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Theme 3: Creating an accessible place

Principles A place that people can move easily around, by foot, bicycle or vehicle, is an attractive place. There are many elements that make a place accessible. Pedestrians need to be able to navigate an area by recognising familiar landmarks or consistent public domain treatments and signage. People on foot like weather protection and things to look at as they walk, and they need to feel safe from physical attack and from vehicles. Cyclists also need to feel safe and welcome in the street environment. Motorists visiting the CBD need to be able to navigate the area easily to find car parking that is convenient. Assisting motorists that are using the CBD as a convenient through route is not the primary aim of traffic design for a place that aspires to these principles.

Walking and Cycling

The Challenge The Bendigo CBD is, on the whole, a pedestrian friendly city with many tree-lined streets and an easy to navigate street grid. The opportunity exists to build on this strong base by providing a safe, attractive, convenient and enjoyable pedestrian environment at a human scale.

The potential long-term reclassification of that part of the Inner Box that crosses the CBD area (specifically Wills Street and Myers Street) provides a strong context to pursue diminished vehicular priority for the entire CBD.

Over time the emphasis should shift to the management of all CBD streets to optimise local access and circulation. Car travel is essential to the economic viability and vitality of Bendigo, in particular the needs of business and in supporting retail, leisure and other activities in the CBD.

However, in managing the CBD network, the Council recognises the importance of all modes of transport, including walking, bicycles and public transport to access the City.

Ultimately Council’s traffic strategies for the CBD should be designed to promote a consistent message to motorists that the CBD is a traffic environment that is distinctly different to the rest of the municipal area. As a result it requires special attention with respect to the safety needs of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists including the growing aged population with decreased mobility and the increased use of motorised scooters.

Many existing traffic management measures actively prioritise road traffic over pedestrian traffic. Dedicated turn lanes often necessitate a widened road pavement and therefore reduced pedestrian pavement and/or wider and more complex road crossings. Roundabouts facilitate constant traffic movement with less time and safety for pedestrians,

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with car priority at all times. Pedestrian crossings at roundabouts require queuing within the intersection, and motorist visibility of pedestrians is often greatly reduced by the configuration of a roundabout, particularly two-lane roundabouts. Roundabouts in a CBD situation rarely add to the visual amenity of a streetscape, and require just as many signs as traffic signals.

Objectives Create a high-quality and safe environment and improve the way pedestrians and cyclists move around the CBD.

Achieve an appropriate balance that maintains adequate vehicular and public transport access, while providing improved space for cyclists, encouraging increased street activity and enhancing pedestrian safety.

Key Actions • Improve pedestrian access and signage between the railway station precinct

/Marketplace and the CBD Retail Core, particularly along Mitchell Street. (see Map 6: Pedestrian Priority Areas and Routes)

• Improve pedestrian access throughout the Marketplace car park (see Map 6: Pedestrian Priority Areas and Routes)

• Implement a package of identified engineering improvements, including new crossings, centre-of-road refuges and other measures to reduce crossing distances, enhance safety and facilitate accessibility. (see Map 8: Traffic Circulation)

• Improve pedestrian and cyclist amenity through the provision of seating, bike parking rails and drinking fountains, preferably in shady locations, throughout the CBD.

• Review and improve, where necessary, the pedestrian crossing facilities at all roundabouts in the CBD, including replacing roundabouts with signalised crossings and/or replace two-lane roundabouts with one-lane roundabouts.

• Avoid dedicated turn lanes. • Implement a package of improvements to on-road bicycle facilities including exclusive

bicycle lanes on key roads leading into the CBD and bicycle lanes at all signalised intersections within the CBD.

• Program traffic signals to allow more time for pedestrian crossing movements throughout the CBD.

• Provide kerbside parallel parking to increase ‘friction’ for traffic and to provide a buffer between pedestrians and moving vehicles.

• Improve Edward Street as a walking environment, with standard footpaths along both sides of the road.

Other Initiatives • Provide secure bicycle parking at all Council buildings and community facilities and

Council-controlled off-street car parks.

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MAP 6: PEDESTRIAN PRIORITY AREAS AND ROUTES

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Lanes and Arcades

The Challenge In addition to the broad streets of the CBD, there is a hidden network of mid-block links, including arcades through historic structures, as well as outdoor laneways.

