With existing strong and developing connections of East to West, long term plans in the document focus to improve North-South connections to the Illawarra, the Central Coast/ Greater Newcastle regions and Canberra and environs. For more opportunities. Regional transport connections aim to link the internationally important trade gateway establishing North-South connect with - Port of Newcastle, Port Botany and Port Kembla to support import and export of various products. The Land-Use and Transport vision Greater Sydney Region by NSW Government is listed in Future Transport 2056 – aiming to make the transport system for people and goods to be comfortable and e cient. The three key corridors de ned as rst steps for di erent transport activities would be - City-shaping corridors (trunk corridors with services and infrastructure mass transit, express public transport, road networks), City-serving corridors (higher density corridors around metropolitan and strategic centres to provide high frequency access to cities), and Centre-serving corridors (active transport and local public transport). NorthConnex, a 9km M1 paci c motorway tunnel project, connecting Wahroonga to West pennant hills, establishes a strong connection. It will be the deepest and longest tunnel in the country and is expected to complete by mid-2020. Even though the plan recognises the need to connect to neighbouring regions (Gosford – Central Coast, Newcastle – Hunter, Wollongong – Illawarra, Goulburn – South East and TableLands, Central West and Orana), for the purpose of better economic development and opportunities, but it lacks to incorporate the speci cs and direction, in the plan to achieve it. The regional plans of Illawara and Central coast contain goals and objectives to achieve inter-regional collaboration for strengthening the state as a whole, but this can be seen lacking in GSRP, as the development directions are focused as Sydney-centric and less State based.
Conclusions An Economic powerhouse of 4.7 million people, Greater Sydney region embraces the landscape of nature, its bushland and its people, to become Australia’s most global city, building on the metropolis of the three districts (Vision of A Metropolis of Three Cities | Greater Sydney Commission, 2020). Greater Sydney Regional plan showcases an indispensable opportunity to deliver this spatial ideology, weaving a plan which integrates infrastructure, economic growth and its people. Unpacking the strategic planning layers for testing the deliverability of GSRP, insightful re ection on the interdependence of components like governance, vision, goals, integration, scale and participation is clearly evident. The formation of an independent city- scale planning commission, running parallel to the state and local interests marks an important step in the metropolitan legislature to achieve an iconic yet realistic future for Greater Sydney. The critical piece of a ’30-minute city’ bold vision with poly centric nodes of employment, economic and social corridors, also strengthens the proposed plan for a modular structure. The structure of plan showcases a high level of consistency in terms of its vision, themes, directions, objectives, actions and strategies. GSRP demonstrates a fair quality of cohesiveness, with high consistency and a clear line of sight. The simple approach and its accessibility is one of its biggest strengths, which dwells on a high level of research, use of evidence, stakeholder considerations and collaboration between di erent government bodies. Adopting the direction “A well connected city” as its explorational tool, the report also highlights some missed opportunities and lags, especially in terms of its measuring and monitoring, data used , integration with its regional context and assumption based performance measures. Whilst the regional plan clearly provides information about the sources of data used, the knowledge on how to use these sources may not be easy. The measuring of percentage of dwelling to check the deliverability of the plan may also be based on assumptions like metropolitan boundary and waiting time. The relationship of greater Sydney region plan with other state strategies like Transport Strategy 2056 and The State Infrastructure strategy depicts a high level of collaboration and integration. Whilst the framing of objectives is consistent amongst all the plans, the deliverability of priorities for the objectives related to freight network and regional connectivity seem to di er for transport, infrastructure and the regional plan. Though the plan recognises the need to connect to surrounding regions and context, ambiguity is seen where it needs re nement and clarity for a future direction. Vertically, GSRP, the central district plan and the Community strategic plan 2038
ff
ff
fi
fi
Page 18
fi
fi
ffi
fi
ff
fl
PLAN9063 | Strategic Planning and Design
