Interviewer: Frank Heimans,
            for Baulkham Hills Shire Council

Date of Interview: 5 April 2007

Transcription: Glenys Murray, July 2007

Can I ask you where and when you were born?

I was born in 1957 and been a resident of Sydney for all those years.

Where was that? Which part of Sydney?

I grew up in my early years in Auburn and went to junior school at Berala Primary School. But then we moved to North Rocks and went to James Ruse Agricultural High School when I was a teenager.

You were very lucky to get into that school I believe it is difficult?

It is a selective school, was in the years that I went there. It’s a good school gives you a broad ranging education career.

What sort of memories do you have of that period?

James Ruse as a selective school we did agriculture so we learnt a bit about farming and land. We also had interschool visits and went to Tamworth and Farrar Agricultural High School and Crookwell High School. It was more than you get at a normal high school and I enjoyed all those extra curricular activities.

Tell me a little bit about your parents. What kind of people are they?

My parents are both alive. My father was an electrical draughtsman worked for a number of private consulting firms. My mother worked in the education industry as a teacher’s helper, teacher’s aide but worked at the North Rocks Deaf and Blind School and other schools of that nature.

Now you did a degree in urban and regional town planning at (Charles) Sturt University at Bathurst. Tell me about what motivated you to do that?

Interesting I had a few career changes leaving high school and going to university. I first started off thinking I would do civil engineering and went to Sydney University. Wasn’t really something that I wanted to do after twelve months because it was a lot more science orientated than what I was looking for which was more practically orientated. With my career, I then joined the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA). Worked for the RTA for four years and did traffic engineering. Got a traffic engineering background and got a traffic engineering qualification from NSW University. During the last few semesters of traffic engineering you learn a bit about town planning. Town planning was in its infancy in this state and so I started doing town planning by correspondence. At that time I left the RTA and joined Ryde Council and at Ryde Council I did my course through Sturt University as a correspondence student. You went to residential schools and you did it all by distance learning and that’s how I did my town planning qualification.

How long was that course at Bathurst? How many years?

It was a four year course correspondence and I completed it when I was at Ryde Council and graduated as a town planner and I was looking then for a qualified town planner’s job. When I left Ryde Council and joined Baulkham Hills Council I was employed as a qualified town planner. I joined Baulkham Hills Council in 1986.

Council Building with palm trees 1982

It was a lot smaller council in terms of number of staff. Very small town planning department and you were doing everything in town planning then. You were doing applications, but also doing planning for release areas. In the early eighties Baulkham Hills Council was at the beginning of major release areas happening in West Pennant Hills Valley. That area was just being subdivided up so you were doing all the applications to subdivisions in West Pennant Hills. Areas around Glenhaven and then the early stage of the Rouse Hill planning was happening in the late eighties. It was quite exciting also when I joined the Council in 1986 the Council went through some difficult financial times. I was there when the Council elected body was sacked by the State Government and there was an administrator for about two years. That was an interesting time to be there working with the administrator. You don’t have a Council meeting to report to and things are dealt with fairly straight forwardly with an administrator at the time. So I’ve been through some interesting times at Baulkham Hills Council.

It’s always an interesting Council?

The administrator was put in there for financial reasons for the Council and then the Council was elected again I think in the early nineties. The administrator was only there for two years.

Norwest Business Park Aerial View. (Windsor Road in the foreground)

What was exciting for you being at Baulkham Hills? What aspects of the work did you enjoy the most?

I suppose in my career at Baulkham Hills I’ve progressed all the way through the ranks. As a junior town planner through senior town planner to a manager. Then my tasks before I left the Council I was in charge of the major projects for the Council. Dealing with all the major development applications. Those applications were all the major commercial residential projects going on in the Shire. For example I dealt with all the application for the Norwest Business Park. So I saw the Park grow from a brick pit to a multi million dollar business park with commercial offices and developments happening in Norwest.

I was involved in all the stages of the Castle Towers Shopping Centre the expansion from a small shopping centre to the major regional shopping centre it is today. I suppose the combination of my job at Baulkham Hills in my role as major projects I was the Coordinator and Project Manager for the Council’s Castle Grand development which was the example of a library and community centre coming together. Being built in the one facility and the Council fully funding that project by a residential development that Council built and that was quite exciting. It was innovative for a council to be developer and the approval role. My job in the Council was to coordinate that and project managed that.

