Ian Woodcock

Speculation and Resistance: Constraints on Compact City Policy Implementation in Melbourne

Compact city policies such as Melbourne 2030 have been established in Australia for a range of reasons including climate change. It is now clear that the Melbourne 2030 policy has not been effective—with new development mostly on the urban fringe. This policy failure has often been sheeted home to resident and local government resistance to densification. This article suggests this narrative is insufficient to explain this failure at a metropolitan-wide scale and is clearly mistaken in one suburb, where aspects of the planning system appear to thwart the aims of strategic policy by encouraging speculation and producing vacant sites. Brunswick is an inner-city suburb with good opportunities for intensification adjacent to transit lines and on former industrial sites. In spite of resident resistance, 80 per cent of new dwellings proposed between 2002 and 2007 were approved for construction, and would have increased housing stock by 13 per cent. However, by 2009 just under half of all approved dwellings had been completed or commenced on site, while construction of the taller and higher density projects tended to stall, the sites having been on-sold and permits extended. We suggest developers anticipate that the planning system will ultimately approve significant increases in height and density, using Melbourne 2030 to over-ride local policy via appeals to the Planning Tribunal. Such permits produce significant capital gains that can be cashed without construction. We argue that elements of the Victorian planning system encourage ambit claims, contestation, cynicism and speculation, thwarting negotiations between residents, councils and developers towards a more compact city. The focus on the idea that resident resistance is the problem obscures the role the planning system itself plays in frustrating the goals of compact city policy.

Placing Graffiti: Creating and Contesting Character in Inner-city Melbourne

Debates over definitions of urban graffiti as either ‘street art’ or ‘vandalism’ tend to focus on either contributions to the field of artistic practice or violations of a legal code. This paper explores the place of graffiti as an urban spatial practice—why is graffiti where it is and what is its role in the constructions and experiences of place? Through interviews and mapping in inner-city Melbourne, the paper explores the ways that potential for different types of graffiti is mediated by the micro-morphology of the city and becomes embodied into the urban habitus and field of symbolic capital. From a framework of Deleuzian assemblage theory graffiti negotiates ambiguous territories between public/private, visible/invisible, street/laneway and art/advertising. Graffiti is produced from intersecting and often conflicting desires to create or protect urban character and place identity. It is concluded that desires to write and to erase graffiti are productive urban forces, while desires to promote or pro...

“Keeping Dalston Different”: Defending Place-Identity in East London

Urban intensification is a key planning strategy in the UK, but one that is frequently resisted by local residents objecting to transformations of urban character. This paper is concerned with the factors that underlie such resistance, and with the opportunities for addressing them through the planning process. The paper relates a case-study of the East London district of Dalston where a mixed-use redevelopment project, strongly supported by local authorities, was fiercely resisted by residents who claimed that the existing character of the locality was being violated. Reflecting on the case through theories of place, gentrification, and planning process, we argue that resident resistance was not simply a case of self-interested NIMBYism, but a product of important differences in the ways that character was variously constructed and valued by local authorities and community members.

Modelling the compact city: capacities and visions for Melbourne

Abstract The metropolitan planning strategy ‘Melbourne 2030’ was released by the Victorian state government in 2002 as a major step towards a low-carbon city and a counter to urban sprawl; it provides for intensification of land-use within an urban growth boundary focused on activity centres and transit-oriented development. It is now widely acknowledged that this policy has not been implemented, while the growth boundary has been expanded substantially. A primary reason for this failure is the governments fear of negative electoral reaction if Melbournes much-loved urban ‘character’ is transformed. There has been a lack of both capacity modelling to show where and how the existing fabric can be densified, and of realistic urban design visions that might stimulate the electorates imagination. This paper has two aims: first, to quantify the capacities for compact growth and, secondly, to use these measures as frameworks for understanding the urban design opportunities embodied in them. Using a combination of GIS mapping and digital modelling tools, scenarios based on transit-related planning principles and urban design criteria are explored as a basis for understanding resident responses. A key finding of this study is that Melbourne does not need a particularly radical change to its built form to achieve substantial increases in gross density. Modest height limits in activity centres and of 4–5 storeys along transit lines are easily enough to accommodate the projected population growth within the existing built-up area. We suggest that if height controls can be properly enforced then this can be achieved democratically and without significant electoral backlash.

Envisioning the compact city: resident responses to urban design imagery

Policies for achieving compact cities have long faced resident resistance on the basis that intensified development would be out of character. Yet resident response depends on the role of image and imagination in planning discourse. This paper seeks to test urban design imagery for transformations of specific one- to two-storey Melbourne streetscapes, via two representational modes: first, abstracted images of bulk and height scenarios for two different places; second, fully developed urban design visions for four different places. The urban experiences these images evoked and their levels of acceptability were explored through interviews with resident activists. One key finding is, as the bulk and height scenarios change from four to six storeys, from setback to no setback, or from 20 to 60% take-up, the average acceptability reduces by a factor of more than three. The detailed streetscape visions are more acceptable despite greater bulk and height but can produce cynicism. We suggest that such levels of acceptability to resident activists may be predictive of local politics, and levels of acceptability in the wider community may be higher. We conclude with commentary on the role of imagery within planning discourse, where it circulates in a highly contested political field, its accuracy rarely tested.