The ‘fine grain’ of circulation routes created by lanes and arcades reduces the effective size of the city blocks for pedestrians, improving convenience and accessibility, and providing routes with weather protection. They also add choice, character and interest to the urban environment with a variety of intimate and sheltered public spaces.

Extensions to the existing lanes and arcades to make a more continuous and extensive network, would enhance pedestrian access and create places of special character within the CBD.

A common role of lanes is to provide for service access, preserving valuable main street frontages for other uses and protecting them from negative impacts. This is an important function that should be maintained to enable deliveries, garbage collection, car parking and other services.

Mid-block pedestrian routes also provide additional development frontages. This is traditional in core retail precincts where arcades provide a significant increase in shopfront exposure within a compact area.

In addition, lanes and arcades can provide an address for uses in upper levels of buildings without eroding valuable retail frontages along the main streets, thereby supporting vertical land use mixes within commercial precincts.

Improvements to Allans Walk include the restoration of the historic mining exchange within the Beehive Building. The restoration works have the potential to become a centrepiece within the CBD as well as providing improved laneway connections.

Objectives • Encourage a fine-grained network of circulation routes that will enhance pedestrian

amenity, convenience, flexibility and alternative frontage types in the CBD.

• Enhance all existing lanes and arcades to provide an interesting, active, accessible and safe environment.

• Provide mid-block links where possible in new developments to improve pedestrian access.

• Use side lanes for access to housing or other uses of upper floor levels to protect the continuity of valuable retail frontages.

• Encourage the use of lanes to create additional development frontages.

• Develop sheltered mid-block public spaces that contribute to create a more diverse and intimate urban environment.

• Provide and encourage the use of rear lanes for access to properties to protect main streets from impacts of service vehicles and driveway crossovers.

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Key Actions • Create new east-west pedestrian laneways linking Williamson Street and Mundy Street,

between Lyttleton Terrace and Myers Street, as part of new developments in this area (See Map 7: Pedestrian Links).

• Improve access and the legibility of routes north-south through BRIT connecting with the footbridge to the Golden Dragon Museum, and create new north-south pedestrian laneways linking with routes through BRIT, between Hargreaves and Queen Streets (See Map 7: Pedestrian Links).

• Create an east-west pedestrian route along the south side of the Bendigo Creek/canal, linking the Golden Dragon Museum to Charing Cross (See Map 7: Pedestrian Links).

• Enhance and create new north-south pedestrian links between Mitchell and Edward Streets, extending from Charing Cross to the Marketplace along the drainage easements (See Map 7: Pedestrian Links).

Other Initiatives • Implement a program of upgrade for all public lanes in the CBD to improve safety,

pedestrian access and linkages. • Implement a program to assist and encourage the upgrade of arcades within the CBD to

improve appearance, lighting, safety, activity and hours of access.

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MAP 7: PEDESTRIAN LINKS

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Road System

The Challenge As a well-defined activity centre, the Bendigo CBD faces a number of challenges in relation to vehicular access and mobility.

On a regional scale, there are a number of arterial roads that form a system of circumferential inner and outer ring roads – known as the Inner Box and the Outer Box. These roads provide bypasses to the inner urban area of Bendigo.

Despite the existence of the ring road system, there has been a history of use of many of the key roads in the central area by through traffic, including trucks. This has worked against the pedestrian scale and amenity of the area.

Immediate opportunities exist to complete the circumferential Inner Box road system and improve its use through signage; however, the long-term appropriateness of this arrangement may need to be reviewed.

In particular, the role of Inner Box roads should progressively change to CBD access routes, as increased expansion of CBD activities occurs all around the Inner Box and strong directions emerge for a southwards expansion of the CBD (to improve synergy with the Bendigo Marketplace and the Railway Station precincts).

Objectives Manage the CBD road network to improve safety and amenity, reduce the level of non-local through traffic and redirect truck movements to appropriate alternate arterial routes.

Key Actions • Improve directional signage (eg. ‘CBD By-pass’) and enhance traffic priority along the

Inner and Outer Boxes to encourage their use for through traffic in preference to routes through the CBD.

• Reduce traffic capacity of the Charing Cross intersection in order to allow for significant improvement of pedestrian amenity, safety and convenience in the area.

• Extend Edward Street to High Street and encourage use of Edward Street for access from High Street to Marketplace and other CBD development south-west of Mitchell Street (ie. in preference to turns from High Street or Pall Mall into Mitchell Street).

