A history of Canberra- From Griffin to Griffin legacy

The Federation of Australian states under the constitution in 1901 led to the birth of Canberra. Instead of making Sydney or Melbourne the Capital, it was decided a separate territory would be created in 1908. A competition was created for the plan of Canberra, which was won by Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Catherine Mahoney in 1913. The original plan  is shown below. It incorporates two major planning trends of the time, Daniel Burham’s "City Beautiful" and Ebenezer Howard’s "Garden city" ideals. Griffin explained his city design as "I have planned a city not like any other city in the world... I have planned an ideal city-a city that meets my ideals of the city of the future", Griffin 1912.

Unfortunately much of Griffin's plan was not undertaken due to the politics of the time. The 1919 plan bellow shows the amendments to the plan.

As time went on, new master plans evolved. Each plan encapsulated the new planning theories and practice of the times. The 1965- The future Canberra plan , Saw the extension of the boundaries of Canberra in order to cope with a growing population. It extended it both to the south and to the north. This plan saw the development of large arterial roads and looping suburbs, instead of gridded streets. This was a common practice of planning of the time which was seen in American cities such as Los Angeles

The 1970 “Y plan” and the 1984 “Metropolitan Policy” plan continued to fuse on the growing boundaries of the growing city. It continued to grow the transport network through all the town centres.

The current plan, the Griffin legacy of 2004 goes back to the basics of the original plan. It is about consolidating the major town centres and providing mix use and density along the transport corridors. It tries to go back to ensuring Canberra remains a Garden city,

“Canberra achieves the difficult feat of being one of the last cities beautiful.  And also the World’s biggest Garden City” Hall, 2002.

The question is how can Canberra continue to be a Garden city into the future? How will future planning ensure this?

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New South Wales-Planning System

To understand the NSW planning system we went on an excursion to Queanbeyan City Council. Here we were given a talk from one of the senior social planners who gave us an insight on how this council was run in conjunction with the state regulations and national guidelines for planning. Recent planning reforms by the Barry O'Farrel government has tried to make a more transparent and intergrated system . Instead of having a management plan and a social plan, these two documents were condensed into one framework.They are required to make a long-term community strategic plan of at least 10 years and make a resourcing strategy. These plans are followed up with an annual report which is aimed to help with monitoring so that results may be had. This is all shown in the diagram below. Do you think this planning tool will be effective for local government ? I think the process needs to be made easier still and less expensive. The Queanbeyan government to produce such documents used consultants which was very expensive. Therefore I think state government needs to make it easier (especially for smaller councils who do not have the money to make such documents) and give them the outline of what they need to do.  As the speaker herself  said, she was "sketpical" of the framework and though that there was "a disconnect from the vision and what is delivered on the ground" . I think whilst documents with the vision are important to have , I think the council should be made to place more of am emphasis on what can be achieved on the ground rather then bigger picture things. Therefore some of the documentation should be further condensed and more money should be invested into grass roots initiatives. What are your thoughts? What is the role of local council in planning in your eyes?
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NSW Local Government PLanning and Reporting Framework

Source:http://www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au/MyCouncil/Communitystrategicplan.aspx,21/3/2012

Plans when enforced are behind the times?

This tutorial we had the pleasure of being spoken too by Hamish Sinclair-the director of the planning institute of Australia who has worked in national, state and local government planning over many years. His talk was very insightful on the perils of planning and he went into depth on local planning issues and trends.  His biggest critique of the profession being that whenever a plan is undertaken it is behind the times. Planning is based on the lessons from the past. Therefore the challenge is to incorporate expected trends and events in the future into current plans. To foresee such events and to integrate them into current plans are near impossible but is there an alternative? How should plans incorporate the future? Perhaps mechanisms should be enforced that once a plan is enforced that should any major disaster or event happen that it is easy to change the plan instead of having to go through the rigorous and tedious process of making amendment to plans. As the profession is dynamic, should the plans be too? 

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