County of Cumberland Plan Sydney Region Outline Plan

Transcription

1 Sydney has been fortunate in having had two ground breaking Strategic Plans to guide its growth. The first was the County of Cumberland Plan 1948, based on the 1944 London Plan, complete with a green belt. Sydney s green belt commenced just west of Parramatta and was to contain development from spreading into Sydney s rural areas. In the event that growth was required beyond the green-belt, a series of satellite towns was nominated to be developed as new towns including Penrith, Bringelly, Camden and Campbelltown. The legacy passed on to future Sydney were the district centres which became the foundation of multi-centred or polycentric Sydney. The second Strategic Plan was the 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan which was necessary as the County Plan s population forecast of 2.5 million by 1980 was reached in 1965, urgently requiring a new plan to be prepared to cater for the unexpected population growth due to the migration program and the post war baby boom. The new plan was based on the 1947 Copenhagen finger plan where the palm of the hand represented the established urban area and the fingers as urban corridors in the form of new towns strung along established and proposed railway lines, like beads on a string. This plan has successfully shaped Sydney to this day.

2 The third ground breaking Strategic Plan, in my opinion is the 2018 Metropolis of Three Cities. The Plan was necessary due to the rail corridors being almost full with development starting to spread into the non-urban areas between the fingers, which were considered to be for non-urban uses. The Three Cities, the Eastern Harbour City; the Central River City and the Western Parkland City each have a nominated major city centre. This is particularly important to the Western City which has been considered by many as sprawl due to the distance from the off centre Sydney centre. The Western City does not have an established centre which can fill this role, so the Plan proposes an Aerotropolis with the new Western Sydney Airport acting as the catalyst for an airport focussed city centre. John Kasarda, a Professor from the University of Carolina coined the term aerotropolis and suggests that where the shipping harbours of the 18 th Century generated major city centres, Sydney being one of the best examples; so, airports can serve the same purpose. What about the other two centres? Parramatta CBD was given equal status to the Sydney CBD in the Department of Planning s December 2014 A Plan for Growing Sydney which gives Parramatta its rightful status in the new Strategy. I have suggested for several years that Parramatta should become the administrative centre of NSW, by locating all State Government offices to Parramatta rather than drip feeding them, say two or three every few years as has been the practice. I include the State Parliament House to be located at Parramatta. When some people question this, I reply that if the 40 million people of California can be governed from Sacramento, then the 8 million of NSW can be governed from Parramatta.

3 Parramatta centre has provided a most influential building which could set a model for several Sydney centres, that of a high-rise University building containing a whole department like this Western Sydney University Business School within a 5- minute walk from Parramatta Rail Station. This high rise campus also contains a PwC office of 200 staff. And here is California s State Capitol Building not that I am suggesting this is how the NSW Capitol Building should look, but it has been there since the middle of the 19 th century. Sydney s Eastern Harbour City centre doesn t need too much help; it is already considered as the principle centre of Australia, particularly the financial centre with the Reserve Bank and Stock Exchange. It is also considered the cultural centre of the State and with the highest job concentration and tourist attraction. I looked for other urban regions that were served by three city centres, of a similar size to Sydney in area and population. I did this to see if there are any lessons to be learned for Sydney s Three Centres. I found two, the Randstad (Ring City) in the Netherlands with the fourth largest economy in Europe. Amsterdam is the principle city of the Netherlands, Rotterdam, Europe s largest seaport and The Hague which is the Federal administrative capital, i.e. the Canberra of the Netherlands and the location of the World Court.

4 The second region which I thought would be of interest is in the North of England with the three city centres of Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool again their combined counties are of a similar size to the Sydney Region yet with a larger population than that of Sydney today. Here are the comparisons and I repeat that these two examples are worth analysing. Here we have the Sydney Region divided into the Three Cities; West, Central and East, each with their constituent LGAs. When they are measured in area, the west constitutes 76.5%; central 7.4% and east 16.1%. However, the adjacent green plan tells the true picture; the dark green areas are National Park or water catchments and will not be developed. The light green however, could provide considerable greenfield estates. The Western City has the lion s share of the greenfields and when land suitable for development is identified then I would be surprised if substantial land suitable for appropriate housing is not identified in the Western City.

