2015 UDIA state of the land report

Providing enough new serviced land in our cities and towns is the key to successfully accommodating our growing population, and is a major challenge for policy makers at all levels of government. This is the seventh edition of the annual State of the Land Report prepared by the Urban Development Institute of Australia. Unlike in previous years, this years’ report has been undertaken in partnership with Charter Keck Cramer and Research4, which have provided land supply and market performance data from the National Land Survey Program (further details in the last section of this report). This ground breaking partnership allows data sourced from developers on the ground across the country to bring a new level of reliability, consistency and depth to the Report. The modest upswing in development industry activity that we saw emerging in 2013 continued to gather momentum throughout last year, and as a result, 2014 was a strong year for industry, and for new land supply. Nationally, the NLSP data sample indicates that 50,150 new greenfield lots were released over the 2014 calendar year, up 31% from 38,350 in 2013, and the highest level of new releases since the global financial crisis. Despite low interest rates and strong market demand, at the national level, new lot prices have remained largely in check across most cities, with the notable exceptions of Sydney and Perth. As noted in previous years’ State of the Land Reports, median lot sizes across most cities have continued their downward march, a reflection of changing market preferences, land constraints, and affordability pressures. 2015 is currently shaping up to be another good year for the development industry and for new land supply, with continued strong demand and high levels of market activity, with the exception of South Australia. However despite recent improvements, most cities across Australia still face major constraints when it comes to new land supply. Governments cannot afford to be complacent. They must undertake the necessary actions to improve planning systems, increase infrastructure investment, and reduce red tape, to ensure the availability of sufficient serviced land to deliver affordable housing, and to support jobs and economic activity in the development industry

URBAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Urban management revolution: intelligent management systems for ubiquitous cities

A successful urban management support system requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated transparent and open decision making mechanism. The paper emphasises the importance of integrated urban management to better tackle the climate change, and to achieve sustainable urban development and sound urban growth management. This paper introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for ubiquitous cities. The paper discusses the essential role of online collaborative decision making in urban and infrastructure planning, development and management, and advocates transparent, fully democratic and participatory mechanisms for an effective urban management system that is particularly suitable for ubiquitous cities. This paper also sheds light on some of the unclear processes of urban management of ubiquitous cities and online collaborative decision making, and reveals the key benefits of integrated and participatory mechanisms in successfully constructing sustainable ubiquitous cities

Determining Sustainable Development Density using the Urban Carrying Capacity Assessment System

Diverse urban problems in the capital region of Korea occur due to over-development and over-concentration which exceed the region’s carrying capacity. Particularly, environmental problems such as air and water pollution have become more evident and become central issues for urban planners and decision-makers. In achieving sustainable environment through resolving such problems, practical approaches to incorporate the concept of environmental sustainability into managing urban development are needed. This research aims at developing an integrated framework for assessing urban carrying capacity which can determine sustainable development density, and has yielded the following. First, seven determining factors for urban carrying capacity including energy, green areas, roads, subway systems, water supply, sewage treatment, and waste treatment were identified, and the assessment framework was developed by integrating such factors. Second, the UCCAS, a GIS-based carrying capacity assessment system was developed based upon the framework. Finally, through a case study of determining carrying capacity of an urban area, it was revealed that decision support with the UCCAS demonstrated in this research could play a pivotal role in planning and managing urban development more effectively

Predicting and simulating future land use pattern : a case study of Seremban district

As long as rapid urbanization which is a result of natural population growth and rural urban migration due to push and pull factors of social and economic conditions as well as the moving of urban populations from major city centres to urban fringe areas due to changing lifestyle which emphasized on spacious and more comfortable and environmentally friendly living environment continue to happen; towns and cities will continue to grow and expand to accommodate the growing and complex demand of the people. Experiences have shown that rapid and uncontrolled expansion of towns and cities has led to amongst others the deterioration in the quality of urban environment and sprawling of urban development onto prime agricultural and forest areas as well as cities starting to lose their identity. In order to avoid such phenomena continuing to happen, particularly in the Kuala Lumpur Conurbation Area, towns and cities need to be properly planned and managed so that their growth or expansion can be controlled and managed in a sustainable manner. One of the strategies adopted to curb sprawling development is through the delineation of urban growth or development limits (UGL). This means that the limit of towns and cities need to be studied and identified, so that urban development can be directed to areas that are identified and specified suitable for such development. One of the main tasks in the process of delineating UGL has been included as an important task in the preparation of development plans. With such policy a research study is now being carried out to develop a spatial modelling framework towards delineating UGL through the application and integration of spatial technologies and this will be a basis or framework for land use planners, managers and policy makers to formulate urban land use policies and monitor urban land use development. One of the main analysis involve in the process of performing this task is to understand past urban land development trend and to predict and identify future urban growth areas of the selected study area. This paper highlights the integration of statistical modeling technique via binary logistic regression analysis with GIS technology in understanding and predicting urban growth pattern and area as applied to District of Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. The result shows that urban land use pattern in the study area within the study period are significantly related to more than half of the predictors used in the analysis

