East Lake will showcase innovative approaches to sustainable urban renewal.

Planning for sustainable urban renewal of East Lake

The East Lake precinct in Canberra is the focus of a new partnership project between CSIRO and the ACT Government to showcase innovative approaches to sustainable urban renewal.

• 13 June 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Overview
• Objectives
• Current activities

Overview

East Lake is a 471 hectare site on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in inner urban Canberra, Australia.

The mixed residential, commercial and industrial site is close to central employment nodes and major transport routes, and includes the ecologically significant Jerrabomberra Wetlands.

The area was identified in the Canberra Spatial Plan as having the potential to accommodate up to 9 000 people.

Planning for the sustainable urban renewal of the East Lake area is the focus of a long term collaborative project between CSIRO and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government.

The redevelopment of East Lake is being implemented as part of the CSIRO Sustainable Communities Initiative, which brings together participants from across the public, private and civil society sectors, to work in partnership with communities on solutions to local sustainability issues and challenges.

Objectives

CSIRO researchers are developing sustainability frameworks and tools using a participatory approach to help the ACT Government, its partners and stakeholders understand what is required to transform East Lake into an urban community that is:

• vibrant
• healthy
• connected
• sustainable.

Taking a participatory, or action research approach to the science engages the local community, interest groups and industry stakeholders early in the planning and design process.

This recognises that no single organisation has all the answers when it comes to building thriving and sustainable communities, and that other scientific, engineering, business, historic and cultural knowledge is also required.

A key project objective is to explore and develop new ideas and options for the area’s redevelopment.

The project will also bring together local and national sustainability expertise to work though a range of complex urban planning and design issues to build knowledge and experience at East Lake that can be applied as a foundation for other sustainability projects within the ACT and throughout Australia.

Current activities

The project has four main tasks:

• engage East Lake stakeholders in a process for exploring visions, options and ideas for sustainable urban renewal
• develop a shared vision and common set of design principles to guide future planning for urban sustainability
• review the draft planning report for East Lake to determine how well the project is tracking towards a vision of sustainability
• build a ‘working prototype’ of an integrated assessment software tool for evaluating sustainability objectives and scenarios.

Read about The Sustainable Communities Initiative.