COMMUNITY

Community placemaking is an approach for improving neighbourhoods, cities, region, or new urban developments. It can inspire people to reimagine public spaces as the centre of every community. Reinforcing the connection between people and the places they share, placemaking is a collaborative process through which we can shape our public spaces in order to create shared value.

SGL consultants have worked with a range of clients to develop the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place. We can help you and your project understand the key elements that will provide the community the spaces they need.

Relevant Services

  • Full Business Case
  • Optimisation of Public and Private Investment for Community Placemaking
  • Comprehensive Financial Modelling for Community Placemaking
  • Project/Programme Structure, Governance and Management Advisory

Full Business Case

The way we make, and improve, places is evolving. There is an ever-growing list of stakeholders involved in making better places – planners, designers, transport engineers, local community groups, elected officials, businesses, residents, and investors. Making good places is more about achieving the right state of mind and equilibrium than applying specific design, planning or engineering skills. In most cases, we know what works and how to create it. The problem is being enabled, empowered and funded to deliver our visions. SGL has the experience and skills to develop a full business case you’re your project which will assess the impact of a project with some objective quantitative and qualitative measures to understand how placemaking is genuinely creating value for everyone. This would includes the processing of analysing, monitoring and managing the intended consequences, both positive and negative of planned interventions (policies, programs, plans, projects) and any economic, social, environmental change processes invoked by those interventions.

Optimisation of Public and Private investment for Community Placemaking

With community-based participation at its core, an effective community placemaking process capitalises on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, and it results in the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to people’s health, happiness, and well being. Just as community input is essential to the placemaking process, it is equally important to have a mutual understanding of the ways in which great places foster successful social networks and benefit multiple stakeholders and initiatives at once. SGL has the expertise to bring together public and private funding to help create the community placemaking that will achieve the objectives that satisfies a range of stakeholders.

Comprehensive Financial Modelling for Community Placemaking

The financial context remains a key determining factor. Relatively new funding streams could support the funding of urban realm and ‘place-based’ regeneration, but there remains the challenge of accessing income streams upfront, as funds will not materialise without development. Value, rather than ‘cost’, should drive investment decisions. It is only by using innovative valuation tools that long-term value comes in to the equation. SGL have significant expertise using various industry financial models to develop these analytical tools to provide clients with the best project feasibility information relevant to their particular project and will include recommendations and limitations to assist the decision makers to determine if the investment is viable.

Project/Programme Structure, Governance and Management Advisory

Placemaking requires a multi-functional approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. SGL have years of experience in providing the project management, structures and advisory services to deliver the community placemaking needs of clients. Placemaking builds on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and well-being. Community placemaking is both a process and a philosophy that makes use of urban design principles. Community asset mapping is one great way of identifying the places that matter and places with potential. The map serves a purpose; to help identify actions that can be taken, as a community, to improve the local environment and make better use of local assets for the benefit of local people. To achieve all these things requires a mix of strategic and tactical interventions. Collaborative, visionary thinking from policy makers, decision-makers and place stakeholders needs to set the scene.

Our process

Case studies

Rototuna Village Development – Hamilton City Council (2018 to Current)
Hamilton City Council’s required outcome was to achieve a greenfield town centre in Rototuna (Hamilton) to achieve a vibrant community hub with integrated civic and commercial development.  A complete project review was required and to achieve success, is an example of a concurrent investment, place making, planning and community engagement approach. SGL co-led a project […]
Cranbourne Precincts – City of Casey, Melbourne (2020)
The City of Casey’s Cranbourne Community Hospital and Revitalisation Project aims to optimise the opportunity and community outcomes presented by the development of a Community Hospital on Council-owned land in and around Cranbourne town centre and the nearby 21.4 ha Casey Complex. In addition to this it would result in the divestment of Council assets […]
City Rail Link Limited (CRLL) – Development Opportunities Programme (2019-2020)
CRLL is the $4.5 bn metro rail project for central Auckland in partnership between the Government and Auckland council. The Development Opportunities Program was charged with the planning for the urban redevelopment and place making of precincts surrounding the new station precincts and c. 200,000 m2 of mixed use redevelopment on land held by CRLL […]
Town of Tickera Economic Activation Strategic Opportunities – South Australia (2021)
Tickera is a town on the upper Yorke Peninsular in South Australia, on the southern boundary of the Barunga West Council. Council required strategic options for the economic activation within the town of Tickera. This included development of a staged workplan for economic infrastructure over a ten year period to develop investment in the town […]
Unitec institute of Technology (2014-2017)
The Unitec Property Strategy was developed to support and deliver new teaching and learning models and release commercial returns from surplus land to support wider institutional transformation agenda. The strategy involved the rezoning and master planning of a 75 ha precinct, 53 ha owned by Unitec, to provide for a mix of uses including education […]
Tauranga City Council (TCC) 2009 -2019
Provision of strategic development advice and review for TCC residential intensification and city centre development programmes including review of the potential urban renewal and growth along the Te Papa peninsula to accommodate forecast housing and employment needs. Various engagements over the last several years examining the potential for and barriers to residential intensification across TCC; […]

How can
We help?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.