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A highly stratified society with unbalanced access to goods, services, social infrastructure, resources and opportunities is not socially sustainable. Poverty, deprivation and other social problems exclude people both physically and socially from the benefits and opportunities afforded by full social and economic participation.

In assessing the contribution of new developments to social sustainability, the issue of community integration is key. Community integration in this context has two aspects. Firstly it refers to the existence of positive, harmonious and mutually beneficial social and cultural relationships between a diversity of people within a community. Secondly, it describes the physical, social and cultural links that connect the residents of a new development with existing (or future) residents of the surrounding area. Developers should aim to achieve community integration in both these senses if new developments are to make a positive contribution to social sustainability.

This factsheet describes a number of ways in which developers can address community integration to provide a coherent and supportive physical framework for policies, programs and other initiatives that can build and sustain diverse and integrated communities:

• Paying close attention to the physical integration of new developments with their surrounding communities can help to ensure accessibility and connectivity between new and existing areas, and promote integration rather than separation.
• New developments can help address existing community needs by providing accessible facilities that are appropriate for the area and distributing the benefits of new developments as widely as possible.
• Mixed use developments can help contribute to community integration by providing for a wide range of uses for a diversity of people.
• Within residential areas, providing a mix of housing types can further encourage a diversity of residents.

A recently developed assessment framework (Landcom 2007) has produced guidelines for conducting a ‘social sustainability due diligence assessment’ – an exercise that aims to identify social risks and opportunities for a given project. This risk and opportunity assessment can then be used as the foundation for the preparation of a 'strategic social plan' as part of the master planning process. This framework has the potential to be an effective means for developers to address issues of community integration and is highlighted in the development phase actions.

Learning from past mistakes

 

In the past, some residential developments have been designed and built with little attention paid to the issue of community integration. In fact in some cases, designers appear to have actively worked against integration – leading to, at the extreme, the emergence of private, ‘gated communities’. Even where developments are not gated, many have tended to display the characteristics of exclusive ‘enclaves’, with little connection to surrounding communities, and with a tendency to promote isolation and separation rather than community integration This works against the principles of social sustainability, and is likely to increase social exclusion, division and inequity. Such developments may provide high-quality facilities for their residents, but they contribute little to the wider community. Even worse, they can lead to the adoption of a ‘them and us’ attitude by residents both within and outside the development, entrenching divisions in the community. Further, developments that have not provided a mix of housing types have tended to attract residents who are similar to each other (whether in terms of income, household form, age or cultural background) rather than a diversity or demographic mix of people who can integrate and connect with one another within the local area.

Planning and designing the built environment with community integration as a central goal can help overcome some of these problems. A well-designed residential development can provide many social benefits, not only to those people who move into the development, but also to others who visit or work in the area, use the new services and facilities provided, or live close by, in existing communities.

While the physical environment does not determine social outcomes, and cannot ‘solve’ social problems, it can make a contribution to the goal of community integration. There are a number of ways in which planners and designers can help ensure that new developments contribute to rather than thwart the development of positive social and cultural relationships between a diversity of people – both within the development itself, and between new and existing or surrounding residents in the area.

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Address the needs of new residents and existing communities

New developments can bring many public benefits, from providing housing, employment and new community facilities to stimulating and supporting local economies. In this way, they have the potential to contribute positively to the social sustainability of their local communities and to community integration in particular. However, in the past, some new residential developments have tended to be built as somewhat exclusive ‘enclaves’, in which any new facilities are intended or perceived to be only for the use of residents in the new development. This is obviously not conducive to community integration. A more socially sustainable approach considers how the various social benefits of a new development can be distributed most widely in the local area, and how to ensure that any new community infrastructure is shared between new and existing, or surrounding residents.

At the feasibility, planning and design phases of a new development, consider opportunities for how the development can contribute to local social infrastructure. This means carrying out an assessment of existing local social infrastructure. This includes consideration of community facilities, services and amenities, as well as infrastructure for health, transport, employment, and education. Planning for the new development can then consider whether any identified gaps can be addressed – whether through the provision of new social infrastructure, or by augmenting existing services and/or facilities.

