The positive potential of neighbourhood character planning
Yep. Jane Jacobs was made famous for working closely with her communities to oppose large-scale planning projects. At a time of rapid change in response to significant crises, she called for a deeper appreciation for the existing processes and characteristics that make up great cities and became renowned for her thoughtful, careful, considered and ultimately conservative approach to city-making. With her “eyes on the street”, she identified many factors of street life, like the value of aged buildings, multiple functions and destinations, diversities of housing and walkable blocks, which many planners at the time missed.
Around the same time as writing her famous book “Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961), she championed many of her now influential ideas when she opposed renewal projects in her own neighbourhood, led by “visionary” urban planners like Robert Moses. Using her skills and as a community organiser, local knowledge and with support from her neighbours, she was able to put her written defence of her local streets and local neighbourhood park Washington Square into practice… and won!
Her victory here and in following campaigns very much relied on the observations of the built form and vibrancy streets and neighbourhoods as well as ongoing dialogue with other members of her residential neighbours. In the face of rapid and significant planning responses seeking to address genuine economic crises of the times, it was these communities who have now helped us to realise what is precious in our cities. In this way, Jane’s legacy underscores an important lesson for planning, in sense-checking at the street level to ask – what are we missing? What deserves our attention in our local streets and neighbourhoods? What features and characteristics are worth preserving and enhancing?
In Victoria, neighbourhood character planning provides us with this critical opportunity, to engage the community in dialogue in discussing these questions at the street-level. As one of the most legislated and regulated approaches in the Victorian Planning Provisions Framework, neighbourhood character is largely based on measuring and codifying observable features of built environments. Though explicit in many ways as “common language” for dialogue with communities about their places, this codified approach often risks omitting valuable insights and sentiments, about the “feel of a place”, frustrating members who have otherwise willingly offered their time and ideas. Translating community values into planning policy requires empathy, nuance and strategic thinking – particularly when it comes to translating intangible values that typically fall outside the realm of ‘land use and development planning’.
As a practice at CoFutures, we are constantly developing our approach to getting this right. Over the past 18 months, we have worked on more than 30 projects across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria and most of them have had a neighbourhood character or explicit built form component. Each time we learn critical things about each neighbourhood and about how to better communicate with communities.
One key learning from our projects, is that when we engage on neighbourhood character issues, we are actually in the middle of a much longer dialogue with the community about planning overall. What this means is, that without acknowledging community sentiments from previous projects and carefully placing these sentiments within a deeper, much longer transcript between planners and community members. We often hear frustrated residents seeking to engage “outside of scope” on issues that matter to them about their neighbourhoods, often reiterating previous feedback which they feel has not yet been addressed or even listened to. Though places vary greatly in identity, there are six things we consistently hear from communities about how they envision a better future for their places, which are challenging to codify, but nonetheless are vital in informing holistic planning responses.
As a practice at CoFutures, we are constantly developing our approach to getting this right. Over the past 18 months, we have worked on more than 30 projects across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria and most of them have had a neighbourhood character or explicit built form component. Each time we learn critical things about each neighbourhood and about how to better communicate with communities.
One key learning from our projects, is that when we engage on neighbourhood character issues, we are actually in the middle of a much longer dialogue with the community about planning overall. What this means is, that without acknowledging community sentiments from previous projects and carefully placing these sentiments within a deeper, much longer transcript between planners and community members. We often hear frustrated residents seeking to engage “outside of scope” on issues that matter to them about their neighbourhoods, often reiterating previous feedback which they feel has not yet been addressed or even listened to. Though places vary greatly in identity, there are six things we consistently hear from communities about how they envision a better future for their places, which are challenging to codify, but nonetheless are vital in informing holistic planning responses.
As Jane Jacobs famously states:
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
