Its important to note at this point the purpose is to develop a "planning instrument" for the disposal and development guidelines of this site. If you are a little uncertain what a planning instrument is or means I suggest strongly you have a look at that link just back there on Planning instrument.
To begin the conversation some proposals of what may happen under the existing draft of the planning instrument was presented and our feedback on this sought. Since its hard to talk about the concrete with only the abstract a diagram of possible sorts of buildings (based on their current assumptions) was presented. Its important to note that this figure represents one of the possibilities that could occur if the planning instrument was formed and developers designed buildings of this form. It is not a specification.
The above diagram represents potential land uses and some preservation
of heritage. The original Cottage is there between M and K buildings
(which are proposed as
residential) and some of the original nurses quarters
integrated into K building.
Allied health services are suggested for the 'eastern end' of the site near High St.
We discussed
- Land use
- Urban design and public realm
- Traffic and transport
I felt that the subjects were not covered in depth (as perhaps they can't be especially given our 3 hour schedule) and that the planners did not have a grasp of the subtleties of the region. I think this is a critical failure in the process.
In this post I'll discuss a few of the issues with perhaps a focus on Traffic. Perhaps because I was most interested in this component or perhaps because I saw this as the only area where there was any possibility of making a real difference to the process. I'm not sure.
Land use:
The existing focus of the redevelopment is on providing community benefits and economic replacement to Southport to replace the loss of the Hospital from that site. Currently a mixture of:
- allied health services
- residential accomodation
- green space
- community space
We discussed the locations of things and it was raised in the discussions that placing the allied health towards the west and the residential towards the east would perhaps be better. This is because
- On the eastern end of the site is the top of the hill that the Existing multi storey GC Hospital building is sited on. This would afford fantastic views and be prime residential locations.
- Placing the residential areas on the Eastern end would site the allied health services slightly further away from the busy High St access points (easing access congestion)
- It would provide some separation between the existing residential areas to the west of the site and place the allied health services in the middle of the site.
- Give the people living in the residential area closer to Southrport and giving easier pedestrian access to Southport, the park and libraries across towards Lawson, Suter and then Scarbourgh Sts.
Traffic:
The point in discussion was how to give access to the site to minimize the disturbance to the traffic flow and to maximize the access. To discuss this in a meaningful way I'd like to include a small map segment or two to show the area. Locals to Southport may have varying knowledge of the streets and so rather than take anything for granted ...
The site is bounded by High St (well really little High St, but that's another matter), Nerang St and Queen St. As it stands right now, access to that site (pretend there is nothing there right now) has some restrictions.
Currently there is no right turn into the site from Nerang St or High St.
High St is currently (and for the foreseeable future) to be a high volume street as it is one of the main access routes from and to Smith St and hence the Motorway. As it stands there is no right turn into the site from High St (meaning you can not turn across the traffic). This makes sence at so many levels.
Nerang St: because of the light rail development (and probably sensible as well) there is no right turn into the site from Nerang St either.
So this means that only Queen St gives a 'back street' access where people can turn in to the site from either direction.
This raises some interesting issues which I think need to be thought through but have not. For instance:
- Queen St is a bit of a bottleneck at the moment with traffic coming from the eastern (broardwater) end, but mainly turning right into High St, left into Ferry Road. The smaller amount that attempts to get to Nerang St by continuing along must run the gauntlet of the blockages that exist along the remainder of Queen St. This comes from people accessing the medical services along Queen, Allamander Private Hospital, as well as those wanting to continue through to Nerang
- Allamander Private Hospital will be undergoing changes in the next few years, so any thought of planning this needs to take that into consideration
This leads me to wonder if making access into the site from Queen St the same as above, being no right turn across the traffic.
This would reduce the obstruction to traffic caused by vehicles entering the site (while vehicles wanting to turn right have to give way to traffic moving east along Queen) and make for a single direction flow of traffic within the site, reducing congestion within the site.
Food for thought?
Well that's enough for this post. I'll follow up more soon.