Consult local communities, relevant government and non-government agencies and other stakeholders about their needs and preferences for new social infrastructure. Social planning for the new development can then consider whether some of these existing needs can be addressed, as well as avoiding any duplication of existing social infrastructure.

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Enabling accessibility and connectivity between a new development and surrounding or existing areas

When planning and designing a new development, there can be a temptation on the part of developers to seek to ‘set it apart’ in a physical sense from surrounding neighbourhoods. Sometimes this is done for example, by incorporating impermeable perimeter boundaries, or by creating a distinctive and somewhat imposing entrance to the development, or by adopting a circular ‘one way in, one way out’ estate design. These estate design techniques tend to create a physical environment that is not conducive to community integration, but rather is likely to create an isolated ‘enclave’ with few obvious links to the local community in surrounding areas.

To reduce these social risks and maximise opportunities for community integration, new developments should be clearly and physically connected to and integrated with surrounding communities. One way to ensure good physical connectivity includes carefully planning the local street and path network. Local walking and cycling paths should form a network, both within and critically through the development. This has several positive effects. Firstly it provides residents with easy access to their local area, meaning that they are more likely to use the same local services and facilities as residents in surrounding areas – rather than using their vehicles to drive to services further away. Secondly, it means that local residents can easily travel through the development on their way to local destinations, rather than being discouraged from doing so, or forced to travel around the development. Both these effects promote community integration by building links between new and existing or surrounding residents and encouraging a sharing of space and place. Read more in the 'Connectivity' factsheet.

Another way to encourage this shared sense of place, and promote community integration is to create well-designed physical spaces in which people can meet and interact. These include both public open space, such as parks and playgrounds, or picnic and barbecue facilities, as well as buildings such as community centres, or commercial retail facilities located for example, around a neighbourhood square. Community gardens are another feature that have been successfully incorporated into some developments, and that promote community integration, particularly across cultures and between different age groups. These kinds of public facilities provide venues for local community groups, and places for people to take part in organised sport or other kinds of recreation. They also create spaces for more informal interaction – where people can ‘run into each other’, meet, sit and chat, and generally interact with others in their local community.

When planning and designing such places, take care to ensure that they are easily accessible by and welcoming to residents of both the new development and existing and surrounding areas. This means considering not only their physical design, such as orientation and access points. It also means considering management issues, such as making sure that services and facilities are appropriate to local needs and that any access fees (for example to programs run at a community centre) are affordable by a wide range of local residents.
(See fact sheet 'Public Spaces')

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Case Study - Warriewood Valley

Warriewood Valley is a mixed use development area in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, in which there will be a mix of different housing forms, as well as industrial and commercial development. The development features high quality public open space, including a large district park and a number of smaller neighbourhood parks and playgrounds. The smaller parks provide attractive and pleasant places for people to gather and interact. They include high-quality street furniture, seating, solar lighting, play equipment and shade structures. The care paid to these features is intended to create a series of pleasant places for parents and carers to meet, sit and talk while children play.

More information:

• Premier’s Council for Active Living website
• Pittwater Council website

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How mixed use development can contribute to community integration

Community integration is enhanced in mixed use developments where there is a mix of land uses, and where housing, employment, commercial / retail and other services and public facilities are clustered together, and scaled for easy pedestrian access. Such mixed use destinations, whether ‘neighbourhood nodes’ or larger centres, need to be carefully planned within the overall urban hierarchy. Attention should be paid to the creation of effective ‘movement networks’ (whether streets, public transport, etc) that will enable easy access by a diversity of people from a range of locations. This mixed use design approach is in contrast to the housing-only developments that have dominated suburban development in Australia in the past. Such developments reinforce high levels of car-dependence and limit community integration, because residents need to leave their neighbourhood to access services and facilities, or for recreation. Because of this, these developments have been criticised as ‘dormitory suburbs’ – places where people only return to sleep, as opposed to vibrant, mixed communities that are full of human interaction and different types of activity.

