The following ten-point listing cannot bring about ‘urban
delight’: but what follows are the key ingredients of good
urban form, identifying both the policy parameters and
the macro design principles appropriate to future urban
communities, particularly at the time of rural-into-urban
crossover.
1 Street patterns consciously, purposefully and logi-
cally focused, with some axiality, on a school-local
shops-health clinic ‘community’ element; with public
transport and put-down exchange points at each
such focus (also encouraging reduced private car
usage). Defining the identity, through walkability, of
neighbourhoods.
2 Each residential urban community chunked into
place (subject to topographical constraints) – with
(for the raw land context) an outer farming ‘broad-
acre’ or amenity green belt, breaking down to a
robust high-density residential ‘band’ around com-
munity clusters: the residential occupancy of sub-
urban neighbourhoods being ideally at a density of
around 70 persons per hectare – 28pp/acre – net
(no less than 30 households per hectare – 12hh/acre
net) with a view to creating sufficient opportunity
for social contact, to induce an urban community
lifestyle, and to attract the installation of a public
transport service.
3 Planning and design to triumph over zoning. The
objective is to establish a mechanism of ‘landowner
compacts’ suited to a community purpose, leaving
some land with native wildlife and flora or in agri-
culture, in exchange for a density increase or cash
payback from some other part of a project. Allow
‘double-designation’ and ‘deemed to comply’ provi-
sions, enabling well-designed proposals to exceed an
‘as of right’ zoned density.
4 Overcome discordance by setting out ‘with the grain
of the land’ designs which heed what the landscape
comprising each locality has to ‘say’, and ‘listening’
to the community into which it is to fit. Staggered
gridding works well over flat-plane topography.
Avoid the scraped-earth approach to subdivision,
working with and deferring to land form.5 Street patterns generally are best if interconnecting
and formalized (straight and legible) rather than
contrived on a curvilinear basis (unless this is dic-
tated by topography). Also ‘calmed’ streets running
in orthogonal sectors, generally of less than 15
metre (50 ft) overall width (down to 5 m (16 ft) for
the carriageways.
6 Establish a walking and-or-also cycleway inter-
connectedness (particularly between culs-de-sac:
conscious of topography and focused on transport
pick-up points and the community core.
7 Adopt a precautionary approach to residential secu-
rity. Design in a way which mollifies the crimino-
genic capacity of suburbs, mindful that ‘permeability’
can facilitate criminality, creating a challenge for
defensible yet permeable design.
8 Accept chunkier smaller plots: 300 square metres
(3,200 sq. ft), even 200 square metres (2,100 sq. ft)
per plot for household clusterings which are well
designed and accompanied by strata titling and other
multi-level dwelling and ownership arrangements.
Promote the living and aesthetic advantages of
party-walling and building to boundary (zero lot-
line construction) in designated instances; install
common trenching for utilities, and make car garag-
ing integral to the building frontage line, or to the
rear.
9 Accept variably sized lots, mixed housing sizes and
styles and compatibly mixed (adaptive) land uses:
accommodating home-commerce, home-servicing,
home-outwork and light home-fabrication.
10 Accept a mixture of houses and flats, comprising
single to four-bedroom layouts, meeting all manner
of household living preferences. Granny flats (‘car-
riage houses’ attached – and 60 square metres (650
sq. ft) maximum if detached) and loft conversions
are acceptable. Housing to be organized in focused
clusters as urban community artifacts which engen-
der a sense of community.Also consult App. ‘A’ (Traditional Neighbourhood Devel-
opment) in Duany, Plater-Zyberk, Speck,Suburban Nation,
2000.