The increasingly important profession of urban planning has a new set of stars to help develop its critical work as climate and urban pressures intensify following the Planning Institute of Australia’s National Awards for Planning Excellence 2023.
The institute said the awards, announced during three day congress underway in Adelaide this week and concluding Friday, “improved the profession’s cultural literacy and showed us how we can live in a heating climate”.
Among the top awards were two winners in the Planning with Country Award category.
Zion Engagement and Planning was acknowledged for its “role in strengthening the planning profession’s capacity and culture for engagement with First Nations people” with a “reflective training program so that government and private organisations can appreciate the experiences of First Nations people”.
Ewamian Ltd and Plan C also impressed the judges with the “highly collaborative, Traditional Owner led strategic planning process that supported Ewamian people to identify their aspirations and, deliver an on-Country tourism experience for the Talaroo Hot Springs (Qld) Tourism Planning and Business Case Project”.
Other awards and winners included:
- The Great Place Award – for the revitalisation of Moort-ak Waadiny/Wellington Square Park by City of Perth, for its “intergenerational play and highlights features and stories that tie the land to the people” and the way it respects Whadjuk Nyoongar connections, “while the Stolen Generations Memorial has been created as a special place of reflection and healing for Aboriginal people”
- Technology and Digital Innovation Award won by the City of Perth for the “Smart City Open Data Project” with a platform that could “become the local government standard across Australia”
- The Climate Change and Resilience Award handed to Penrith City Council (NSW) for the scope and rigour of their Urban Heat Planning Controls Package at a time of where urban heating is a growing concern. The package includes development controls and design for ventilation, building materials and tree canopy. Again, measures that can be transferable across NSW and beyond, the institute said
- The City of Darwin 2030 Suite of Strategies was recognised with the Strategic Planning Project Award because it created a cohesive vision for a “cool, clean, and green city”. “The strategies represent a brave and innovative approach to tackling critical climate issues tailored for an evolving city in a tropical environment”
- In the transport category reforms by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning supported by Cummins Planning, Glossop Planning, Peak Planning and RedInk Planning was selected for the reforms’ integrated land use and transport outcomes with the Improving Planning Processes Award
- The City of Salisbury in South Australia won the Community Diversity and Wellbeing Award for its “Cohesive Salisbury” strategies
- The Stakeholder Engagement Award went to Alexandrina Council in South Australia for its Village Conversations that undertook “a genuine, grass-roots approach to community engagement on their Strategic Plan”
- The Planning Research Award, was handed to “Benchmarking Healthy and Sustainable Cities Globally’” by Victorian team Billie Giles-Corti, Carl Higgs, Jonathan Arundel, Melanie Lowe (RMIT) and Ester Cerin (ACU) on behalf of the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicator Collaboration. The work is a “global surveillance system of comparable policy and spatial indicators” that aims to create healthy, liveable and sustainable cities through measurable policy standards and targets
- Tertiary Student Projects winners included Amy Wilkins (NSW) for “A gendered reframing of the public domain at night” and the Young Planner of the Year Award went to Bunfu Yu (Tasmania), “an exceptional young professional with a passion for planning and making Tasmanian renewable energy and water infrastructure projects happen”