In contrast, mixed use developments are based on a mix of land uses. The most successful of these developments are diverse neighbourhoods in which multiple types of destinations are within easy reach, and key facilities and services are surrounded by higher density housing. By carefully increasing residential density in conjunction with the accessibility of a range of services and facilities in this way, mixed use developments encourage a greater number of people to be ‘out and about’ in the local community. This not only has a positive impact on community amenity, safety and integration, it also creates more of a ‘sense of community’ among residents, and tends to make the development a more desirable place to live. As well as providing greater opportunities for social interaction and integration among people from all parts of a development, and among residents, visitors and workers in an area, this approach also promotes integration among different age groups, as facilities and services used by children, young people, adults and older people can be clustered together.

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Case Study - Rouse Hill Town Centre

Rouse Hill Town Centre is a new mixed use development on a greenfield site in Sydney’s North West. Clustering of facilities and services used by different groups is a key feature of the development. The Town Centre has been designed as part of an integrated masterplan, with high density residential and office development immediately around the Town Centre and public transport interchange, and less dense housing further out. The development is designed to provide residents with employment, shops and recreational opportunities that are close to their homes, promoting community integration within the local area. The Town Centre is within convenient walking distance of the transport interchange, and is criss-crossed with streets that provide connectivity to the surrounding residential precincts. These features are likely to promote higher levels of community integration than the typical car-dependent, ‘mall’ style retail developments. The mix of uses clustered on the site includes residential, retail and commercial space, offices, a gymnasium, health and medical facilities, a library, a community centre and a range of facilities for children, including musical play areas, an environmental education trail, and a ‘secret garden’.

More information:

• NSW Premier’s Council for Active Living website
• Rouse Hill Town Centre website (GPT Group)

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Delivering a mix of housing to suit a diversity of residents

Community integration is also enhanced by the delivery of a mix of housing to suit a diversity of residents. A development that includes a carefully planned mix of allotments and diverse dwelling types can help to attract a diversity of residents of different family structures, household sizes, income levels and ages. To achieve this population diversity, developers or planners should seek to ensure that the housing mix provided includes:

• Housing product at the lower or more affordable end of the market range
• Dwellings of different sizes – particularly including a range of smaller dwellings such as semi-detached or duplex houses, attached houses or apartments. Smaller dwellings will not only suit smaller households (such as single people, couples without children, or single parents with children), but will also be more affordable to a higher number of people.
• Wide choice in housing design and floorplan layout – to allow people to modify house designs according to their needs – for example, to suit the accommodation of multiple generations of a family, or to enable people to work from home.
• Universal or adaptable housing that will enable ‘ageing in place’ – dwellings that enable people to remain in their community as they age, maintaining both their own locally-based relationships and the age diversity of the community.

Other opportunities to achieve housing diversity include the incorporation of design that meets the needs of people with disabilities, and the incorporation of seniors’ living developments within a larger development – so that older people, younger people and families are housed relatively close together and inter-generational integration is increased.

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Case Study - Nelsons Ridge, Nelsons Grove

Nelsons Ridge is a Delfin LendLease master planned mixed use development in Western Sydney that has a number of features to encourage inter-generational integration. The development provides numerous facilities for children and young people, including playgrounds, and sporting and recreation facilities, while at the same time catering for older people. Within the development is Nelsons Grove – an $85 million retirement village for 200 residents – situated within five minutes walk of the other housing types. Both older and younger residents will have easy access to a range of commercial and community services and facilities clustered at Pemulwuy shops. These include a supermarket and smaller shops, and a $6 million Holroyd City community facility – including a community centre, long-day and out-of-school-hours child care, and a youth annexe.

Nelsons Ridge incorporates many recreational facilities that provide opportunities for social interaction and activity. These include places to meet for a barbecue or picnic, such as the Nelsons Ridge lake, and various picnic areas with barbecues and shade shelters. These facilities are located adjacent to the children’s playgrounds, providing community gathering spaces for people of different ages.

