Opening day for the AJA designed Southern Cross Care Village in Parkes was a well-attended event, and both new residents and local visitors enjoyed the festivities as well as tours of the facility. Very positive feedback was received, and some of the compliments are captured in the local Parkes Phoenix – and comments from an SCC board member suggested it ranked highly in terms of its character and pleasant environment. Further details of the project can be sourced from our AJA website.

A BELIEVABLE ‘LIVEABLE SYDNEY’ vs SUSTAINABLE MELBOURNE

by Jon Johannsen       Posted 16.11.17

http://www.sydneyforum.org.au/article-liveable-sydney-by-jon-johannsen-161117.html

Liveability has been a recent catch cry for media attention in the urban domain, and with so much analysis in the ‘most liveable city stakes’, perhaps it is timely to look at what constitutes urban and suburban quality of life.

This photo is indicative of what many would consider a highly desirable component of the liveability stakes, and captures the quintessential Sydney Harbour ambience. But what proportion of our almost 5 million Sydney residents have direct access to such wonderful public open space with views to die for?

In an exercise undertaken in 2016 for the Sydney Morning Herald by Tract Consultants and Deloitte Access Economics, a total of 16 indicators were used to determine a suburb’s liveability, including transport, education, traffic, views, proximity to employment hubs and access to the beach.

The Lower North Shore fared very well, with Lane Cove coming in at No. 41, and Greenwich and Northwood even higher. Lavender Bay topped the list with the next six either side from Kirribilli around to Wollstonecraft, but all these suburbs are well down the list in the affordability category. A less tangible indicator, however, is sense of community – a critical part of cultural/social mix that I believe should have had ‘skin in the game’.

Lane Cove, where I have lived for the past 12 years, has seen a huge increase in unit dwellers in that period, and it would be good to know the breakdown of buyers to ascertain how many actually reside in the area. Judging by numbers of people around the Plaza, traffic congestion and queues for parking, this village has become a ‘Mecca’ for local shopping and entertaining, and without loss of our sense of community. Fortuitously, Lane Cove has ‘good bones’, having benefitted from its mix of public housing, aged care and seniors accommodation along with younger families attracted to single houses and townhouses close to many of the liveability indices – with one caveat. Don’t mention the traffic!

Some recent higher density areas such as East Village and Victoria Park near Zetland seem to have become investor suburbs. With only around one third of units in the hands of owner-occupiers, the result is a high proportion of short term tenants who contribute little to the creation of a real sense of community. Clearly most developers are out for profit, and a high proportion of these have recently come from overseas, with little interest beyond their return on investment. For this sector, local character is judged by its capacity to draw market interest and add to future resale.

But with bias towards short term tenants over owner/occupiers, there will always be lost potential for a real community to be built and maintained. Recent pressure for targets in key worker or affordable housing, and potential for more urban seniors/retirement living, will help raise the level of longer term residents, with a greater stake in the community and the capacity to contribute to it.

“Inclusionary Zoning”

The term ‘inclusionary zoning’ has recently emerged as a strategy to require a proportion of key worker accommodation in new residential developments – but with inevitable pushback from a development industry concerned about potential effects on yield and profit margin. This could offer some very significant benefits that might not seem so obvious to those more interested in return on investment, and is a key to growing connections between more balanced communities that underpin liveability potential.

Zoning or planning code changes to allow for more ‘mix’ in the mixed use definition are necessary, along with design thinking around how to better guide local village life. The latest Government Architect’s Office release of the publication ‘Better Placed’ is a further positive move for support of place-making in this direction.

Pressures on lifestyle from commuting, and less time for socialising with friends and neighbours, have diminished our social capital, and as SMH journalist Ross Gittins wrote recently - “There’s plenty of research showing these things are strongly linked to the wellbeing of individuals and communities”. Social capital feeds ‘a sense of community’ which is in turn fundamental to liveability.