There was no conflict in that at all?

It is something that you have to manage in terms of conflict, in terms of the approval role. In that case I was acting as the applicant and somebody else within the Council was the determining authority. The Council also employed an outside consultant to review the planning recommendations so we dealt with it at arms length through there. But importantly I think for the Council that project was how to fund a major new library and community centre because the Council didn’t have all the funds to build it. That was funded by the residential development and I was instrumental in bringing the ideas to inception. We had the ideas in putting residential (Horizon Apartments) within the library community centre and so I was able to employ architects and builders I went through the whole gambit of that project for five or six years. That was quite an exciting project.

It’s an unusual concept isn’t it, having a residential tower within a municipal library?

Indeed the concept of putting both the community centre and library together was almost unique. The library is a very modern library, open plan library and they wanted to have the opportunity to have meeting rooms and places that people could come to. So not just a place where people could read books there’s a coffee shop there. So that changed the thinking of libraries and with that were the meeting rooms the community centre and the meeting rooms fitted quite well. People could then go and hire a meeting room out at the same place. So the library became a focus for the Council’s activities, it gave people the opportunity to do Council business within Castle Hill in the shopping centre. People can then make applications, pay their rates, do all their other enquiries they can normally do at the administration centre, but at the Council’s library at Castle Hill so that was very different. In terms of the residential we looked at a number of models, not just across Sydney but also overseas models of how libraries are being built. Libraries are meant to be integrated with other developments not just stand alone buildings anymore. They are civic buildings but they should be integrated with what happens in the town. So they need to have activities around them so that’s why residential seemed to be a good activity which fitted quite well with the community centre.

Castle Grand opened 7 Sep 2004

What were the challenges for you in getting your concept through the Council? That was a bit radical for the time and I suppose you must have had opposition to that?

The concept was radical, putting community facilities and library together took some convincing but that was fairly easy because we did a lot of community consultation. The radical part was putting residential to it. The idea of residential and community together was a way of funding the project. It was that challenge of how the project was going to be funded was the difficult part of convincing the Council’s elected members to say how this project could be funded. We did a number of independent studies. We had independent consultants assist us in that way of saying to the Council “this is a proper way to financially manage this project”. It took a while I think the success is in the design. It’s the best designed library you see I think in the statement in Australia. Very open library itself and fantastic Council facilities.

Did you put it in for some kind of competition?

It’s been in numerous awards. It’s won numerous state awards for libraries. It’s also won awards for the builder who built the project for the Master Builder’s Awards. It won an award in the Urban Development Institute of Australia, with the design. It was public sector leadership in urban design so it was recognised across industry a number of awards it’s received.

What about some of the other projects that you did while you were at Baulkham Hills Council? Castle Towers, was that one of them?

Yes I’ve been involved in all the stages of the expansion of Castle Towers while I was at the Council. Where it grew from a small shopping centre of one supermarket with about twenty thousand square metre floor space up to about one hundred thousand square metre floor space. So significant expansion, there was major challenges in that. Trying to coordinate all of Council’s requirements and to make sure the developer met Council’s expectations. That is particularly to manage the traffic around the shopping centre. We negotiated at the Council the ring road system and we built a western ring road around Castle Towers. That took the traffic for the shops around the main street of Castle Hill. In that we’ve also planned at the Town Centre of Castle Hill and eastern ring road so that bypasses the other side of Castle Hill as well. Now that was all linked into what was happening at Castle Towers shopping centre.

How do you consider that development?

Castle Towers I think was a shopping centre of its time. Where shops tended to expand within themselves, what I mean by that is that the shops are all within the walls of the shops with an air conditioned environment. But one of the last stages of Castle Towers I’m fairly pleased to say we got them to open it up. It’s the last stage, it’s called The Piazza and it’s the open area of it which has the restaurant precinct to it and when the cinemas and restaurants trade really well people can sit outside and enjoy the great atmosphere we have here, the great climate and don’t have to be in an air conditioned environment. That was where we were turning the shops opening up a bit to more modern thinking.

