0110382 Where and How Should We Grow? / Short and Long Term Impacts of Settlement Patterns FINAL REPORT PROJECT BRIEF Rationale Based on the findings of the study and the research gaps identified, this section provides a project brief for further study. The project clearly highlighted a lack of data collection on upfront and ongoing costs faced by councils, which hampered the ability of the project to make meaningful, quantitative conclusions on the cost of different settlement patterns. The use of settlement patterns also complicated the collection of data and information. A localised study including a few rural councils could be undertaken which looks at the upfront and ongoing cost of infrastructure and service provision on a hierarchical basis. Councils which would stand to gain immediate benefit from the study could be selected, for example, councils considering substantial rezoning of a rural location. These councils would gain understanding in the tradeoffs between facilitating development in: Infill, contiguous fringe and non-contiguous fringe locales; and Regional centre, town, village or hamlet locals. These definitions vary from the settlement patterns defined in this report. However, council infrastructure/ service expectations vary between rural towns depending on their place within the settlement hierarchy (e.g. a town, village, hamlet). Also, different items of council infrastructure and service serve differing geographic catchments meaning that their physical location might be dispersed (e.g. maternal health and child care centres) or centralised (e.g. libraries). Both of these considerations are likely to affect the per dwelling delivery costs of council infrastructure and services. Finally, the existing location of more ‘centralised’ infrastructure may or may not have some ‘excess’ servicing capacity or may be able to be augmented more efficiently than building an additional facility elsewhere. Overall Approach Councils could be selected via an expression of interest process, with an emphasis on councils anticipated to experience residential growth. Funding would need to be provided to these councils to allow sufficient resourcing over a 12 month period. The study would focus on a comparison of settlement in different locations in the municipality, with a emphasis on: The different infrastructure and service requirements in these locations The potential cost of providing infrastructure and service requirements in line with anticipated housing growth Rolling this study out over several councils will enable a detailed data source to emerge. 20110382
0110382 Where and How Should We Grow? / Short and Long Term Impacts of Settlement Patterns FINAL REPORT PROJECT BRIEF Rationale Based on the findings of the study and the research gaps identified, this section provides a project brief for further study. The project clearly highlighted a lack of data collection on upfront and ongoing costs faced by councils, which hampered the ability of the project to make meaningful, quantitative conclusions on the cost of different settlement patterns. The use of settlement patterns also complicated the collection of data and information. A localised study including a few rural councils could be undertaken which looks at the upfront and ongoing cost of infrastructure and service provision on a hierarchical basis. Councils which would stand to gain immediate benefit from the study could be selected, for example, councils considering substantial rezoning of a rural location. These councils would gain understanding in the tradeoffs between facilitating development in: Infill, contiguous fringe and non-contiguous fringe locales; and Regional centre, town, village or hamlet locals. These definitions vary from the settlement patterns defined in this report. However, council infrastructure/ service expectations vary between rural towns depending on their place within the settlement hierarchy (e.g. a town, village, hamlet). Also, different items of council infrastructure and service serve differing geographic catchments meaning that their physical location might be dispersed (e.g. maternal health and child care centres) or centralised (e.g. libraries). Both of these considerations are likely to affect the per dwelling delivery costs of council infrastructure and services. Finally, the existing location of more ‘centralised’ infrastructure may or may not have some ‘excess’ servicing capacity or may be able to be augmented more efficiently than building an additional facility elsewhere. Overall Approach Councils could be selected via an expression of interest process, with an emphasis on councils anticipated to experience residential growth. Funding would need to be provided to these councils to allow sufficient resourcing over a 12 month period. The study would focus on a comparison of settlement in different locations in the municipality, with a emphasis on: The different infrastructure and service requirements in these locations The potential cost of providing infrastructure and service requirements in line with anticipated housing growth Rolling this study out over several councils will enable a detailed data source to emerge. 20110382
Where-and-how-should-we-grow-final-report-Jan-2012.docx