City Design & Liveability
Strike the right balance to protect what we love about our city and promote development that will enhance it
Better Urban Design
One of the most important responsibilities of our council is to assess development applications and ensure compliance with our City Plan. Council is also responsible for drafting and amending the City Plan to ensure it gives effect to agreed city-shaping objectives. To accommodate growth we need higher density redevelopment in established areas, and it must be of high quality to maintain and enhance our urban amenity. For the benefit of residents and developers, we need to regain greater certainty in our planning and assessment. I will set up an Urban Design Taskforce, with representative and expert members from a range of built environment disciplines, to give the best advice on City Plan amendments and the design quality of major developments.
City Plan Improvements
Design codes and development assessment processes must serve our objectives for a beautiful and liveable city. My initial priority areas to address are high-rise buildings and residential subdivisions:
- Tall buildings can be beautiful – the current City Plan provisions relating to high-rise development are enabling buildings that fall short of our liveable and beautiful city objectives. The design code needs to be improved and applied to ensure that developments provide adequate setbacks, landscaping and car parking.
- New suburbs can create community from Day 1 – City Plan provisions relating to new residential estate subdivision design and development must ensure we create neighbourhoods that are safe and attractive. I want to see streets with shade trees, footpaths and cycle ways that give convenient access to local parks and schools.
Local Area Design Guidelines
Some established pockets of the city such as Burleigh Heads and Mudgeeraba Village have unique local character. Others like Palm Beach and Nerang have experienced massive change but still retain essential qualities that we love. I want to introduce Local Area Design Guides to show how public and private building and landscaping works in these areas can contribute to conserving and enhancing the texture and flavour of these places.
State of the Environment
We also need to safeguard our city against severe climate impacts. I will re-introduce State of the Environment reporting to keep up to date on trends, benchmark our progress and inform how we fine-tune our City Plan to guide sustainable development and adapt our efforts to optimise resilience.
Lead By Example
Our own council works – public pools, libraries, sports facilities, parks, roadworks and bridges are important parts of our city. I want to ensure that these are well-designed to enhance the city, endure well, to show that we care, and save money.