A building at Norwest Business Park

A new direction for the shops, a new direction for design of shopping centres and that’s gone someway into thinking for what Rouse Hill should be developed for.

The Norwest Business Park that is a huge development, tell me what the challenges were for you there?

The challenges for Norwest were quite easy. We had a very receptive owner and developer of the land that’s the Norwest Brick and Tile Company (North Sydney Brick and Tile Company), Norwest Association (Limited). They wanted to work with the Council in collaboration with them we formed a partnership in putting all the planning controls in place. To encourage development we actually had a design panel where we sat down with all the different buildings and went through an early design process before submission to Council. That was quite a collaborative approach with the developer. Really Norwest was slow to get off the ground because it involved the developer building some new roads into the Business Park. It took off when the Shire was opened up with the M2 Motorway. When that opened up through Baulkham Hills and out to Old Windsor Road, businesses realised that Norwest Business Park was only half an hour from the CBD or from Chatswood. So people could come and build their purpose built office building without being involved in the traffic and the situation of it in the CBD. So Norwest took off probably ten or fifteen years ago when the Shire started to be opened up with access from the M2.

Are there any distinctive features about that that make it different from others?

I suppose it’s a unique opportunity that we had with Norwest that we sat down with each developer and worked at the design before submitting it to Council. To ensure a quick approval one of the noteworthy developments in there that is always being quoted by Norwest and by Council was the Cathay Pacific Building. Which is a big box of a building but it is their world data centre. That’s when Hong Kong was being turned over to the Chinese. They were looking at having a secure place to run their computer system from. It was fortunate enough to come to Australia and then they looked at where they would go in Australia. They looked at business parks throughout the Eastern seaboard. They looked up in Queensland competition was over on Mona Vale Road at St Ives, over there. They selected Norwest because there was a vacant block of land where they could build their purpose built building. As a planner I was involved in the early stages of the design so we went through three months of design with the architects and that building is built like a bunker. It has two sets of computers so that if one crashes they can still supply the tickets for Cathay Pacific to supply the computer network with it. That application came into Council and was processed within two days. It was all done in the pre-consultation. That’s how we did all the developments in Norwest.

How long have you lived in the Baulkham Hills Shire yourself?

As I mentioned I moved into North Rocks with my parents when I was going to high school at James Ruse. So really I’ve lived in the Shire for thirty five years almost twenty years with my current family but as a teenager as well.

So you know the Shire pretty well I imagine?

It’s grown from a semi rural type shire to a more an urban shire with still the rural part of the Shire in the northern part of the area north of Castle Hill.

Aerial view of Castle Hill township 1999

The area has changed significantly in that there have been new residential neighbourhoods opened up new release areas. In the sixties there was areas being built around Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill but in the seventies and eighties we saw the areas grow around West Pennant Hills and also in Castle Hill round Glenhaven. So you’ve seen areas being developed as residential releases, estates are happening. So that has been the constant growth of dwelling houses in the area. But in the early nineties when the M2 Motorway was built that changed the face of the Shire significantly. The Shire was easily accessible to the Sydney CBD and to other areas of Chatswood. That’s when you saw medium density housing being built in the shire. Before the nineties there were very few town houses or even apartments being built. Since the nineties we’ve seen an influx of medium density housing being built. As a plan that was some challenges. Good design for apartments and to look at all the planning controls to make sure people had enough open space with them to make sure there were good designs so people could live in the units and still have a good environment. The Shire is renowned for in terms of “The Garden Shire”. I suppose the other part that has grown with the Shire has been the retailing. Castle Towers has grown significantly over those years to cater for people not wanting to drive to Parramatta or anywhere else to get their retailing needs. So they’ve tended to focus retailing locally at Castle Hill. The same with employment with Norwest Business Park and other areas of Castle Hill Trading Zone being developed people can then start to work locally. Part of the driving factor for the Shire has been trying to make people’s trips more local trips, not needing to drive out of the Shire.

That must have necessitated a lot of changes to roads and infrastructure to do that?

