Activity Centre Planning

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Activity Centre Planning

• RMIT University
• Environment and Planning Program
• 4th and 5th July 2003

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Presentation Outline

• What are activity centres and why should we have
  a policy about them?
• The key role of retailing and bit of retail
  planning theory central place theory.
• The pattern of Melbournes centres and the growth
  of the stand-alone shopping mall.
• The challenge for planning.

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What are activity centres?

• Broad definition (descriptive)
• - Any place which attracts people to it for a
  variety of activities such as shopping, working,
  studying, recreating or socialising.

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What are activity centres?

• More specific (prescriptive)
• - A mixed-use centre (including retail and
  employment centres) of a reasonable size which is
  based around a public transport node, preferably
  including fixed rail.
• Activity centre not universal term. Has been
  District Centres , or town centres, key sites
  etc..

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What are activity centre policies?

• Activity centres policies are policies about
  directing the location of those things which
  attract people.
• Such policies seek to cluster these uses around
  public transport rather than allowing them to
  disperse along main roads.
• Increasingly, a higher density of housing around
  these centres is also advocated.

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Why should we cluster activities?

• Environmental reasons - locating a number of
  activities together makes multi-purpose trips
  possible which
• Reduces number of trips
• Reduces fuel consumption
• Is more efficient
• Saves time and money
• So AC policy is actually a policy about
  sustainable urban form.

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There are also social reasons

• Mixed-use places are more interesting and
  dynamic, mono-functional areas (such as office
  parks) are dull and sterile.
• "In these areas a single group of people, a
  single occupation, a single social group or age
  group has been more or less isolated from the
  other groups in society resulting in a poorer and
  more monotonous environment", (Gehl and Gemzoe
  1987104).

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There are also social reasons

• Activity centres which can be walked to, and
  walked around within, promote social contact,
  better health and interest.
• "People's love of watching activity and other
  people is constantly evident in cities
  everywhere", (Jane Jacobs 196137).

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And economic reasons.

• There are economic advantages to businesses to
  locate within mixed use centres where synergies
  can develop.

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Why should we locate these clusters around public
transport?

• To encouraging a mode shift away from car travel
  so as to
• improve the environment
• encourage walking (for health and sociability)
• cut down on the amount of land needed to be
  provided for car parking
• increase the return on public sector investment
  in public transport etc

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Key role of retailing

• Retailing is a key attractor of people. It
  generates more trips, (and less predictable
  trips), than many other major activities.
• Activity centres are often equated with shopping
  centres, but not all shopping centres are
  activity centres.
• Can you have a viable mixed use centre without
  retailing?

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Key role of retailing

• It is the retail sector that is the most visible
  and the most widely experienced. The vitality of
  its retail sector in many ways underpins the
  downtown's overall success. Shopping is an
  activity that almost everyone doesWhere we shop
  very much defines the way in which we experience
  our community, the places that become familiar to
  us and the routes we learn about. A strong core
  of shopping provides a reason for the general
  public to come downtown on a regular basis
• City of Toronto Land Use Committee Report No. 9,
  1994.

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Retail Planning in Theory

• Much is still based on the work of Walter
  Christaller, (1933).
• Christaller wanted to discover what determined
  the pattern of settlement in a scientific manner
  by looking at towns in Southern Germany.
• The theory he developed was called Central Place
  Theory.

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Central Place Theory

• A central place is simply a place, or a town,
  which is at the centre of a region.
• Christallers theory predicted that central
  places would be evenly distributed across the
  landscape in a nested hierarchy.
• Places or towns whose regions extend over a
  larger area, and in so doing incorporate the
  regions of smaller places, are called higher
  order central places.

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Central Place Theory

• A few key terms to understand
• Each type of good will have its own range. The
  range of a good is the maximum distance which
  people will travel to buy it, and this is
  determined by both the price of the good and the
  cost involved in travelling to buy it.
• People will travel further and at greater expense
  to purchase goods of greater value (higher order
  goods)

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Central Place Theory

• Multiple purchase trips lowers the cost to the
  purchaser in both travel and time, so people
  favour destinations that offer a variety of
  functions.
• This characteristic, the extent of a place's
  range of functions, is called its centrality in
  central place theory.