Urban conservation areas and sustainable development: exploring the relationship

With increasing emphasis being placed on concentrating development in urban areas and improving the quality of life in British cities and towns, the importance of accommodating necessary development without compromising the valued heritage and architectural quality of urban areas is now becoming central to sustainable urban development. Urban conservation policy and practice has the potential to contribute to this and other aspects of sustainability. This paper explores this contribution and develops an analytical framework which draws out the key linkages between conservation area policy and sustainable development. The framework is then used to research the potential and actual contribution of urban conservation policy and practice in England, using a selective survey and two case studies (i.e. Winchester and Basingstoke). The main conclusions from the research are that: Conservation area policy can make a significant contribution to the principles of sustainable development; Most local planning authorities in England have not fully woken-up to this potential and have not developed policies or practices to address it; and Urban conservation policy needs to develop a more proactive approach in which local planning authorities actively guide and encourage new development with regard to use, design, layout, methods of construction, materials and energy efficiency

Implementing transit oriented development in Greater London

This book provides new dimensions and a contemporary focus on sustainable transport, urban regeneration and development in eight countries spanning four continents at different stages of development. It examines the role of transit oriented development (TOD) in improving urban sustainability and providing different transport choices, exploring how these can be implemented in modern cities. Establishing a new agenda for TOD, experts in the field critically evaluate the links between urban transport investment and economic, social and environmental sustainability, introducing new methods of analysis. The chapters investigate the international dimensions of TOD, providing crucial insights into issues such as uneven development, transport emissions, global warming, car dependence and the challenge of powering vehicles with sustainable fuels. Urban and regional planning, transport studies and environmental management scholars seeking to understand urban sustainability issues will benefit from this timely book. It will also prove to be a valuable read for urban planners and research consultants looking to widen their knowledge of the role of TOD in enhancing urban sustainability

Impacts of large scale development: does space make a difference?

Large scale development, a process to rapidly transform urban built environment since the industrial modernism, has been often criticized for creating fragmented environments that impair urban vitality. Many opponents of large scale development, especially the Jacobists, further addressed its destructive impacts upon those most directly affected, such as the communities and the marginal businesses in the vicinity. How far does an insertion of a large scale development impact on its surroundings? And how far do the surroundings impact on a development? Does space, or space configuration as defined by Hillier, matter in the two-way processes of interaction between a development and its surroundings at the urban design level? This paper gives a comparative study, through the appliance of space syntax methodology, of Canary Wharf in London and Brindleyplace in Birmingham from 1991 to 2001. During this period, Canary Wharf had slowly shifted evolving from development with deregulation in the first phase to a process of cooperation with local authorities, whilst benefiting from good links to the rest of London via a tube line and an express way, but it has been still criticized for failing to achieve social regeneration; Brindleyplace, however, at first applied a traditional urban design approach to integration with urban setting and has been appraised as a model of urban renaissance. This paper analyses whether the different spatial strategies result in the different spatial configurations, and then whether pedestrian movement dynamics and social aggregations respond to and shape the different spatial configurations before and after the developments. Evidence from these aspects direct the paper to suggest that spatial configurations at street level could play a fundamental role, prior to and beyond development size, in two-way impacts between a large scale development and its surroundings, whether positive or negative. Furthermore, it argues that whether a large scale development becomes a positive or negative attractor to its surroundings at a variety of interconnected levels could be primarily determined by the relationship between spatial patterns at different radii. The process of two-way influences between a development and its surroundings might shed the light on interaction between pattern and process in complex urban system and related social issue of urban fragmentation during the period of rapid but planned urban transformation after the Industry Revolution

Development of Urban Electric Bus Drivetrain

The development of the drivetrain for a new series of urban electric buses is presented in the paper. The traction and design properties of several drive variants are compared. The efficiency of the drive was tested using simulation calculations of the vehicle rides based on data from real bus lines in Prague. The results of the design work and simulation calculations are presented in the paper