More information:

• Nelsons Ridge website
• Nelsons Grove retirement village

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Need to think outside the physical boundaries of the development

In order to address community integration, developers need to think outside the physical boundaries of the project. It is important for developers to understand their development in its local social context, rather than to plan it in isolation from its surroundings. New developments can have major social impacts on the surrounding area. Sometimes these are positive as the development brings an influx of new residents, revitalising the area, increasing demand for local goods and services and providing a stimulus to the local economy. However there can also be negative effects – for example, an influx of new residents can place increased stress on already overstretched local services. Resentment and social divisions can also emerge if the new development is perceived to be an exclusive enclave in which ‘outsiders’ are not welcome. These are significant impacts, and highlight the need for developers to think outside the boundaries of the actual development. To do this, they must engage with surrounding communities and take time to understand the social and cultural context in which they are building. This approach will help developers to maximise the opportunities for community integration and minimise any potential social risks.

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Key Issues

Benefits

New developments that are carefully designed to promote community integration have the potential to bring many benefits, both to future residents and surrounding communities. Developments that are perceived to provide a ‘sense of community’ are highly attractive to buyers and this can provide a effective selling point for developers. Further, many developers are increasingly setting a range of goals in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and are adopting triple bottom line (TBL) reporting. In this context, developments that achieve positive community outcomes of the kind described here are a tangible way for developers to demonstrate and report their performance against such goals.

As the Charter of the New Urbanism (Australian Council for New Urbanism 2006) states, while physical solutions alone will not solve social and economic problems, they can make an important contribution. A well-designed built environment can help to provide a coherent and supportive physical framework for building and sustaining diverse, integrated neighbourhoods and communities.

In particular, the provision of high quality and universally accessible public space and recreational and community facilities can bring multiple community benefits, both to residents of the new development itself, but also to those in surrounding areas. If well-designed and built, such facilities become well-used, shared spaces that enable the development of a common ‘sense of place’ between various groups of residents. This can help build relationships, for example between people of different ages, and between new arrivals and those in surrounding (and sometimes long-established) residential areas.

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Risks

Appropriate due diligence studies undertaken at the feasibility stage should identify any social risks that may be associated with the proposed development, as well as any costs associated with risk avoidance or amelioration, and uptake of opportunities to enhance social integration. Broadly, the kinds of risks to consider include:

• the potential for the new development to place excessive demand on local services, facilities and social infrastructure, which may cause tensions between new and existing residents
• the potential for the development to attract only a narrow range of potential residents, meaning that population diversity is limited
• any factors that may risk the creation of a social divide between new and existing residents.

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Savings

A sound planning process that includes measures to achieve community integration from the outset helps to avoid the cost and logistical complications of retrofitting such measures later. Including community integration as a central objective of the project is also likely to result in a development that is much more attractive to potential purchasers. As many developers are now finding, the concept of ‘community’ is a highly marketable one. Many people are looking for more than just a house. Easy access to a range of social infrastructure, facilities and services within the local area is highly valued, as are opportunities to interact with other people in attractive, and lively public spaces. Some people will be looking for both a ‘child-friendly’ environment and the opportunity for their older relatives to live close by. Many will appreciate being able to be involved in and connected to existing and surrounding communities. Developers have much to gain by considering the diversity of these needs from the outset, and incorporating measures to achieve community integration and build not just housing, but an attractive and marketable neighbourhood.

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Costs

Many of the kinds of features discussed here will not be an additional cost for developers. Good estate design is not necessarily more expensive than poor design. Developer contributions under state-based planning legislation help contribute to social infrastructure – and these levies are a condition of consent, so are part of a developer’s standard costs.

However, there can be cost implications for developers in providing different mixes of housing types. There will also be cost implications in providing high quality public space, such as parks, playgrounds cycle paths, street furniture and so on, however, these features are critical in making new developments attractive to potential buyers, and increasing the sale price of housing (and in the case of mixed use development, the rental value of retail and commercial premises provided).

