黑料大事

Putting Communities First

Friday 10.45am-11.45am

• Maddy Mengel and Alyce Keen MPIA
• Keana Munro MPIA
• Harriet McKindlay and Maia Cavendish MPIA

Maddy Mengel and Alyce Keen MPIA
Creating with people: leveraging digital experiences to engage

In the ever-evolving landscape of planning and design, the industry finds itself at an exciting and pivotal standpoint. The trend at the forefront of this transformation revolves around a shift in how we communicate, consult, and deliver community outcomes — a shift that requires a more human, visual, and innovative recalibration of planning processes.

The change is particularly evident in the way community consultation and engagement is conducted. More than ever, information is being displayed across digital platforms, altering the traditional dynamics of communication. Over the last 5 years, we have seen a dramatic move from in person to online, analogue to digital and static to dynamic. And now with the development of AI technologies, digital adaption has never been more vital.

This transformation is fuelled by the imperative to adapt to the digital age. Communities are seeking instant, dynamic, and visually engaging experiences, redefining the parameters of effective communication. As the digital revolution reshapes how we communicate, the planning industry must shift to meet the expectations of a changing society that is expecting more accessible, diverse, and digital experiences.

As we adapt to this digital shift, we must understand and remember the intricacies of the human experience within virtual environments. Acknowledging the fundamental need for human connection and engagement, we need to leverage digital tools to better ensure the ideas, concepts and design intent can be readily understood or once delivered have an immensely user-oriented experience. Embracing online platforms and incorporating motion-focused outcomes can enhance community involvement, fostering a sense of inclusivity and collaboration.

Starting with understanding the human factor, we will discuss how the planning industry can adopt digital tools and innovative technologies to leverage richer community outcomes.

Keana Munro MPIA
Empowering Tomorrow: Harnessing Engagement with Young Generations to Shape our Urban Environments

In a changing world where populations are diversifying, infrastructure demand is growing, and threats to climate change are damning, our urban environments are at a pinch point. This requires us to reflect on our ‘business-as-usual’ approaches and revolutionise the way forward. With our urban environments at a pivotal point, we should be looking forward to the people of our future to inform our future.

Engagement with young people presents a hopeful way forward for our urban environments, setting community-led regulation and policy directions.

Our deficiencies in planning and development are becoming increasingly clear, and our urban environments are struggling. We are not planning or designing for communities, leaving us vulnerable to challenges relating to homelessness, intensified natural disasters, urban heat, and social isolation. If we are not planning for our communities, who are we planning for?

Historically, our urban environments were developed organically, with origins of a formalised planning and development system for Queensland dating back to as late as the 1930s. Since then, the planning and development system has evolved, establishing a performance-based planning paradigm that intended to promote creativity and innovation within our urban environments. Despite this, we as an industry continue to deliver blanket solutions to our increasingly challenging urban environments.

As urban planners and designers, our role is to balance many, often conflicting, aspects including the built and natural environment, community needs, cultural significance and economic sustainability (黑料大事, 2023). Due to the inherent complexities of achieving this balance, we fall to the prescribed policies and regulatory processes that intend to serve as guidelines for making “good” planning decisions. Yet, these existing policies and regulatory processes are proving ineffective and inconsistent with community needs and desires.

As part of our mission for YIMBY Queensland at Wolter Consulting Group, we aim to promote, inform, and inspire the community to understand and support good development outcomes. In facilitating this reform, we have been exploring the role of engagement in planning. In understanding our need to re-align existing planning paradigms, we have been looking to the young generations. Engagement with young people through YIMBY and projected based initiatives at schools, universities, and youth-focused engagement sessions have led to a clear indication of their values. We continue to plan and design for this idea of the “Great Australian Dream”, yet our findings are indicating this is not what the younger generations desire. With the needs of communities already neglected in our urban environments through a lack of housing diversity and affordability, and inclusive infrastructure to name a few, progressing with business-as-usual approaches will only further exacerbate existing urban environment pressures.

Early and continuous engagement with young people presents an opportunity for us to understand the existing and future needs of communities. We are actively pursuing research to establish a deeper understanding of the role and benefits that engagement with young generations has in informing revolutionary planning and development regulation and policy. Can engagement with young people be the missing link to resolutionising urban planning outcomes?

Harriet McKindlay and Maia Cavendish MPIA
Community 黑料大事 Literacy – how to select the appropriate engagement tool for the right conversation?

Within the urban context of numerous mounting pressures – climate change, economic inequality, housing insecurity, social unrest, and media opinion (both formal and social) being just a few – it is more important than ever that our cities grow and change in a way that is authentically representative of the unique communities and identities of our local places.

This is hard enough for planners to grapple with. In the face of all this change, how are the community meant to navigate performance based planning systems, engage in the development of their communities and have informed conversations, especially when the default reaction from past experience is fear and distrust?

It is this very problem that brought together industry colleagues and collaborators Harriet and Maia. Supported by their backgrounds in planning and urban design and empowered to put community front and centre in the decision making process, they have devised a range of engagement tools and tactics to demystify planning jargon and ensure the community gets a say – but in an informed way. They have learned to utilise the right tools and communication technique for the job – whether it be highly visual, digital or analogue, creative or technical, or a combination of all of the above. From collage workshops to youth-led design challenges they are taking steps to improve community literacy in the planning space and ensure they are equipped to have the well-informed conversations the community deserve.

Their joint presentation will not only inspire participants on best-practice placemaking, and urban design engagement tactics but will equip them with a range of tools and strategies that they can apply to their next project.