There has been, Frank particularly round the retailing heart of Castle Hill. Council had to do a plan for the Town Centre. There’s a ring road system which they’re implementing and a main street treatment for Old Northern Road addressing the increased traffic around the Shire. One of the challenges there has been is while there is local road and networks that the Council controls. There are also the main road networks that the Roads and Traffic Authority control. You saw areas being developed in the nineties out at Rouse Hill and the challenges there of people moving out to Kellyville, Rouse Hill without the roads being updated. There was a single lane road to Rouse Hill for many years and it took about ten years of convincing on behalf of the Council to convince the RTA to upgrade Windsor Road. It’s now completed you see a two lane road, divided road to serve Rouse Hill. But that took many years of traffic congestion to service the release areas out at Rouse Hill.

Poor old residents had to live through all that didn’t they?

They suffered for ten years too long.

Now you moved from the Baulkham Hills Council to the Department of Planning. Tell me what made you move to the Department of Planning and what your present position is there now?

I would have liked to stay at Baulkham Hills because I was involved in a lot of development taking place. There was a change in the political will of the Council. There was a change significantly from the General Manager down the ranks of the Council. It was opportune for me to look at another career move. My career change then was to Department of Planning and I’m now the director of the Land Management Branch of Department of Planning. I’m responsible in that role of acquiring corridors across Sydney. Corridors for open space and also for transport purposes. In our teams we have teams managing open space acquisitions, managing transport such as the North West and South West rail land acquisitions. So we’re acquiring land, we’re also acting on behalf of the state government to develop land. The ability to acquire land is also how we can generate income from those projects. I’m now in a development role developing land on behalf of the state government.

A very responsible position I’d imagine?

It’s responsible in that some of the objectives of the transport corridors are meeting the state government’s objectives of the metropolitan strategy and delivering of corridors to service the expansion and the growth of Sydney.

Now there have been lots of changes in plans that Sydney has had in the past. Can you give me an outline of these various plans that were formulated for Sydney ever since the 1948 Cumberland Plan was devised?

The planning history of Sydney is quite interesting the early "County of Cumberland Plan" of 1948 was really to recognise the growth of Sydney had really been along the railway lines. Had been along the Western Line, the Northern Line and the Southern Line of Sydney all radiating out from the Sydney CBD. The 1948 plan there was a grand plan to have a green belt around Sydney, a green corridor that was in areas which included this Shire. As part of the green belt to protect the farmlands, but also to be the edge of what urban development was seen to be in the early development of the Shire up until the fifties. In the sixties there was need to expand Sydney because of the growing population. More areas needed to be released and in 1968 there was another plan brought out by the state government called the “Sydney Region Outline Plan”. That was expansion of release areas in the North West and South West of Sydney and also areas to the west of Sydney along the railway lines of the western suburbs. The “Sydney Region Outline Plan” also identified areas for employment in the Sydney region itself. So it was trying to recognise that people also had somewhere to go to work. So they identified employment areas across the region itself. In more recent times in 2005 there has been the “Sydney Metropolitan Strategy Plan” that was developed by the Department of Planning and released by the Premier in December 2005 and that’s really been a combination of the previous planning studies into one comprehensive plan for the Sydney region.

How far does that look ahead?

That looks ahead twenty to thirty years. It’s addressing residential releases, employment growth across Sydney. Also the planning for all the major cities in Sydney it’s really a combination of the “City of Sydney’s Plan” where there is the major city CBD but there is also other recognised cities within Sydney. Such as areas of Liverpool, Penrith and Parramatta, there are five other centre cities that are hives of both retailing and employment activities in the centre. It is also looking at setting council targets of residential densities to achieve around villages and neighbourhood centres. There is a whole hierarchy of controls the council would be introducing in their planning that goes with that.

The 1968 “Sydney Region Outline Plan” forecast that up to three hundred and seventy thousand people could be housed in the North Western corridor. Has that actually been achieved or is that on its way to being achieved?

Not really three hundred thousand it’s partly being achieved we’re talking the order of sixty thousand dwellings in the North West sector of Sydney. Sixty thousand dwellings and the average is about three, three and a half persons per dwelling. It’s not going to achieve three hundred thousand it’s probably going to achieve more the two hundred thousand mark in the North West sector of Sydney. The limits to the expansion of the North West sector are limited by the creeks and the major corridors such as Cattai Creek out to the Hawkesbury River and the flood areas through there. There is some limits to expansion of North West Sydney and you’re talking about in the order of sixty thousand plus new dwellings.

