Community Plans take a place-based approach that draws on the idea of participatory planning that "if you want to know how the shoe fits, ask the person who is wearing it, not the one who made it”. As part of this process, Council will work with communities to identify, promote and enhance the distinctive character of their local areas.
Community Plans help Council and community explore concepts of Place, character and liveability; identify a community’s strengths and assets; enable Council to understand the issues and priorities for each community and assess these priorities in relationship to Councils Operational Plan development; and encourage community-led place development. They aim to make a difference through developing a relationship between communities and Council, solve problems through creative thinking and identify actions to bring about improvements.
Council’s Community Plans, along with the Urban Growth Managament Strategy (UGMS) and other policies, will be critical to Council’s ability to plan for housing and job growth in new and existing communities whilst recognising and enhancing local character and ensure that the places we plan today, become the much–loved places of the future.
Local governments across NSW and Australia are increasingly embarking on a community planning process to capture the priorities a community has identified as important to their strong and sustainable future; promote sustainable communities and neighbourhoods; better align community projects and vision with government processes and vice-versa. Additionally, community planning fosters community resilience and capacity building; and enhance a community’s capacity to coordinate service delivery, maintain their spaces, and invest in revitalisation initiatives that are of importance to them.
The community planning process also reflects recent changes in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Act that fosters greater community participation in the planning process, particularly around how communities and urban environments might change over time. By leveraging place-based and design-led approaches, these changes seek to build on the valued characteristics of existing neighborhoods and places. They also recognise and champion the important role communities play in defining existing character and shaping a desired future character for their local area.
This page was last updated on: 05 June 2019