The release of council’s review of building heights and land
use at Green Square
is part of a wider review of the planning controls for the whole city. This
process will include the creation of new local environmental and development control
plans.
The split residential, commercial and retail centre at Green Square aims
to revive the area between the CBD and the airport. It will accommodate about
5500 residents and around 7000 people are expected to work there.
Planners are currently assessing a warehouse on Wyndham Street
which developers want converted into a fresh food market and restaurant. A
23-storey, mixed commercial and residential tower at South Dowling Street is also being
assessed, along with six residential buildings at Joynton Avenue
and a three-storey retail outlet on Botany
Road.
Ten mixed-use precincts at the ACI site in Waterloo
– which is bounded by Crescent, Lachlan, South Dowling
and Bourke Streets – have already been approved. This area will include 214
units, more than 4000sqm of retail space, 11 shops, a supermarket and a
childcare centre.
The review of the Green
Square planning guidelines is outlined in the
Green Square Urban Renewal Area Background Paper. The paper identifies the
various studies and projects being undertaken that will have implications for
development in Green Square,
and is on public exhibition at Town Hall House along with the proposed planning
controls for Green Square
until October 17.
Billed as the country’s biggest and most dynamic urban renewal,
the project stalled two years ago because of a lack of proper environmental
planning.
Based at the intersection of Botany Road, and O’Riordan and Bourke
streets, the renewed town centre was first flagged in the early 1990s under the
Keating government.
Earlier this year, Lord Mayor Clover
Moore applauded the initial design concepts, developed with
input from the local community and co-ordinated by Landcom, the city’s partner
in the Green Square
development.
“At a series of community workshops in October 2007,
the community was clear on what it wanted from the public spaces in the Green
Square Town Centre,” Lord Mayor Moore said, “that they be a
sustainable and green oasis, offering a versatile, sustainable urban
landscape.”
A major feature of the designs is the revitalisation of
Sheas Stream, a green corridor connecting four major spaces in the town centre.
Sheas Stream will also serve an important environmental
purpose, cleaning stormwater before it flows back into Alexandra
Canal.
This “ecological engine” will reuse stormwater
from below the plazas. Once cleaned, the Sheas Stream will be used for
irrigation, street washing, toilets and cooling systems in various community
buildings.
Some of the stream water will be treated to a higher
standard, making it suitable for the water features in the Neighbourhood Plaza,
in which children will be encouraged to play.
Source:
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