What is the significance of "The State Plan" of 2006? (The State Plan, A New Direction for NSW, was launched by the Premier, Morris Iemma, on 14 November, 2006)

"The State Plan" was the state government’s infrastructure plan was the coordination of infrastructure spending over the next twenty to thirty years. Metropolitan Strategy identified the expansion of Sydney Metropolitan areas but part of that was also infrastructure spending. Whereas "The State Plan" has infrastructure spending over the whole of the state including the metropolitan areas it includes the other major areas of Newcastle and Wollongong in terms of "The State Plan". It was coordinated across all the government agencies, how money should be spent and how it could be coordinated across all the authorities.

The New Rouse Hill site on Windsor Road. Looking in a North West direction from Kellyville (April 2006)

As a planner at Baulkham Hills in the early nineties I started to get involved in the early planning for it. The area of Rouse Hill was identified in the “Regional Outline Plan Number 19” in 1989 as a regional centre to serve the North West release area of Sydney. The Council of the time was trying to coordinate with the state government how that area would be released. The state government bought the land for The Rouse Hill Regional Centre in the early 1980’s and was looking at developing that as a regional centre in the future. The Council as the planning authority was saying “where are the services, where is the transport that goes with that”. A planning issue was a major expanding residential area of sixty thousand new dwellings needed to have transport to it. We were making a number of submissions to the state government about transport, infrastructure upgrading including road networks through there. It was those areas that were trying to be a focus for North West sector a coordination of infrastructure across the region and that’s the role the state government was looking at playing. Where Rouse Hill itself and the regional centre was a focus of all these activities and focused to serve the growing region.

The Council would have had to do a new environmental plan for all that didn’t they?

The Council did in the early nineties ninety one, ninety two the Council did a Local Environment Plan (LEP) to release the areas of Kellyville, Rouse Hill. That identified residential areas and also commercial areas to service the growing region.

Now the Baulkham Hills Council actually lost its planning powers over the Rouse Hill development in 2001. What were the implications for the Council of this decision?

The Council didn’t really lose its planning powers. The Council was asked in 2001 to finalise the planning for Rouse Hill Regional Centre. The planning power is not taken away from the Council to correct that statement there. The Council was asked by the state government to finalise the rezoning of the regional centre site. What the Council was trying to have the state government do was to commit to the public transport. To commit to a regional centre being built but they didn’t want the regional centre being built without the commitment of the government to provide public transport. In 2001 the state government of the time gave undertakings to the Council that public transport would be provided with the opening of Rouse Hill. That was in the form of bus transit ways (http://www.t-way.nsw.gov.au/). Bus transit ways are built and opened today in 2007 before The Rouse Hill Centre is opened. The state government gave that commitment to provide public transport. The other part that the Council was seeking was to have more than transit ways was about rail network (North West Rail Link). The state government released its “Transport Action Plan” in the early 2000’s and that identified the opportunity to provide a heavy rail network to serve Rouse Hill. That is still on the planning, my role now is to acquire the corridor for the rail network and the state government is planning to provide a heavy rail network to service Rouse Hill by 2017.

There were some early criticisms of Rouse Hill that it didn’t have the public infrastructure yet when they opened up the first of the houses. Are you familiar with that?

Indeed in working at the Council when the Council was getting that criticism from the local community as well. In the Rouse Hill release area it was subdivided, developed in a fairly patchwork or haphazard approach. In that the Sydney Water dictated what areas could be serviced first because of the water and sewerage facilities. Those areas were developed where the developers were able to fund the upfront infrastructure for water and sewerage. You had areas out at Rouse Hill or pockets of subdivisions occurring all over the areas where it wasn’t coordinated by the Council. It was coordinated by Sydney Water in the provision of infrastructure. The problem that caused is that there were pockets of residential land being released and the roads were not being upgraded because the Council didn’t have the funds to coordinate the road infrastructure with that. It’s taken ten years of Council trying to catch up with the urban development that has taken place. The problem that created for the Council was the areas were being developed, people were moving in without the community facilities without the other services they needed to service the release area. In addition it made it very hard for the Council in terms of its infrastructure spending. When the area was released prices of land changed significantly from a rural paddock of land to a residential block of land. The price of land was a three hundred percent increase and so the Council then had to buy land for parks and reserves, community centres with a significant increase of price going with that as well. So the Council has in its community facilities been playing catch up all that time. That’s been the difficult part with the Rouse Hill release area was the coordination of all of those other social services that go with that.