The key objective is to ensure that the social aspects of development are costed up-front in a project feasibility (whether they be the cost of a playground, or of incorporating 10% universal housing, footpaths on both sides of the street, community development programs, or land for community centre etc). If these kinds of inclusions are not considered in the early phases of the project, it is unlikely that they will be able to be incorporated later.

Appropriate due diligence studies undertaken at the feasibility stage should identify any costs likely to be incurred in addressing community integration. For an example of an assessment framework that aims to identify costs associated with social sustainability generally (including social integration), see Landcom’s social sustainability due diligence assessment (guidelines). (Landcom 2007).

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Barriers

Resistance from potential purchasers
Just as some developers seek to set their developments apart from the local community, and design and market them as exclusive and ‘private’, so too do some homebuyers seek out safety and security features that isolate them from surrounding neighbourhoods. Consequently, features that make the development more accessible to ‘outsiders’ may be viewed negatively.

However, improving community integration can be a means of crime prevention, by preventing the alienation that can be a precondition for crime. Polk (1997) argues that, to reduce crime, planners should maximise the bringing together of groups that have become isolated and segregated from each other as a result of deleterious economic and social trends. (see fact sheet Safety)

Developers need to design developments that meet safety and security needs without excluding non-residents. Consumer education can help people understand that mixed use, integrated neighbourhoods actually make for safer communities.

Need to collaborate with other agencies and stakeholders
Many of the strategies to achieve community integration are not the sole responsibility of developers. For effective social outcomes, collaboration with government and community agencies and stakeholders is needed from the project's outset.

Potential resistance from existing residents
Existing residents in the area may be resistant to the proposed new development. Some of their concerns may relate to social integration. They may feel that existing local facilities will not cope with increased demand, or they may fear that the new development will create social divisions.

To help overcome such resistance, developers should involve existing residents from an early stage. This is discussed below in ‘development phase actions’.
 

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Benchmarks

Setting benchmarks in this area is difficult and can sometimes be contentious because there is no obvious way to ‘measure’ community integration, nor agreement on what represents an ‘ideal’ level of community integration. A pragmatic approach is to set a series of social objectives for the particular project in question (as part of the assessment of the process of assessing social risks and opportunities described here), and measure project outcomes against these.

One approach being adopted by Landcom is to use triple bottom line (TBL) indicators to measure masterplans against Landcom’s own design guidelines for various aspects of the development (for example, guidelines for street design, built form, open space or community centres). For further information see Landcom website.

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Development phase actions

Feasibility

For a new development to have the best chance of enhancing community integration this issue needs to be considered early on in the project, rather than ‘tacked on’ with tokenistic measures at a later stage – these will rarely be successful. Also, community integration needs to be adopted as a central goal of the development, not as an optional extra – this will help to ensure that all partners work towards this outcome from the beginning. Attention needs to be paid to the full range of factors that influence levels of community integration, from the physical environment, to the provision and accessibility of social infrastructure, transport and other essential community facilities, services and social programs. For this reason, community integration should be considered at the feasibility stage.
One approach to consider is that recently developed by Landcom, which undertakes a ‘social sustainability due diligence study’ at the feasibility stage. The purpose of this is to identify social risks and opportunities for a project, and any costs associated with risk avoidance or amelioration, and uptake of opportunities. This is then followed during the master planning stage by the development of a strategic social plan that identifies specific actions required to achieve the social sustainability objectives for the project.

The feasibility stage should incorporate a careful process of research. Ideally it should also include consultation, however in many cases the proposed development may still be confidential at this stage and consultation may need to be limited – for example, with relevant government agencies rather than with the community. Research (and any consultation) conducted at this stage should aim to identify issues associated with the proposed new development that are relevant to existing communities.

