Challenges

“Creating a toolkit to support consensus between local governments, communities, and developers”

The project focuses middle suburban areas (Greyfields) which, in opposition to Brownfields, have the social layer. In these areas, building stock is ready for redevelopment, public infrastructure is poor, and land is mostly privately owned. Such characteristics demand new approaches and development models. Module 1 investigated the importance of “Greyfield” redevelopment; Module 2 developed strategically and statistically based tools to identify priority redevelopment areas in mid suburban areas. The next challenges are mostly related to accessing and processing data, toolset specification and development.

The challenges of Module 3

The visualisation, assessment and value uplift toolset will be based on the MUtopia system developed by Melbourne University, but further redeveloped as an Open Source platform through collaborative work between Greening the Greyfields project team, AURIN and Melbourne University. A web-based 3D architecture will be developed by AURIN and MUtopia with design, specification and modelling input from the GtGproject team to deliver a precinct design and assessment toolset. The system will integrate a library of building typology models capable of being placed within a project boundary to assess precinct performance, as well as tools to determine the implications of land value of typological variables.

Given the need for alternative redevelopment in mid suburban areas in Australia and NZ, it is required to combine tools and methodologies for reconstructing precincts at greater than a unit level. For that, it will be very important, for this research, to identify diverse building typologies and their environmental performance.

The components of assessment and value enhancement, integrated in the visualisation toolset, will require the identification and modelling of relations to be inputted into the system. The representation of such relations accurately and meaningfully may be challenging, particularly if detailed and accurate input datasets cannot be sourced.

Moreover, the research challenges include the identification of suitable technologies for storing and manipulating 3D data and establishing the parameters by which a virtual precinct model should respond. Thus, the toolset will also have to be designed to allow its use by any types of users, with or without background in spatial sciences and GIS. The key performance indicators, created for the assessment component, should also be relevant to developers and local government for reporting their planning needs with precision.

The challenges of Module 4

This stage of the project will focus the application, and dissemination of learned lessons, tools developed and tested to design and redevelop precincts in Greyfield areas. Thus, the first challenge will be obtaining parties who are willing to be involved in Greyfield redevelopment. This will require selecting individuals from local communities, local and state planning departments, building/ redevelopment industry as well as statutory planners and other relevant parties. It will be essential that all relevant stakeholders compromising the redevelopment arena be present to ensure actionable outcomes.

Moreover, the design of the methodology engagement is also a primary research challenge, because it should ensure equal levels of access and participation to all parties involved in the redevelopment processes. This will require research on best practice stakeholder consultation. Thirdly, the optimisation of technology use and its impact as mean for community engagement will be a significant area to examine. Between the capabilities of Augmented Reality (AR), web interfaces, and more conventional approaches to soliciting community input and involvement, a strategy will be required to ensure effective use of technology towards engagement.

Lastly, there will be a challenging in benchmarking the initial expectations of the project against real outcomes of the stakeholder engagements. And ideal outcome would be stakeholder groups working in direct collaboration towards better optimised redevelopment results.