26 February 2011

Key urban centres and corridors can play a vital role in metropolitan and national economies.
Some corridors can be the focus of urban renewal - creating new diverse and liveable communities.

Others will be dominated by enterprises, providing locations for important local employment and services.

The role of urban centres and corridors

The development of centres and high quality transport corridors between centres is an opportunity to make the most out of infrastructure investment in these areas. Existing and new infrastructure will be used more efficiently by concentrating new development in its vicinity.

Corridors that are ripe for renewal generally follow high transport rail, bus, road and light rail links. Additional density should be provided for at significant nodes or centres. The area of interest may be extended up to one kilometre across. They can be a focus for both residential and commercial development. This provides opportunity for jobs, compact living and services within walking distance of each other and of high quality transport.

The consequences of ignoring these key areas
There are good reasons why good high level strategic planning envisages higher density residential, commercial and retail activity being spread across centres and corridors. Any other approach would ignore the potential of corridors with excellent transport infrastructure to development of this kind. The community would lose out because infrastructure would be under-utilised, and more people would live further away from where they work and shop.

Additionally, there is simply not enough land, and there will never be enough land, in some of our major cities if a centres-only approach is taken. Land in many centres is fragmented into small lots and it can be difficult to re-unify those holdings into a single title capable of being re-developed.

The Victorian Government published its metropolitan strategy for Melbourne in 2002 (Melbourne 2030). It carried out a review and released an update in 2008: Melbourne @ 5 million. The latter document revises Melbourne 2030 and sets out the Victorian Government's long-term planning framework for managing Melbourne's growth.

Melbourne @ 5 million supported the creation of five "employment corridors" by linking activity centres, universities, research and technology precincts, medical precincts, and areas with high employment.

The objective of the employment corridors is to:
¢ provide for substantial increases in employment, housing, education and other opportunities along each corridor and better link them through improved transport connectivity;
¢ link the growing outer areas to a greater choice of jobs, services and goods in the corridors; and
¢ provide transport networks that allow circumferential, in addition to radial movements.