New inner urban development should, in addition to the stock standard units, include more provision for social housing, low-cost affordable housing, and intermediate accommodation for retirees. A resultant more inclusive residential mix can then help build connections between neighbours and communities, creating social networks and sharing service opportunities that can cross age, cultural and social barriers – and make the potential for urban liveability more believable.
Victoria is also experiencing challenges in the liveability stakes – but seems to be a bit ahead of Sydney at this stage….,

On a visit to Melbourne earlier this month, I had the privilege of visiting The Commons, an extraordinary and seemingly successful co-housing development in Florence St. Brunswick. Initiated by Jeremy McLeod of Breathe Architecture, this is a truly imaginative outcome by not-for-profit social enterprise that exists to support, promote and advocate for high-quality housing that is ecologically, socially, financially sustainable. (nightingalehousing.org)

The Commons has been a prototype for the Nightingale model that is now being pursued by a number of consortia of like-minded co-housing aspirants for more sites in Melbourne, Sydney and Fremantle, based on this collaboration of principles -
​

After lunch at the Steam Junkies café off the foyer of The Commons (leading to the bike park and Breathe’s studio), I had a short tour of the roof top communal roof garden, shared laundrette and drying terrace beneath the solar panel array with panoramic views back to Melbourne, and the recycling depot at ground level with organised compost and worm farms.

​This model of affordable housing with 24 units costing around $560,000 each, promotes social cohesion via shared interests, design thinking, risk taking and collaboration – and the next iteration – in Nightingale 1 on the other side of Florence Street – is about to take this to the next level.

​While these schemes have had to battle VCAT (the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) for development approval with a host of admirable sustainable and environmental initiatives and no or minimal parking, at the top end of town the Australia 108 development with 1,105 units and 800 car spaces on Southbank has sailed through approvals, and is now at around Level 42 of its eventual 100 storeys. Designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects, this is development for the wealthy investor and well-heeled penthouse seeker – and is a story that deserves another article.-

Liveability has become the latest catch cry for media attention in the urban domain, and so following my analysis last month of criteria that can affect unit quality, it is timely to look at what constitutes suburban quality.

Berrys Bay view over Sydney Harbour.
photo by Jon Johannsen

This photo is indicative of what many would consider a highly desirable aspect in the liveability stakes, and captures the quintessential Sydney Harbour ambience. But what proportion of our almost 5 million residents have direct access to such wonderful public open space with views to die for, and how does vista contribute to real liveability?

In the recent exercise undertaken for SMH by Tract Consultants and Deloitte Access Economics - a total of 16 indicators were used to determine a suburb’s liveability, including transport, education, traffic, views, proximity to employment hubs and access to the beach. 

Lower North Shore fared very well, with Lane Cove coming in at No. 41, and Greenwich and Northwood even higher. Lavender Bay topped the list with the next six either side from Kirribilli around to Wollstonecraft, but all these suburbs are well down a list based on affordability. A less tangible but equally relevant indicator of liveability is ‘sense of community’, a critical part of cultural/social mix that I believe should have had ‘skin in the game’.

Some recent higher density areas such as East Village and Victoria Park near Zetland have become investor suburbs, with around only one third of units in the hands of owner-occupiers, resulting in a high proportion of temporary tenants who contribute little to creation of genuine community. Clearly most developers are out to make profits, and a high proportion of these profits have recently come from overseas investors who have no real interest beyond interest return on investment, and for who local character is judged by its capacity to add to future resale.

But bias towards short term tenants over owner/occupiers will see lost potential for real community to be built and maintained, while inclusion of scope for affordable housing and seniors/retirement living will help raise the level of longer term residents with stake in the community and capacity to contribute to it.

Lane Cove has seen a huge increase in unit dwellers over the past few years, and it would be good to know the breakdown of buyers to ascertain how many actually reside in the area. Judging by numbers of people around the Plaza, traffic congestion and queues for parking, our village has become a ‘Mecca’ for local shopping and entertaining, and without loss of our sense of community. Fortuitously Lane Cove has ‘good bones’, having benefitted from its mix of public housing, aged care and seniors accommodation along with single houses and townhouses close to many of the liveability indices that younger families attracted to – but don’t mention the traffic!

In my March TVO (The Village Observer, Lane Cove local paper)  article I wrote -

So much real estate jargon for new development is focused on lifestyle, village character, and local benefits without really looking at what can be added to a growing community.  -  Zoning or planning code changes to allow for more ‘mix’ in the mixed use definition are necessary, along with design thinking around how to better guide local village life.

