Planning Approach Hierarchy and Method The SIP (2015) adopts the following basic model of community facility provision: Community Infrastructure > The local area level - as a guide usually needs for Central between 5-10,000 people; Geelong have been > The district level - generally between 20- 30,000 people, although in some cases assesed based on districts of up to 50,000 people can be identified; and consultation, hierarchy > The LGA wide level, or in some cases sub- and benchmarks. regional or regional level – in this document we will refer to this as the regional level. These levels of service provision have been adopted for the Central Geelong Area. Benchmarks Benchmarks for city centre areas are unlikely to follow generally accepted benchmarks for lower order urban spaces. The reasons for this include: > A city centre will comprise several major regional and district attractors, and in some centres, also national and international attractors. This is in accordance with the role and status of Geelong as a city. > Applying traditional accepted benchmarks Consultation to Central Geelong will not trigger local community infrastructure e.g. primary schools, Community and stakeholder consultation child care centres etc due to traditionally low was undertaken as part of this study (refer to residential populations. Appendix A) and consisted of the following: This suggests benchmarks for city centres need > One-on-one targeted interviews with 17 key to consider lower local population thresholds for stakeholders. local community infrastructure in order to provide a minimum standard of service which would in > Online survey which yielded 265 turn attract families to the area. responses.
Planning Approach and Method Community Infrastructure needs for Central Geelong have been assesed based on consultation, hierarchy and benchmarks. Consultation Community and stakeholder consultation was undertaken as part of this study (refer to Appendix A) and consisted of the following: > One-on-one targeted interviews with 17 key stakeholders. > Online survey which yielded 265 responses. Hierarchy The SIP (2015) adopts the following basic model of community facility provision: > The local area level - as a guide usually between 5-10,000 people; > The district level - generally between 20- 30,000 people, although in some cases districts of up to 50,000 people can be identified; and > The LGA wide level, or in some cases sub- regional or regional level – in this document we will refer to this as the regional level. These levels of service provision have been adopted for the Central Geelong Area. Benchmarks Benchmarks for city centre areas are unlikely to follow generally accepted benchmarks for lower order urban spaces. The reasons for this include: > A city centre will comprise several major regional and district attractors, and in some centres, also national and international attractors. This is in accordance with the role and status of Geelong as a city. > Applying traditional accepted benchmarks to Central Geelong will not trigger local community infrastructure e.g. primary schools, child care centres etc due to traditionally low residential populations. This suggests benchmarks for city centres need to consider lower local population thresholds for local community infrastructure in order to provide a minimum standard of service which would in turn attract families to the area.