most successful strategies we have been involved in are those that engage the widest possible audience, many times, in the simplest possible way. Importantly this is about embracing technology to make the job easier, feeding information back to people and gathering momentum throughout the process.
This constant conversation throughout the life of the project (and beyond it), is where the real insights and value lie. In every one of the activity centre strategies we have completed, at least two of the most significant ideas about the future of the centre has been initiated and crystalised through this on-going dialogue. A simple but important process.
‘Engaging’ with stakeholders rather than ‘consulting’ with them, strengthens the ownership and ultimately the deliverability of a master plan. When people are behind it, they will work to achieve it.
KEY LEARNINGS:
Brisbane’s City Centre master plan employed the inherent capacity of social media to engage industry, decision makers and the community in an interactive process to test ideas and identify implementation priorities.
Stephanie Wyeth
Director Social Planning, Urbis
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Resources spread too thinly are resources that are not working to the best effect. A single, small, yet beautifully executed change to a centre has far more impact and return on investment than an expansive program of moderate changes.
Additionally, a concentration of change in the form of a group of new and/or refurbished buildings in a single location gives an overwhelming impression far greater than if it is scattered across a wide area. As this is the case for public sector development so too is it the case for public sector investment. Investing in public realm improvements or essential infrastructure to support, or as a catalyst for, private development will leverage the individual benefits of each to deliver a much greater overall benefit.
A key learning in our master plan experience has been the importance of understanding the projected growth of a centre and the resulting demand for floorspace. How much floorspace, in what form of development and where it will go are all essential decisions in planning for change of our centres and identifying locations for investment. Remember, the entire vision for a master plan will not be realised instantly.
KEY LEARNINGS:
Strathpine Regional Council followed up the preparation of their activity centre master plan with the planning of a new community facility, library and public plaza adjacent to their train station.
Paul Hardyman
Director Design, Urbis
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Actions speak louder than words. The public sector has a key role in catalysing development activity through strategic investments in infrastructure and public realm. The key here is to act early, and keep doing it. The best activity centre strategies are those that define a diverse mixture of implementation priorities and projects, considering and identifying both public sector investment and initiatives as well as private sector investment opportunities and the relationship between these.
The ability to implement the plan is linked to the idea of flexibility and the continued delivery of projects despite changes to the market and/or decision-making spheres. In this context we need to acknowledge that cities, and activity centres, are never finished. They are dynamic places that are always changing, growing and evolving. Nothing provides more market confidence than an on-going program of investment and development.
An emerging trend in initiating long term change, due to often limited capital, is tactical urbanism – undertaking temporary or short term action to demonstrate an idea before initiating long term change. The employment of temporary initiatives and demonstration projects allows people to test new ideas and garner public support before committing significant financial investment. These temporary instalments also allow people the opportunity to experience the benefits of a project for themselves, rather than just being told about them.
KEY LEARNINGS:
Brisbane City Council’s Ideas Fiesta staged a temporary picnic along Albert Street in the heart of the city as a demonstration of one of the transformative projects proposed in the master plan. The overwhelming response was one of support including adjoining businesses who experienced increased revenue during the picnic. In Townsville, the $56 million redevelopment of Flinders Street in the CBD has provided a catalyst for renewed confidence in the commercial and retail potential of the precinct.
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Natalie Hoitz
Director Design, Urbis
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Say it until you believe it, then say it to everyone else. Without question, the leadership and ownership of a vision for any place is a critical component in its successful implementation. The clarity of message and almost biased messaging given by leaders is truly essential. Who will follow a plan that has no leader?
Leadership comes in many forms too. It is required at the grass roots of every organisation in the form of capacity building to ensure good decision making occurs every day. At management level it is required to ensure integrated decisions are made across all departments and directorates. And it is also required at the highest levels, to lead from the front and champion the delivery of the vision. If the leader of the organisation thinks and communicates that the vision is important, then everyone else will.
Linked to this issue of leadership is accountability. The most successful activity centre strategies and studies we have prepared are those with the greatest clarity about accountability. Each project, initiative, action and strategy will ideally clearly describe the individual in the organisation accountable for its delivery. Without this line of sight it is very easy for the best intentions to slowly cloud and the initial energy of a plan to fade. If immediate action is required – name names.
KEY LEARNINGS:
Janette Sadik Khan is a great example of a leader who has championed real change in her city, New York. As the Commissioner for the Department of Transport (DOT), Janette Sadik Khan has transformed many of New York’s streets into safer places, including her boldest move which involved closing down Times Square to traffic and transforming it into a plaza for the people of New York.
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Peter Hyland
Regional Director, Urbis
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A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In order to give the centre the best chance at succeeding, a comprehensive approach to master planning and implementation must be adopted. City-making is multifaceted and requires consideration of a range of factors from design to marketing and implementation. Forces must align to ensure that the right outcomes are being sought, the right planning framework is in place and people are behind it to make it happen.
A multi-disciplinary and united team is required to work closely together, and with stakeholders, to ensure an effective approach during all phases of the process – from vision to delivery. Drawing from expertise from within your organisation and appointing the right people to assist along the way will ensure the master plan is successful, and can, and will be delivered. The ten insights set out in this document, including this one, are essential components in the preparation and implementation of a successful master plan that accomodates growth and delivers change.
James Tuma
National Director Design, Urbis
Urbis offers expert advice regarding the development, expansion and optimisation of property cities and communities. Urbis is an integrated multi-disciplinary consulting firm with a unique and comprehensive service offering. We are able to bring together project teams that utlise the skills of our researchers, planners, economists, designers and social planners to provide clients with comprehensive and implementable advice.
With offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth we offer a national service that is supported by local market knowledge and experience. Our consultants share information and findings to ensure advice is based on best practice processes and unique market insights.
Committed to providing practical solutions and creating measureable value, we bring informed advice that preserves your vision and goals. With Urbis, you tap into a trusted resource that complements your own capabilities.