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Central Place Theory

• Each retailer will have a minimum trade area, or
  threshold market, necessary in order to make
  their business viable. This will be determined by
  the number of people willing to buy the goods
  within that area, given their other available
  options.

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Central Place Theory

• Places which only supply lower order goods, with
  smaller threshold markets, can therefore be
  spaced closer together without losing viability.
• Larger central places, which supply not only
  lower order goods but also higher order goods
  with a larger threshold market, will need to be
  spaced further apart in order to be viable.

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Walter Christaller 1933

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Walter Christaller 1933
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Melbourne 2030
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Does this describe Melbourne?

• Melbourne has one predominant central place, the
  CBD.
• It has a number of very large regional centres
  (Super Regional or Principle) such as Dandenong,
  Frankston, Box Hill, Chadstone, Highpoint,
  Ringwood, Prarhan, Footscray etc..
• Then far more middle range centres such as
  Carnegie, Sandringham, Niddrie, etc..
• And a great many neighbourhood centres

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Criticisms of CPT

• Central Place Theory ignores many complex
  variables such as
• differences in the individuals ability to travel
  
• the ease of travel in different directions
• individual choice and taste
• the effect of advertising and promotion
• the difference in spending for necessities and
  discretionary purchases.

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Is it now out of date?

• Does this pattern of hierarchy fit with a
  dispersed pattern of car based shopping?
• What type of a place is a Bunnings or a Harvey
  Normans in Central Place Theory?
• Where do the specialised smaller centres that do
  not supply local needs fit? (e.g. Brunswick St,
  Lygon St etc)

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Modern trends in retailing

• Retailing has decentralised because of
• Increased car usage
• Larger format of retailing requiring cheaper
  land
• Increased affluence of consumers (Bromley and
  Thomas 1993).
• New forms of retail development resulting from
  retail decentralisation, especially out-of-town
  developments, have distorted the traditional
  retail hierarchy and heightened the issue of
  sustainable development at both local and global
  scales
• Ibrahim and McGoldrick (200336).

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Trends in retailing in Melbourne

• Melbourne has many traditional shopping centres
  which are
• Based around public transport routes (tram, train
  station)
• Have multiple owners
• Offer a broad range of goods and services.
• This is still by far the most common form of
  shopping centre in Melbourne (around 65).

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Trends in retailing in Melbourne

• The stand-alone shopping mall (single owner,
  car-based, built on greenfield site) was
  introduced to Melbourne with Chadstone in 1960.
• This was followed by Northland in 1966, Eastland
  1967, Southland 1968, Doncaster 1969 and
  Highpoint 1975.

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Trends in retailing in Melbourne

• Corporately owned stand alone shopping centres
  account for just under 25 of all retail
  floorspace in Victoria, (Jebb Holland Dimasi
  200020).
• Melbourne has the lowest rate of all Australian
  capital cities apart from Adelaide, but it is
  growing.
• Tracking retail changes has become more difficult
  since the demise of the retail census. Now
  floorspace can be used in place of sales.

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Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1979-80
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Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1985-86
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Top 20 centres by retail floorspace in 1991-2
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Top 20 centres of retail floorspace in 2000
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Trends in retailing in Melbourne

• Figures for 2003 would show more increases,
  (remember only out of top 20).
• Stand-alone shopping malls are increasing in size
  and dominance in the higher order end of
  retailing.
• However the CBD retains its predominant role

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The challenge for planners

• Stand alone shopping malls are a problem for
  planning policy makers. They
• Are mostly car-based
• Have a negative impact on the economic viability
  of more traditional centres
• Are owned by large (and powerful) capital
  investors
• Continue to want to expand.

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The challenge for planners

• The problems associated with increased car
  dependency and dispersal must be addressed by
• Strategic policy e.g. Melbourne 2030 or
  international examples
• Integration of land use and transport planning
  e.g. Transit Cities program
• Protection and promotion of traditional shopping
  strips

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The challenge for planners

• Economic development to ensure local employment
  opportunities and vitality of local areas
• Urban design which encourages walking etc
• Location of further housing around activity
  centres and public transport nodes
• Local area plans to address specific problems and
  develop individually tailored solutions.
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Activity Centre Planning

• RMIT University
• Environment and Planning Program
• 4th and 5th July 2003