• Implement a 40 km/hour speed limit throughout the Pedestrian Priority Area of the CBD (see Map 6: Pedestrian Priority Areas and Routes).

• Restrict truck movements (other than delivery trucks) by applying a truck ban in the CBD and diverting non-local truck movements to the Inner and Outer Box road systems ( see Map 8 Traffic Circulation).

• Investigate long term shift of the Inner Box southwards to improve synergy between the Railway precinct, Marketplace and other areas within the CBD (see Map 8 Traffic Circulation).

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Other Initiatives • Use traffic calming measures as appropriate to deal with evolving traffic pressures, such

as minimise lane widths and traffic speeds, but avoid any full road closures.

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MAP 8: TRAFFIC CIRCULATION

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Public Transport

The Challenge Within the Bendigo CBD there is generally good access to public transport bus facilities, although there are issues related to frequency of services and service routes to and from the CBD.

The Bendigo Transport Interchange/Urban Design/Master Planning Study in 2003 confirmed the anecdotal views that there is limited demand for interchanging between the town bus services, and coach and train services.

The Study also identified that there would likely be a negative impact on passenger convenience by locating the town bus interchange at the railway station with limited services to the existing stops at Mitchell and Hargreaves Streets.

In this context, options for improvement should focus on examining convenience and accessibility of existing routes to ensure thorough coverage of the CBD, improving the frequency of services and providing additional, more comfortable amenities.

The “Bendigo Regional and City Bus Service Review” in being conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton on behalf of the Department of Infrastructure to identify improvements to the regional and city bus services. The study is due to be completed late 2005.

Objective • Support, promote and improve public transport coverage, frequency and comfort in the

CBD.

Key Actions • Retain current bus stop locations in Mitchell Street but review routes to ensure optimum

coverage of CBD. • Advocate the improvement of all bus services through increased frequencies and

extension of services into weeknights and weekends. • Install high quality shelters for waiting bus passengers and generally enhance all bus

stops in the CBD through the provision of seating, lighting, litter bins and timetable information.

• Upgrade bus terminus facilities in Mitchell Street and at other busy locations by widening footpaths to accommodate improved bus stop facilities.

• Implement active bus priority through introduction of special traffic signal phases for buses (second to pedestrians), where appropriate, at CBD traffic signal sites.

• Provide real-time service information at all key bus stops in the CBD.

Other Initiatives • Provide physical priority for buses through additional road space at key locations – this

can take the form of exclusive bus lanes for priority progression at busy intersections. • Continue to implement the improvements identified for the Bendigo Station precinct in

the Bendigo Transport Interchange / Urban Design / Masterplanning Study, 2003.

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• Develop a public awareness program to promote the alternative modes of transport to access the CBD.

• Investigate providing park and ride facilities along public transport corridors providing access to the CBD to reduce pressure for parking within the CBD.

Parking

The Challenge Good planning in the past has resulted in the CBD being well served by a number of car parks. Council’s recent study has concluded that there is a shortfall in car parking in the CBD. Parking Precinct Plans will be implemented to ensure new development provides adequate car parking to meet individual needs, however the Council needs to determine its approach to the existing identified shortfall.

Future parking needs should be considered in the context of improvements to other modes of travel and the aim to discourage excessive and unnecessary car trips. In order to reduce reliance on the use of private cars, adequate parking should also be provided for bicycles.

The priority, at least for the immediate future, is to better manage the parking areas to provide a greater number of short term spaces near the heart of the CBD Retail Core and entertainments areas. Greater use of angled parking will improve access for people with disabilities. Tourist bus and caravan parking also need to be considered.

Council’s Central Business District Car Parking Study identifies opportunities for the provision of additional car parking capacity and these should be progressively pursued. A Parking Precinct Plan is being prepared for the Bendigo CBD area to implement the recommendations of the Car Parking Study.

One way to encourage the re-use of existing buildings for residential purposes is to reduce the car parking requirement. New developments have the opportunity to design for the convenient provision of car parking (usually underground) that is not available in situations of building recycling.

Objective To appropriately locate car parking to meet the needs of retailers, businesses, residents, institutions and visitors.

Key Actions • Pursue the development of additional multi-level carparking structures in the vicinity of

Edwards Street as identified in the Central Business District Car Parking Study. • Improve signage and lighting to all Council-controlled off-street carparks and review

pedestrian routes to these carparks to ensure that they are also well lit and signed.