The term ‘inclusionary zoning’ has recently emerged as a strategy to require a proportion of affordable accommodation in new residential developments, with inevitable pushback from the development industry concerned about potential effects on yield and profit margin. This would, I believe, offer some very significant benefits that might not seem so obvious to those more interested in return on investment or profit in lifestyle, and is a key to growing a balanced community that underpins liveability.

In TVO July 2015 I mentioned the pressing need to address the strains in our social fabric—the network of connections that tie us together as communities. Pressures on lifestyle from commuting and less time for socialising with friends and neighbours has diminished social capital, and as SMH journalist Ross Gittins said then - “There’s plenty of research showing these things are strongly linked to the wellbeing of individuals and communities”

Social capital feeds ‘sense of community’ which is in turn fundamental to liveability.

New inner urban development should, in addition to the stock standard units, include provision for some social housing, low-cost affordable housing, and intermediate accommodation for retirees. A resultant more inclusive residential mix can then help build connections between neighbours and communities, creating social networks and sharing service opportunities that can cross age, cultural and social barriers – and make the potential for urban liveability more believable.

Jon Johannsen

Principal of Architects Johannsen + Associates and Lane Cove resident

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

A proposition in the latest James Bond movie ‘Spectre’ is that while ‘surveillance is the new norm’, what this information gathering actually delivers is a real source of power. While the potential for a nightmarish Orwellian world of 1984 ‘Big Brother’ monitoring is also real, so is the scope for improving the operation of our built environment and the multiple layered public infrastructure that underpins its performance.

With fast emerging big data systems, digital communication and techno interfaces, the long talked of ‘Smart City ‘ is real, with a contingent rise in data collection, and a corresponding drop in individual privacy. Video surveillance is everywhere! Google Earth monitors our properties, and we have those ubiquitous parking space saucers telling us (supposedly) how many cars are parked in the village, and when a ticket may be expected. There is car number plate recognition in Market Square as an example of real trial by technology!

At a recent Future Cities Collaborative forum titled ‘A Tale of 2 Smart Cities’, speakers from Vienna and Chicago gave oversights of their respective urban environments and how shared information can improve system performance and bureaucratic efficiency from local up to metro scale. Chicago’s open city data portal operates to improve user experience and bureaucratic operations, giving real time data on everything from garbage collection to city planning.Cities and their residents linked together in networks have the potential for optimizing energy use, transportation, logistics, medical information, entertainment, voting and much more.

In every major city, there are a multitude of sensors and meters collecting data of all kinds, but very few are able to transform this data into actionable knowledge. With the right management and feedback process, there is scope to improve performance, lower use and wastage via system monitors, and share use patterns or errors to learn and refocus our ways and means of living in urban environments.

Metrics and algorithms to measure, diagnose and improve ourselves and our world abound, with a plethora of real time data available via the exponential rise in apps and their links to an overloaded World Wide Web of information. But while we are being monitored this can also enable us to listen and learn from an emergent connected city that can be a platform to rethink our problem parts as bits of future solutions. As users, our device patterns and feedback can assist the development of tools for next regeneration of digital technology.

Street or building lighting can monitor passing pedestrian or vehicular traffic and be adjusted to appropriate levels of need or safety, residents can be updated with pre-emptive notice of imminent events, or you can log onto an IP address of almost any object or service to register a malfunction or check availability. While your FitBit tracks your exercise, your mobile phone becomes a tour guide, plotting a path via certain shopfronts based on your ‘user profile’ or taste in coffee. But such levels of cooperation do freak out many who feel they will be exposed to manipulation or corrupt influences, and trust will certainly be tested.

Although largely not yet designed for smart technology, our built environment does have the capacity for much improvement provided there is the will and ways to integrate and utilise the growing multitude of data sources in equitable ways. Research institutions like UNSW Smart Cities Research Cluster are fundamental to creating platforms for the design, planning and implementation of data management aimed at sourcing, evaluating and applying multiple information strands that can be used to promote:

• Sustainable economic development
• Higher quality of life and environments
• Management efficiencies for natural resources and energy
• Participatory action and engagement of communities

While all this should be regarded as investment in human and social capital, there is still suspicion of losing control or privacy at the individual’s level, or giving away intellectual property in the corporate world. A balance of surveillance with collective observability and civic responsibility is needed – just as the blog ‘In The Cove’ is an example of sharing local news and information, a smart open source approach can reduce manipulation and maintain a sense of democracy.

