Establishing a Consistent Criteria for Quality Infill

While some would contend that no infill is good infill, we must be realistic and recognize that no city is perfect and no neighbourhood is perfect.  Infill is an opportunity for improvement.

Here are some criteria that IDEA believes will enable an infill project to improve a neighbourhood:
 

Densification

Densification is the process of adding more units to a property.  This can mean housing units, and commercial and retail spaces.  Replacing an existing older home with one new home is not densification. 

Diversity Enhancing

The project allows people to live in the neighbourhood who previously couldn’t, and for people to stay in their neighbourhood as their housing needs change.  For example:

• Homes that are affordable for young families and new immigrants

• Secondary suites and other rental units

• Seniors housing that allows people to stay close to their friends and neighbours and everything they have become familiar with

• Barrier-free housing that welcomes people with diverse mobility needs

Our neighbourhoods should reflect the rich diversity of our city.
 

Durable

The project is constructed of high quality, long lasting materials, inside and out.
 

Energy Efficient

As a result of advances in building science, improved quality of construction materials, and stricter building code requirements, new houses are more energy efficient than most of the original housing stock in mature neighbourhoods.  Net Zero Energy, PassivHaus, and other highly energy efficient projects should be encouraged.
 

Pedestrian Friendly

Many of Edmonton’s mid-century neighbourhoods were designed to be car-centric. There was little consideration for the impact of urban design on our health, our energy use, and our relationships with our neighbours.  In the intervening years we have learned that moving our houses closer to the street creates opportunities for neighbours to get to know each other and to watch out for each other.  It makes our neighbourhoods more vibrant and interesting and encourages people to walk through them.  
 

Enhanced Streetscapes

Mature trees add significant value to our mature areas, and should be preserved where possible and replaced by new trees when not.  Care should be taken to ensure that the front yard and front façade of the house improve the quality of the public space it faces.  For healthy neighbourhoods, public streetscapes must be attractive to pedestrians and enhance neighbourly relationships.

According to Vitruvius, an architect of the first century BC, a building must exhibit the three qualities of solidity, usefulness and beauty.  If our infill projects can follow these principles our mature neighbourhoods will necessarily be improved.

Infill Development and the Distribution of Open Space in Melbourne

Melbourne’s open space system spans property boundaries over public and private lands, and provides key social and ecological services. With significant population growth predicted over the next 50 years, high levels of infill housing will be required. Increasing house sizes and infill development practices are directly modifying the quantity and quality of private open space in inner and middle belt suburbs. The distribution of public open space in Melbourne is uneven, with most inner municipalities, and 6 of 13 middle municipalities, having a shortage of public open space per capita. 

The changing political economy of the compact city and higher density urban renewal in Sydney

The evolution of higher density renewal policy in New South Wales might be described as at first reactive, then passive, and then vigorously proactive. While both Labor and Coalition governments have advocated urban renewal, the methods and mechanisms employed to bring this about have been different. The end result is that the overall policy remains messy and opportunistic, as well as systemic and complex. In order to understand this complexity, it helps to begin with a brief overview of the policy’s historical roots, before turning to examine recent developments in more detail. 

Intensifying Melbourne: Transit-Oriented Urban Design for Resilient Urban Futures

Australian cities are some of the lowest density and most car-dependent on the planet: intensified urban development and improved public transport to meet the imperatives of population growth and a low-carbon future is a major challenge. Despite decades of compact city policy there has been little change to the practice of ever-expanding suburban fringe development and freeway building that entrenches and exacerbates car-dependency. One of the major blockages to transformational change has been a lack of design vision that can capture the public imagination for more sustainable urban futures. In 2010 we commenced an ARC Linkage research project called 'Intensifying Places: Transit-Oriented Urban Design for Resilient Australian Cities'. This project seeks to analyse the potentials for Australian cities through developing visions for transit-oriented futures that can achieve broad community acceptance in a democratic framework.

Melbourne — A Reality Check: Metropolitan Plans, Progress and Prospects

Despite the frequent production of metropolitan strategies in recent years, there has been little examination of how successful they have been in guiding urban growth and change. This is curious considering there are many common features among these plans in pursuing the orthodoxy of the compact city. An examination of the available evidence on the progress and performance of the plans indicates some messy, inefficient, partial and uneven headway. The response of governments to these signals is to make another long-range plan, although a change of government is also a reason for doing this.

One reason for this disjunction is suggested to be the gap between planning proposals and the reality and dynamics of urban development identified when the first of these plans was produced in Melbourne. There is growing recognition of this gap and the need to bridge it. The paper ends by suggesting a couple of current initiatives that could help to do so. Integrating urban research and planning practice may lead to a change in the metropolitan planning process itself and in the nature of the plans.