Other Initiatives • Introduce a local policy into the Greater Bendigo Planning Scheme to reduce Scheme

car parking requirements for redevelopment of existing buildings for residential use in the CBD.

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• Investigate opportunities to provide angle parking spaces to improve access for disabled people.

• Investigate the needs of tourist bus operators and the need for holding bays, either near tourist facilities, or outside the CBD.

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Theme 4: Designing a high quality environment

Principles The public domain - streetscapes, spaces to gather and meet, footpaths and road treatments – all add to the appearance and ambience of a place. While buildings are one part of the equation, the spaces between buildings are just as important. The public domain can be used to reinforce the image of the CBD, reflect its role and improve its attractiveness and functionality.

Pedestrian Amenity

The Challenge Although there are generous green spaces nearby in Rosalind Park, as well as smaller spaces near the Town Hall, the streets are the city’s most extensive and important public spaces.

All of the streets are wide enough to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and cars with minimal conflict. However, there has been a past bias towards use of the space for cars, with large areas designated for parking, and inconvenient and potentially unsafe pedestrian crossing points.

Pedestrian accessibility can be enhanced through a variety of design and management changes.

There is potential to provide extra pedestrian space in special locations to create places for people to gather and for community events, although this should not occur at the expense of streetscape amenity and connections throughout the CBD – it should not create pedestrian enclaves and exaggerate traffic pressures in other areas.

Hargreaves Street Mall is an important pedestrian space. However, there are concerns regarding safety, amenity and conflicts between users within it. There is an opportunity to review the treatment of the Hargreaves Street Mall, including potential extension of the pedestrian priority area with limited traffic access (including the existing mall), as well as a general refurbishment of its paving and other treatments.

Bull Street and St Andrews Avenue are quiet local streets, and they have the potential to be treated as pedestrian-oriented spaces accommodating a variety of social and civic activities.

The open space around the Town Hall between Lyttleton Terrace, Hargreaves, Mundy and Williamson Streets provides a park setting that also accentuates the Town Hall’s importance. Council consolidation of the properties between Lyttleton Terrace, Hargreaves, Mundy and Williamson Streets as an open space would allow for enhancement of the Town Hall’s civic setting and provide a high quality open space. The area adjoining the library and Town Hall

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is a pleasant sitting area that has the potential for use as a gathering place and for busking and other forms of entertainment.

Pall Mall is Bendigo’s major spine because of its traditional role as the highway through town, its grand formal character, the adjoining Rosalind Park and grand civic and historic commercial buildings along it. Charing Cross is a recognisable centre point of Bendigo for tourists and locals alike. However, Pall Mall and Charing Cross are designed primarily to manage traffic rather than with consideration of pedestrian access and civic image. A clutter of traffic islands, signs and signals surrounds the fountain. The lane widths along Pall Mall are wide, making it difficult to cross and encouraging reckless driving. The Bridge Street intersection allows high turning speeds but provides poor visibility.

Significant improvements could be made in the streetscape design of Pall Mall, Charing Cross and Bridge Street to give greater priority to pedestrian amenity and safety, and to enhance the civic image of Bendigo’s central tourist precinct. Pedestrian amenity and safety can be improved through traffic management measures.

Objectives • Improve pedestrian amenity and safety throughout the CBD road system. • Accommodate pedestrian oriented activities and spaces wherever possible in the CBD. • Focus particular attention to improvements within Pall Mall and Charing Cross as a key

landmark and gateway to the CBD.

Key Actions • Undertake improvement works to the Charing Cross/Pall Mall entry to the Bendigo CBD. • Undertake improvement works to Hargreaves Street (including Hargreaves Mall). • Encourage the restoration of the heritage façade of the building located on the south

east corner of Pall Mall and Mitchell Street in particular as a key location, and other heritage buildings wherever possible.

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MAP 9: VIEWS AND VISTAS

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Streetscapes

The Challenge Most of Bendigo’s CBD streets are laid out in a simple grid that makes the area easy to access and understand. Interrupting this basic grid, Lyttleton Terrace forms a pair of diagonals aligned with the Town Hall. This, combined with the axis through the Town Hall along Bull Street and St Andrews Avenue, gives a distinctive formal character to the CBD, similar to central Melbourne, Geelong and other 19th century Victorian cities.