So in The New Rouse Hill development these problems have been overcome?

We’ve tried to address that upfront. There is an agreement with the developer that the developer is providing parks, reserves on day one. He’s also assisting with the Council in providing a new library/community centre with the opening of stage one of Rouse Hill. Those facilities will be built in day one before people move in. We’re working with the developer to provide those facilities for the Council, for the state government and the private industry.

The Town Centre (artist's impression March 2006)

Rouse Hill is a fairly unique design in that it is looking at a Town Centre on urban design principles. It is around opening up of the shopping centre so that you’re not creating shops within enclosed malls and they’re being opened up along a main street design. Those guiding principles have guided the design of the Town Centre and it’s making the Town Centre more walkable. The people can walk around the centre itself through laneways or streets not through air conditioned environments. The whole centre is walkable from residential neighbourhoods that link with Rouse Hill to the other parts of the residential precincts. So people can walk to it and public transport will be provided so they can catch public transport to their place of employment. The other part of Rouse Hill that has been different and unique within the Town Centre itself is the insistence from a town planning viewpoint is to provide residents in there from day one. The Town Centre usually evolves over many years that people live in the middle of a town shopping centre because it has good place to go and eat. It has good community facilities but those things don’t usually operate in day one of a new Town Centre. Rouse Hill is unique as the developer we are insisting as the state government that the developer provides residential accommodation with the opening of stage one. So they are building two hundred units to open when stage one of the shopping centre opens. People will be living in the middle of the town beginning with the shops open for business.

Did they do the designs or come up with the concepts?

The early concepts were driven by the state government in conjunction with the Council. Having a Town Centre and density housing around that and that was really a planning outcome that was driven by the Planning Authorities. The developer Lend Lease had to make their tender conform to the urban design outcome. They’ve had to integrate that into built forms. The developer has had to interpret what is expected from a new Town Centre environment and then put that into retail spaces. Shops, commercial areas that go with that the developer today Lend Lease is building shops out there, supermarkets, to open all integrated with a design that is going to be we think the best outcome.

Walkways leading into Town Centre (artist's impression October 2002)

Building height within the Town Centre itself we wanted to have as the Town Centre has a focal point. It has a high point in the Town Centre. The highest building in the Town Centre is going to be an eight storey residential tower. That was seen by the Council to be the limit of development. The Council at this stage didn’t have a lot of high rise development and that was the highest building in the Town Centre in the Main Street of the town. But then in the commercial development one area that is unique in Rouse Hill is that all the commercial development is not more than two storeys high. Along the Main Street of the shopping centre you have a two storey environment. You still have a sun light, an open airy environment in an area that will have some significant public domain areas. The design had a civic place called a Town Square in the middle of the Main Street and the Civic Way where off this Town Square is a new library and community centre being built. That’s a focal point within the Town Centre itself. So that’s got two storey development around it. Then you have around the Centre itself the commercial buildings or the retail buildings are being flagged and skimmed by residential apartments. By four storey apartment buildings the Town Centre itself is residential around the edges of it. Then you have a mixture of four to five storey residentials in another commercial area a mixture of apartment buildings being built within walking distance to the Town Centre. Outside of the Centre itself within areas of four to five hundred metres the densities start to become lower densities. More into town houses and then more into normal dwelling houses but in blocks of land that are varying in size from two hundred square metres up to four fifty, five hundred square metres in size so varying lot sizes in there.

Peter, can you detail the financial arrangements for The New Rouse Hill? What will be the various partners, the Department of Planning, Lend Lease, GPT what will they all contribute and what will be their respective stakes in the project?

