Living Streets Program

City of Unley is taking a new approach to bring back our local streets.  Our ‘Living City Open Space Strategy’ and ‘Community Plan 2033’ both outline the importance of creating more innovative open recreational space in non-traditional places and encouraging spaces for people to play and exercise into their daily routines. Unley has less than 3% recreational open space and we are recognising opportunities to rethink our local streets across the city to provide more places people in our neighbourhoods.

There was a time when it was possible to gather with friends, play and meet with your neighbours safely on your local street without feeling vulnerable to traffic. Today, our neighbourhoods are increasingly made up of families as well as retired couples. However, our street no longer provide the common ground for communities, as car dominance outweighs the quality of local places. The Program is an important tool for the Council to work with local communities to create safer and more enjoyable local street outside their front door. 

• Rethink our local streets: providing more places for people to gather with friends, play and meet their neighbours.
• Provide better access: enabling access for residents to walk and ride to public transport and move across the street safely.
• Expand Green Cover Targets: helping achieve green cover targets across the City by 2025.
• Creating Community: empowering local communities to shape their own street outcomes and create community supported projects.

The objectives are consolidated from Council’s overarching Strategic Plan, as well as supporting Open Space 'Living City' , Walking and Cycling and Tree Canopy strategies.

‘The Living Streets Program’ was introduced by the following key principles:

• Places to stop and rest that are age friendly 
• Things to see, do and experience on the journey 
• Making points that are safer, easier to cross and connect 
• More trees and greenery to create cooler neighbourhoods 
• More freedom to walk along local streets 
• More colour and interest into the local streets
• Spaces for kids to play and neighbours to gather 
• Additions that slow the speed of local vehicles

The Program and survey was released in February 2019 to over 340 property owners and residents associated with the 9 shortlisted streets as well as large information sign boards installed into each street. The Council received over 60 completed responses, generally supportive of the program, the desire to improve pedestrian safety, access and support for increased greenery.

Council staff re-applied a multi-criteria analysis, incorporating the additional feedback received from the community, with a more detailed technical assessment of the suitability of each street, including willingness to lose on-street parking for improvements, strategic networks benefits, feasibility to deliver change within the allocated budget and the current condition of the street.

Three streets were selected for further investigation. The property owners and residents of each street were invited to attend a ‘Co-Design’ workshop to foster ownership and understand opportunities to enhance their local streets. They discussed local challenges in keeping with the principles established for the Living Streets Program.

To support the Co-Design process, Council design staff prepared large-scale coloured plans of each existing street, with an overlay of design parameters, including the location of existing infrastructure; existing trees; on-street parking; driveway turning movements; and rubbish collection movement. 

In addition, a ‘Kit of Parts’ was compiled outlining a range of interventions that could be considered in local streets, appropriate to the limited capital / resources. These included traffic control devices, tree planting, greening, public art, surfaces and kerbing.  Each item had a monetary value and the group was responsible for developing a preferred design to suit the limited construction budget. 

Each item within the ‘kit’ was represented by different wooden blocks, which gave community the confidence to ‘play’ with the design, moving pieces about over the scale roll prints to test new design options, as well as managing the technical and budget constraints. At the conclusion, a spokesperson from each street was then invited to summarise their design with the wider group.

Council evaluated 24 local streets across the City against a technical and strategic analysis with the aim for pedestrians to safely share the roadway with vehicles.  The Council developed a multi-criteria analysis to review and refine the scope to a manageable number of streets. The analysis included:

• Existing pedestrian or bike riding demand or strategic network connections
• History of community concerns
• Length of streetscape, tree canopy cover, verge treatments and road condition
• Street classification, traffic volumes and average speeds
• Proximity to neighbourhood facilities
• Ability to enable change and affordability of practical changes

This resulted in a shortlist of 9 local streets as suitable ‘Living Street’ candidates.

To understand the level of community support, a survey was conducted with residents of the shortlisted streets to test living street key ideas, resident priorities, and willingness to participate.

Based on the level of feedback and assessment of most beneficial outcome for the neighbourhood 3 of the 9 streets were selected for further design development.  

Council hosted a Co-Design workshop with the residents of each of the streets to worked together and design their own Living Street.

To support the community-led design, Council staff explained a set of technical parameters for the street (non-negotiables) and introduced a ‘Kit of Parts’, a toolkit of ‘typical’ streetscape enhancements, including tree planting, garden beds, furniture and community artwork.

Each component from the toolkit was represented with a wooden block, and residents were able to set these out and move around on a scale plan of the existing street.

Each item within the toolkit had monetary value and an overall construction budget was set for the residents to work within. The community participation fostered a supportive environment for residents to discuss existing challenges and identify potential outcomes for their street and eventually demonstrate their preferred option, with the support of Council’s technical staff.