Over the past few years, a suite of high-quality paving and furniture details has been used for streetscape works in the CBD. Areas remain with varied older treatments, but it is Council policy to apply these new standards over time, to the entire CBD. This will enhance the presentation of individual streets and give a sense of cohesion to the CBD as a whole.

There has been a lack of consistency in streetscape design on a broader scale, with changes from block to block in the layout of parking and medians. The Hargreaves Mall marks out the traditional retail centre, yet shops are spread over a much wider area.

These inconsistencies make the overall street network less legible and inviting to pedestrians. Application of more consistent street design principles at a larger scale would contribute to the accessibility and character of the CBD and help to improve links between it and other areas.

Views to the Town Hall along Lyttleton Terrace, Bull Street and St Andrews Avenue provide links between Bendigo’s daily city activities and its civic spaces. These views are important to Bendigo’s identity and also support orientation and way-finding (see Map 9 Views and Vistas).. However, this view is obscured in Lyttleton Terrace by its cluttered layout, low trees and public toilets.

Views along Mitchell Street are also important to reinforce links between the Marketplace, CBD and the View Street precinct.

Street design elements often vary block by block and sometimes within streets, providing a confusing and disjointed streetscape. A consistent street design (including trees, footpaths widths, medians if any, lighting, etc.) along the length of each street (or at least within segments that relate to the broader urban pattern) will add to the cohesiveness of the CBD, and assist orientation and understanding of the Precincts, and present more visually appealing streetscapes. A simple formal geometry should be maintained in the layout of kerbs, trees, lights and other features in the street. Future streetscape treatments should also consider the traditional materials and design used in existing streetscapes and public spaces. Traffic measures should not interfere with the formality of this pattern, for example widening of intersections should be avoided.

Objectives • Protect and express the Victorian formality of Bendigo’s CBD street pattern

• Open up and protect important vistas along streets to landmarks and identifiable places in the CBD to support orientation and way-finding. Such vistas include views to: − Town Hall − Heritage buildings along Pall Mall − Alexandra Fountain − Churches, or church steeples

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• Design streets so as to reinforce Bendigo’s urban character and sense of place, and to support orientation and way-finding within the CBD and between the CBD and adjoining neighbourhoods.

• Use a consistent suite of paving and other streetscape materials throughout the CBD, utilising the highest quality materials strategically to maximise their impact and contain costs. The suite of materials should also consider the traditional treatment of existing streetscapes to ensure they are in keeping with the heritage and neighbourhood character of areas. (see Map 10: Streetscape Materials).

Key Actions • Undertake a program of streetscape upgrades throughout the CBD, with consistent

application of a suite of street furniture, paving, trees, kerbing, lighting, footpath widths and other details, within defined areas. See Streetscape Materials Plan to indicate areas of like-materials)

• Views along streets to the Town Hall should be opened up by actions such as redesigning Lyttleton Terrace between Mitchell Street and Williamson Street to create a simpler, less cluttered streetscape with open views to the Town Hall (see Map 9 Views and Vistas).

• Redesign Charing Cross to improve the setting, appearance and appreciation of the Alexandra Fountain.

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MAP 9: STREETSCAPE MATERIALS

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Design Quality

The Challenge Many buildings from different eras contribute to the identity, interest and amenity of the Bendigo CBD, as well as having significance in their own right. However, not all buildings merit preservation and the city is not frozen in time. There are many opportunities for new development, even in areas covered by Heritage Overlays.

New buildings and heritage buildings should jointly contribute to Bendigo’s design quality, but integrating new development with existing buildings does not require uniform, subservient or recessive architecture.

‘Well-mannered’ architecture and consistency of building types is important, as is provision of equivalent articulation and detailing to provide a human scale and interest.

There is great variety in Bendigo’s historic buildings and this adds to its charm. Varied materials and details help to tell a story of the city’s history, and the different parapet lines and building heights in the CBD provide visual interest and complement the simple formal street grid.

Public and private amenity relies increasingly on more sophisticated and responsive design solutions as development density increases. Without good design, problems such as loss of access to sunlight as well as impacts of noise from air conditioners, rubbish collection, and entertainment activity may result.

All developments should be designed to reasonably protect amenity on their own and neighbouring sites. This will entail consideration of issues such as future development on neighbouring sites; acoustic and visual privacy; measures to buffer noise sources; access to daylight and natural ventilation; and, waste storage and disposable measures, provision of post boxes etc.