5 The Sydney City Deal which is a Commonwealth and State initiative to help fund the necessary major infrastructure required in the Western City, has spurred on many of the Western City s Councils to review their roles in the New City structure. For instance, last month Campbelltown Council s major report Re-imaging Campbelltown was launched at the State Parliament House by the Premier in the presence of the Minister for Western Sydney, the Minister for Education and the Chair of the Greater Sydney Commission. Also Penrith Council has published and distributed its Economic Development Strategy Building the New West. I understand other Councils are also preparing their visions of the future also. Governance Possibly the most important factor in the successful development of each of the cities is for a Commission or a Board to be set up for each, to plan, develop and organise the construction of the key infrastructure. The best examples in Australia are the National Capital Development Commission and the Macarthur Development Board. The first was set up in 1957 to develop Canberra and ran until 1988 when it was disbanded. The functions of the commission are to undertake and carry out the planning, development and construction of the City of Canberra as the National Capital of the Commonwealth.

6 The Macarthur Development Board was set up under the Growth Centres Commission and came under the NSW Department of Planning. The board was made up of two Commonwealth representatives, the State was represented by the heads of Sydney Water, Housing and each of the four constituent councils; Campbelltown, Camden, Wollondilly and Liverpool were represented by their mayors. The Board was formed in 1975 and had a staff of 40 including the Chairman, who was also the Chief Planner with the Department of Planning, the Deputy Chairman and Director was Bruce McDonald former General manager of Campbelltown Council and a staff of Planners, architects, engineers and administrative staff. The Board acted as the Department of Planning s statutory representatives for the constituent council areas. The Board was highly successful buying land, developing it for employment, housing and open space on borrowed funds, mainly from the Commonwealth, which were paid back in 15 years. Macarthur was the best of the growth centres achieving the highest level of housing and employment. It is not just me saying this as I was with the Board for over 10 years, it was Tom Uren, the Federal Minister for Planning who was responsible for all the growth centres. He wrote in his biography Straight Left that Macarthur was the most successful of Australia s Growth Centres. Unfortunately, it was disbanded in 1982 and went to the Department of Decentralisation and then to the Business Land Group. A key focus of the Three Cities Plan is to breakdown the long-standing transport focus on the off centre Sydney central area as shown in this relatively recent plan from the December 2014 A Plan for Growing Sydney one of the most important requirements of the Central and Western Cities is to reinforce the north-south transport movement to counter the eastwest radial routes and the following will outline a number of proposals.

7 That said, the first is a key east-west link of a public transport mode, which links the three centres, again learning from London, the closest example being the current Cross Rail linking Docklands in East London with the City in the centre and areas such as Heathrow Airport and beyond. It will be a fast rail which links the three city centres, which will tend to have different functions. With a large number of new rail routes many with a north-south orientation there will be a need for at least one orbital rail route. The biggest question is whether this will be by heavy rail or metro. Whilst metro can go where heavy rail goes now, heavy rail cannot go where metro is now being built, like the Northwest. So I will assume at this stage that the Orbital I have shown will be Metro. Not all heavy rail or metro can be built at once so there could be some lower cost solutions in the interim. For instance, there is currently the T80 route by Tway bus system from Liverpool via Prairiewood in Fairfield and on to Parramatta. This route could be joined by a route along Elizabeth Drive when the M12 Motorway will relieve the Elizabeth Drive traffic making it useful for the T80 bus.

8 a). This shows two of the major north-south transport routes serving the Western City the M9 Outer Sydney Orbital (in blue) which links the Hunter Central Coast Western City and the Illawarra with traffic routes and a freight line, feeding the Western Sydney Airport. b). The green rail line indicates another key northsouth link from Macarthur to Oran Park in Camden, to the Western Sydney Airport and on to St Marys where it can continue to Maraylya in the Hills. Also there is the Metro link from Rouse Hill Schofields Marsden Park St Marys. To finish, I have again looked to London. For a city of 8 million people, London s national Rail Network is terminated at the periphery of central London where the National Network meets the Underground from where passengers transfer to the Metro Network. This seems to work where over 800,000 commuters access London from beyond the green belt every weekday for work whilst 300,000 people commute to jobs outside of London from these terminals. In the interest of freeing Sydney s inner networks in 2056 (when Sydney reaches 8 million people), I have suggested we examine the same concept. LONDON S NATIONAL RAIL Here the Northern line terminates at Hornsby, the Southern line terminates at Kogarah, the south west at Macarthur and the western line at St Marys. Each terminus will be served by several metro lines, including several orbital lines, giving ready access to all parts of the Metropolis.

9 To conclude, the rail lines serving the Three Cities are shown each with a specific focus on the Central City centres, showing the termini as suggested, the Orbital and the Cross Rail linking the three centres. There are a lot of decisions to be made and the sooner the mode of each rail network are made, ie heavy rail and metro and their interchange situations, the earlier their planning and implementation.