Seeking further responses - Sustainable Cities Round Table, 1 August

Posted in Events, Models, Research, Sustainable Cities Round Tables by Ferne Edwards on August 2nd, 2007

The Sustainable Cities Round Table was held again last night at the University of Melbourne. It was a very entertaining and informative evening with a broad selection of speakers delivering 3 minute presentations on their various environmental initiatives. VicUrban, the sponsor for the evening, also held a brainstorming discussion around their new development, Officer. As promised, the outcomes of this session have now been collated and are listed below. We would like to encourage people to continue this discussion - please read the data collected so far and feel free to add comments in the section below.

Sustainable Cities Round Table
Wednesday 1 August, University of Melbourne

Comments on paper from Brainstorming – VicUrban
For a background on the Officer project, visit the VicUrban website.

Second car as choice not need – options to connect
• Flexicar
• Access to services
• First car??
• Urban design – allow choice
• No parking on lots
• Limit cars to 1 spot/ lot
• Work local
• $/ litre from 1 car to 0 car
• planning
o schools close
o safe cycling
• slow vehicle lanes (safety)
• education
• car fixed cost to variable cost (eg. petrol)
• public transport first to set habits
• bread & milk deliveries
NO
• freeways
• dead end courts (permeable)
• large block sizes
• people & work separated
YES
• vegetation/ planting – offsets
• green roof – offsets
• public transport system
• stat planning
o car park requirements
• cultural change/ behaviour
• beyond town ctk(?)
• reduce home move cost
• fund public transport by levy on proximity eg. Land tax

Green suburbs – increasing adaptation principles over time
• build the message into sales/ marketing materials
• community engagement
o early on to change peoples thinking
o and ongoing to ensure you are getting continuous improvement
o encourage people to take initiatives into their private realms
• ‘Friends of’ groups – “people getting their hands dirty”
o find community champions and support them
o reward and recognition program
• A sustainability hub in the library/ community centre
• People understanding the costs involved in creating and maintaining places/ spaces so that people are committed and reduce costs
• Program to continuously improve the performance of homes over their lifespan
• Creating a community that will be resilient in future climate changes

Energy production – aggregated or distributed?
Distributed
• Expensive – perception
• Scale
• Who bears the cost?
• Security
• Storage
• Grid connected?
• Generation + consumption = efficiency
Aggregated
• Subsidised
• Security
• Demand management

Renewable energy priorities
• Biomass
• Wind
• Solar
• Chp
• What scale?
o Neighbourhood
o Households
o Streets (half streets)
• Integrated resource networks
o Water
o Energy
o Waste what solutions exist between?
• Not one solution = partnerships
• Co-generation

Reduction in home energy use
• Structure sustainable energy choices into houses
• Thermal shading in windows, curtains, insulation, passive solar
• Guidelines for spare ? to dray washing
• Passive well designed solution to heating and cooling
• Lights that turn themselves off
• Smaller, better designed for energy outcomes\
• ?
• No inner roads – walking/ bike paths. Cars on outer perimeter. ? flexicar options.
• Pv panels on roofs and solar hot water
• Gardens include food trees/ vegetable patches – community gardens ?
• Places for storing and selling produce locally
• Adequate local and convenient childcare
• Provision in regulations and infrastructure for sharing, bartering, collaborative work
• Gas backup to solar systems
• Energy efficient lights
• Feedback systems to tell us how much electricity, water, gas, carbone we are using/ emitting
• ? water recycling/ local water treatment/ waste

Behaviour change (instrumentality)
Developer (dictate market)
Or community led?
• Practice
o Inter-dependencies
o Self-building (framework)
o Self-designing
o Shared private spaces
o Urban farms (agricultural)
• Change externalities/ structures
• Remove barriers, eg. Princess Highway, demographic
• politics of social framing
o leadership
o community participation linked to authority
o community delegated planning principles
o discussing alternative visions
o communicating a vision

Food miles – changing attitudes
• coop
• farmers markets
• community gardens
o integrate – link to business supply – economic/ enviro links
o community owned stores – product lines locally produced – organic
o community orchards
o training and how-to
o backyards
• aquaculture
• fruit bearing trees
• bulky food close
• subsidised floor space near by town centres
• chooks
• ?
• education
• % sta?
• working/ training farms
• street network – access shops
• ?

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  Email this post to someone