On the road to somewhere

Posted On September 18, 2013

Nicole Lindsay
Property Australia

Developers who can successfully integrate public transport and urban renewal can reap huge benefits.

Suburban highways clogged with slow-moving cars and trucks may be history if transport corridors and development can be properly integrated.

Mixing infrastructure such as roads, trains, light rail or bus routes with residential and commercial developments is one of the defining elements of contemporary planning.

The aim is to get cars and trucks off suburban roads, regenerate the high streets and stock them with shops and apartments that can service a growing population.

The Property Council’s New South Wales executive director Glenn Byres says there are huge advantages to developing transport corridors—for the community as well as developers.

“The main thing that a development like this offers is good amenities and good access to infrastructure,” he says. “It involves the development and sale of sites that are already in an established market close to retail and commercial centres.”

There’s a particular benefit as well for the nine milion workers identified as commuters by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne: should they be lucky enough to live close or alongside a well-developed transport corridor, it could mean a significantly easier journey to work.

But getting the planning in place requires serious political will and high finance—at a time when the funding models for multi-billion-dollar projects such as roads, rail and light rail are in flux. That presents opportunities for developers to be part of innovative new solutions.

Since the 1990s, governments have pursued privatised models of funding and ownership—usually the BOOT (build-own-operate-transfer) scheme.

The New South Wales government is trying radically new methods of finance, calling for unsolicited infrastructure ideas from the private sector and announcing plans to fund the first $1.8 billion stage of the WestConnex toll road.

The 33km road will link the M4 and M5 around Sydney Airport and Port Botany. The state government will only approach the private sector for finance once the new road’s revenues, and therefore value, becomes known in operation.

Transurban, which opened its first toll road, Melbourne’s CityLink, in 1999, has proposed a new $2.65 billion road for Sydney, the F3-M2 project (see sidebar, p.48).

Using tunnels under Pennant Hills Road, it will connect traffic flowing from the F3 at Wahroonga to the M2 Motorway at West Pennant Hills.

Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton says the project “would add significant value to Sydney’s northern corridor and the city more generally.

“This would be a great outcome for commuters, freight and residents along this corridor,” he says.

But integrating emerging traffic corridors with urban renewal projects takes more than just money—it requires serious political will and community backing.

High density

That sentiment is echoed by a new report, Transforming Perth, written by the Property Council of Australia, the Greens and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre.

The report looks at the potential for new dwellings that could be built in medium and high density zones alongside underused transport corridors.

It’s essential to look at regenerating these areas, as while Perth is the fastest-growing city in Australia it has suffered from urban sprawl, over-reliance on private vehicles and a lack of public transport.

The Western Australian government wants to make public transport the main method of travel to some key areas by 2031 and increase residential density from an average of 10 dwellings per hectare to 15. Central to the plan is the creation of 124,000 new dwellings through more efficient infill development.

Seven transport corridors have been identified based on their strategic and geographic importance, with 1575 hectares of land along those ‘high streets’ ripe for development. Medium-density projects could yield 94,500 dwellings and house about 330,000 people. Higher-density developments would absorb Perth’s new residents even faster—252,000 dwellings could house more than 650,000 people.

However, the report concedes that poor-quality infill projects, particularly in the 1960s–80s, have led to a “density hangover” and community resistance, especially in suburbs with established amenities.

Sydney has a similar program underway since the NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell, announced in March an Urban Activation Precincts program identifiying eight precincts, including Randwick and Wentworth Point, that it considers to be ripe for development.

The aim of the program is to develop housing and communities along transport corridors so that people can live close to infrastructure, services and jobs. When it was announced, O’Farrell pointed to the challenges Sydney faces with the expectation that there will be an extra 1.3 million people in the NSW capital by 2031, requiring an extra 545,000 more homes and 625,000 more jobs.

Community passion

Developing transport corridors makes sense on paper, but the biggest obstacles often come from those who could have the most to gain—the community where the development is to take place. Large developments such as Melbourne’s Orrong Road project have run into vocal community resistance, and the developer, Lend Lease, is currently fighting the case before the Supreme Court.

“People instinctively don’t like change,” says the Property Council’s Byres. “But in the case of Sydney, we are a global city and we are going to grow. It’s a question of whether we want smart growth or dumb growth.”

The F3–M2 project

Funding for Transurban’s proposed F3–M2 project would be shared between the public and private sectors. State and federal governments would contribute $800 million and a joint venture by Transurban and Westlink M7, using tolls collected on other roads, help raise its share of the costs.

Transurban CEO Scott Charlton says the project is still to be approved by the state government and will depend on finding a builder to meet the $2.65 billion budget.