Open source sharing is a concept of releasing intellectual property for the benefit of the broader community (eg. Wikipedia), taking innovative solutions or systems out of the profit driven realms of big business and putting it into a collaborative economy. Urban living is based on sharing, and this is where we can all benefit without paying for corporate overheads, and feel we still have some degree of control – and create time for face to face communication over a coffee!
This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

This post revisits an article I wrote last April for my local paper, The Village Observer.

One thing that is common to the demographic profile of Sydney is that we are all heading towards the aged sector, albeit from different starting lines. But the ‘baby boomer’ generation is rapidly redefining how it wants to spend its twilight years, and this is represents both challenges and opportunities across the spectrum of our aging population.

In recognition of Seniors Week, the March TVO featured an excellent editorial article on ‘Growing old gracefully’ that highlighted the local care services available in Lane Cove, and how important it is to enable aging in place that can keep families and communities together, and help avoid the traditional institutional solutions.

Lane Cove Council is also to be commended on its recent Strategy for an Age-Friendly Lane Cove, and its Lane Cove Connection is an excellent conduit to what is both available and happening in the village.|

‘Aging in place isn’t just a matter of building housing for retirees. It’s about
fostering supportive community structures that evolve with age.’

This quote from The Atlantic ‘City Lab’ (USA) article last month highlights the way in which a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) model with a ‘Supportive Service Program’, can foster collaboration between neighbourhoods and local housing developments. The core idea is to help aging residents continue to live with support from social workers, nurses, and other support staff residents and caregivers as their needs change.

But there is also a wider spectrum of life for seniors living in the urban milieu, and how our public urban environment is actually suited to its more mature users is a cause for real concern.

In an enquiry of design for ‘age-friendly’ cities of the future, The Guardian (Australia) recently considered how cities are currently planned and designed for the ‘mythical average person – super-mobile, without dependants but with a cast-iron bladder’!

By 2042 one in four Australians will be 65 years or older, but their access to city benefits will be increasingly compromised by design for an ‘average’ that, along with an accessible ‘pit-stop’, may fall well short of the desirable mark.

The public domain of the city can create many conflicts for seniors in dealing with a hostile outdoor environment that can be challenging. Barriers or obstacles that limit comfort, mobility or inclusion can increase isolation that will lead to further physical and mental deterioration, reinforcing undesirable quarantine effects.

In answer to what would need to change so the public domain can respond to changing needs of our aging population, a World Health Organisation ‘Age Friendly Cities’ project in 2006 was conceived to promote better physical and social attributes of the built environment that could help us all to age actively.

But what does such an environment look like?

From basic urban design such as wider footpaths and gentler gradients, more convenient and weather protected seating, to pedi-cab services for seniors (familiar to many in tourist destinations) -

Street furniture elements such as re-imagined lampposts, signage, fences or walls could perform secondary roles as seniors’ work-out stations, giving aging limbs and muscles the chance to exercise by simple reworking of standard designs. Such concepts are given serious promotion in ‘An Alternative Age-Friendly Handbook’ by Sophie Handler, which features a range of initiatives and provocative ideas that might be considered for inclusion in more age-sensitive urban design.

There is also mention of the idea of ‘third spaces’ and ‘meanwhile spaces’, described as places where occasional casual meetings for social exchange can occur at the interface of public and private property, and many other strategies that can support a process of collaborative and participatory co-design…involving, engaging with, being led by older people as social actors/agents in urban space. Often marginalised in processes of urban development and change there is arguably an ‘underlying ageism’ that characterises much of urban planning processes where older people are easily represented as passive victims of urban change.

Chris Phillipson, Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Policy Challenges & Options, Viewpoint 37 (Housing Lin: October 2012), p. 6.

Innovative thinking at this level is the focus of InnovAGE, a workshop and conference being held in Canberra to stimulate a counter-narrative that can engage and empower seniors and stakeholders in their communities to develop new forms of age inclusive practice and entrepreneurial approaches to real-life issues. http://www.innovage.org.au/

I hope to report back on some exciting new thinking out of this gathering in a future TVO edition, but would also be interested in any feedback from readers.

Jon Johannsen