There are new DSE guidelines for higher-density residential development currently under preparation, which will address these issues to a large degree. These should be promoted and expanded upon as necessary to guide new development.

The State Government planning policies (including the Transit Cities Program) aim to support a more sustainable future for Victoria. Among other things, sustainability relies on the detailed design of buildings, use of materials in them, energy use to run them, maintenance requirements, lifespan, and replacement costs. All development in the Bendigo CBD should demonstrate high standards of environmental sustainability.

Good quality design will contribute to the amenity of Bendigo for people living and working there, and is an essential tool for marketing the area to encourage local investment and shopping. This applies to permanent features such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, as well as more ephemeral features such as retail presentation, shopfronts, advertising and promotional materials.

Beyond expectations for a good general standard of development, architectural emphasis and excellence is particularly important on a number of landmark sites that enjoy unique prominence where streets are interrupted by changes in the street pattern. The most significant example of this is the Town Hall, and there are other sites scattered around the CBD at the focal point of T intersections and bends in street alignments.

In addition, the breadth of Pall Mall and vistas across Rosalind Park make all buildings along Pall Mall and around Charing Cross especially prominent. Outstanding architecture should

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especially be sought on these sites, as it will have a greater impact on the character of the city than most other buildings.

A widespread understanding of the value of design is an important basis for improving design results. Awards programs can be an important way to develop this understanding, and new projects also set important examples.

The Council and State Government are in a position to set good examples through the development of their own facilities or through commercial development of properties they own. Council also has an ability to stimulate private-sector development through public space enhancement, which can be used as a tool in bargaining with developers to encourage them to attain higher standards in their projects.

There is often scope to improve designs during pre-application discussions and through the planning approvals process. The fact that good design can expedite the approvals process should be made clear from the outset.

Objectives • Protect significant buildings and to ensure that new buildings contribute to public space

quality, private amenity, and enhance the identity and sustainability of Bendigo as a whole.

• Promote sustainable building design and construction.

• Retain, protect and appropriately use heritage buildings to strengthen the CBD’s character and appeal.

• Ensure that higher density developments protect the amenity of their own and neighbouring sites.

• Ensure that new development is integrated with existing.

• Promote design excellence.

• Create outstanding architecture at prominent sites.

Key Actions • Develop a long term plan for streetscape enhancements (see Public Spaces:

Streetscapes) and stage its implementation opportunistically to stimulate desirable redevelopment and to assist in negotiations with developers.

• Introduce a local policy into the Greater Bendigo Planning Scheme to require superior performance under each of a number of assessment criteria as a basis for permitting building heights beyond preferred or discretionary limits, including:

− Achieving excellence in architectural design − Implementing environmental sustainability principles − Achieving heritage restoration and adaptive re-use − Enhancing public and private amenity − Protection of the development potential of nearby sites

• The Council undertake development projects to provide examples of quality design and best practice ecological sustainability principles.

• The Council consider employing an Urban Designer/Architect to provide advice to development applicants and owners on ESD and quality design.

• Investigate the Design Panel model as a method of obtaining high quality design and its appropriateness for Bendigo.

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Other Initiatives • Develop a process to audit amenity impacts of high density residential development

proposals including benchmarks for acceptable and superior design. • Develop a process to audit the sustainability of development proposals including

benchmarks for acceptable and superior design. • Develop a standard range of criteria to evaluate development proposals to ensure

protection of development potential of adjoining sites. • Develop guidelines to minimise signage, for sympathetic awning design, provision of

lighting on building facades for heritage buildings. • Develop additional design guidelines if required to tailor the new DSE higher density

residential guidelines to issues specific to Bendigo. • Continue to support restoration of heritage buildings through interest-free loans via

Council’s Heritage Restoration Assistance Program, and provision of advice through Council’s Heritage Advisor and the Heritage Advisory Committee.

• Encourage developers to use qualified and experienced design professionals. Reinforce the message that good design can save costs by expediting approvals as well as by providing potentially higher returns on capital investments.

• Consider establishment of a local Design Awards program to promote design excellence, or sponsor a special award within an existing awards program (e.g. RAIA, AILA, API).

• Continue the refurbishment and redevelopment of the Beehive Building as a major Council initiative to demonstrate the potential sympathetic re-use of important heritage buildings.

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