Character, conflict and quiet avenues

A University of Melbourne study, ‘The Character of Urban Intensification’, examined a variety of Melbourne suburbs, from Camberwell to Caroline Springs. Professor Kim Dovey and Research Fellow Ian Woodcock from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning are looking at how residents perceive the character of their neighbourhood.

“Neighbourhood character is created by both the social and community elements of a neighbourhood, and also the physical traits of an area,” Professor Dovey said.

Mr Woodcock adds: “The character of a suburb is a feeling that is associated with a neighbourhood. It is captured through words like the ‘atmosphere’ or ‘look and feel’ of a place.”

In some suburbs, such as Fitzroy, residents define a suburb’s character in terms of diversity: “It has that ‘edge’ – that people are interesting, that it has a good atmosphere. It has a sort of a seedy side, a sort of an underbelly that is in a way a little bit scary, but the suburb also has a community, it has character and it has depth,” Mr Woodcock said.

Professor Dovey suggests that, because character is inherently social as well as spatial, objections to the ‘wrong kind of buildings’ can be used as a cover to exclude the ‘wrong kind of people’.

The use of the word ‘character’ as a legal criterion in planning legislation is problematic. “When we reduce character to particular characteristics we can turn ‘character’ into ‘caricature’,” Professor Dovey said.

Residents often point to low-density housing and the feeling of space and privacy that comes from large blocks and quiet avenues as positive characteristics of a suburb. Yet street after street of generous-sized blocks have a significant environmental downside: a heavily car-dependent population removed from public transport infrastructure or walkable facilities.

Professor Dovey and Mr Woodcock found that resident activists are generally willing to accept change and higher-density developments if proposals do not exceed five storeys and are part of a predictable planning process.

The University of Melbourne study suggests that the Victorian planning system needs to be reviewed if urban intensification strategies are to be implemented with community support. “The current system tends to produce both an escalation of conflict and land speculation,” Mr Woodcock said.

See: www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/research/funded/intensifying-places.html