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Planning

Either at the feasibility stage, or as soon as possible at the planning stage, genuine opportunities should be provided for the local community, including residents, businesses and service providers, to ‘have a say’ about the proposed new development, and make suggestions about initiatives and strategies that they would like the developer to consider incorporating. However this process should be approached carefully so as not to set up unachievable expectations. Developers and other stakeholders should be clear about the difference between communication and consultation. More information is available in the fact sheet on participatory planning/community engagement. See fact sheet 'Community Engagement'.

In particular, developers should seek people’s views on the kinds of facilities and services that are already available in the area and whether they have the capacity to meet increased demand as well as any gaps in services and facilities. Much of this information can be obtained from Councils and human service agencies and local service providers. Developers can then consider the possibility for the proposed development to help address such identified local needs by providing facilities and/or services that can be accessed and shared by both new and existing residents in the wider community. This has the potential to enhance community integration by ensuring that the new development is seen as a benefit to existing residents. How this is approached will depend on the scale of development and timing.

The planning phase should respond to the issues that were identified in the feasibility stage. A social plan should be developed that addresses and alleviates any concerns that were raised, and contains strategies and actions to reduce social risks, and maximise the opportunities that have been identified for achieving community integration. This may include strategies and actions to address existing gaps in services or facilities and integrate the new development with surrounding communities.The development of a social plan should involve extensive stakeholder consultation – particularly where consultation was limited at the feasibility stage.

One example of a social plan is that prepared for Landcom for the Doonside residential area in Western Sydney. The plan includes housing and population forecasts, and an assessment of the proposed lot and housing mix, and makes recommendations for community facilities, priorities for service provision and processes for community development and community consultation. It draws together the recommendations of the social infrastructure and social sustainability strategies previously prepared, to form a social plan for the project. It identifies social objectives, the social initiatives required to achieve desired social outcomes, specific actions to be undertaken by Landcom to implement initiatives, and opportunities for involvement / partnerships with others.

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Design

The design phase is an opportunity to ensure that the community integration aspects and features of the development are incorporated into the design from the beginning of the project. In particular, this phase should pay attention to addressing any aspects of the project that might risk the creation of a social divide. These include, for example, natural or constructed physical barriers between one area and another, and an uneven distribution of amenities throughout the site – that has the effect of creating ‘less desirable’ areas.

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Construction

Community and stakeholder communication is important at the construction phase to ensure that people feel well informed about the progress of the project, and have an opportunity to raise any concerns. (see fact sheet 'Community Engagement')

Some development projects have adopted a local employment strategy as part of their approach to social sustainability and community integration. Employing local people at the construction phase is one means of strengthening local connection to the development, providing jobs in the local area and supporting the local economy.

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Lot Creation

Lot planning and design represents an opportunity to encourage social integration by ensuring that a mix of lots is provided. Creating a mix of different sized and priced lots throughout the development will help to encourage a diversity of residents – in age, socio-economic background, household structure and tenure type. Give careful consideration to the projected long term population profile for the area, in order to provide an appropriate mix of housing and other services and facilities that will benefit new and existing residents over time. See fact sheet 'Housing Mix'.

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Completion

On completion, developers can encourage community integration by providing ‘welcome kits’ that give new residents information on local services, facilities, and community groups in the local area. Other initiatives might include holding an ‘open day’ for visitors and residents, or sponsoring various kinds of cultural events designed to introduce new residents to their neighbours in surrounding areas (these might include, for example, BBQs, sports carnivals, fair days and so on). Once new residents move in, there may be ways to engage existing residents, local businesses and service providers in initiatives to welcome new residents and help them to integrate into the local community.

Developers can also encourage community activity and local linkages by supporting the establishment of community groups or associations. Wherever possible however, developers should look to establish community development programs that are sustainable into the longer term, rather than only staging ‘one off’ activities and events at project completion. The approach to community integration described in this factsheet requires an assessment of social risks and opportunities to be carried out at the outset, and a plan for community integration to be produced and implemented as an integral part of the development process, rather than only considering ‘social events’ as a marketing tool at the completion stage.

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