The land is owned by the Department of Planning so in my role as land owner we have a contract with the successful developer. Which Lend Lease General Property Trust and that’s a joint venture between Lend Lease and General Property Trust to develop this project. It’s a contract that we have with the private sector to develop the whole regional centre and that’s over a ten or fifteen year time period including the Town Centre and all the residentials that go with that. That contract on behalf of government is also a partner in this project is Landcom. Landcom was seen to be an opportunity to be involved in the management of the contract for the government. Landcom are my administration who administers the contract on behalf of the government. They’re looking and making sure the best urban design outcome is achieved through development by Lend Lease and General Property Trust. In terms of what each stake holder receives out of this. Obviously there’s revenues returned in terms of a contract back to government, in terms of the land owner. Also revenue that goes to Lend Lease General Property Trust and to Landcom it’s a very complex contract but there is a development that will see revenue return to each party that is involved in the project.

In proportion to the risk they’ve taken?

In proportion to the risk they take and also to the money that they have put up. Lend Lease have to put up substantial money for providing infrastructure. They’re doing road widening at Windsor Road and other roads out there. They had to put all that up front and that’s all part of the development risk and that is recognised in the very substantial contract the government has with the private sector partners.

Did the developers also have to pay part of the cost of upgrading the roads like Windsor Road around?

All developers in the Rouse Hill release area have had to pay money to what’s called regional transport upgrading. Part of this agreement Lend Lease is doing works now for upgrading Windsor Road from a two lane road or four lanes to a six lane configuration across the front of the Town Centre. That six lane configuration will be open to coincide with the opening of the shopping centre. Lend Lease have brought forward that money to fund those works to be taking place. They’re also funding other infrastructure within Rouse Hill and providing money to provide bus networks that don’t just service the transit way but local buses that connect from the other parts of Kellyville/Rouse Hill to serve Rouse Hill itself. The money is not all physical infrastructure some of it is soft infrastructure to encourage people to public transport usage as well.

Who is actually the Project Manager for this development?

The joint developer that is Lend Lease General Property Trust have an overseer or project director on their behalf and in Lend Lease that’s Gavin Biles is the current Project Director. Gavin has the responsibility of coordinating everything Lend Lease General Property Trust do and submitting all of that to the government and Landcom for approval. The Project director has the role of coordinating all of that making it happen on the site. It’s a very important role in Lend Lease is Gavin’s job. Over the project we’ve seen two or three project directors over the time and they’ve changed the life of the project. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been one constant in this from the planning of it to the delivery of it. I’ve been seeing it all the way through.

(Gavin Biles was followed by Stuart Mendel as Project Director for the New Rouse Hill)

Any headaches that you’ve accumulated along the way?

Lots of challenges I see that any planning today to be delivered. You’re trying to be insistent to try and get the best outcomes and it’s more about making sure that those challenges are addressed. Being important in my role first at Council was to make sure that the government authorities are being coordinated and particularly with the RTA and the public infrastructure for the transport was provided and all the planning that goes with that. In my role as land owner there is still the coordination with government authorities but to also now make sure that the deliverables are there. That they deliver the promises they’ve made to put in the area health unit or the police station all those things. To make sure that the requirements given by government are actually built on the ground. It’s quite an exciting job as a town planner to be involved from an idea, through the planning of it, to the inception and project delivery and that’s what I’ve enjoyed in my planning career.

My role within the Department of Planning - I’m the land owner and I have a direct responsibility to ensure that this project is delivered. Within Landcom they have a number of staff that works in conjunction with my self to do the administration of the contract. Landcom are providing a role for government in the project management of this very detailed contract we have with Lend Lease GPT. They provide that assistance to my self because it is not just a one person job that you could do. There is a whole team of people in Landcom worked on this project for government.

How do you avoid favouring any one particular party you’ve got the interests of the public at heart you’ve got the interests of the commercial developers who need to make money of course out of this, and you’ve got the interests of Landcom? It must be a difficult balance that you have to find to make it all work?

It is a difficult balance indeed. I suppose there are the contractual terms that set up the financial arrangements and the partnership that we have with the private sector and Landcom sets up what the revenues are to return to everybody. There is also the will of the partners to have a partnership that develops the best outcome. Landcom plays an important role and so does the will of Lend Lease to provide that will of government to provide the best Town Centre we have at Rouse Hill. That’s been very evident in the partnership that’s been there for the last three years and hopefully will continue to be a partnership between all the sectors involved in this development.

How did the name The New Rouse Hill come about who thought that one up?

Lend Lease in terms of their project delivery and their marketing they look at marketing in terms of what attracts people to areas and try to make it attractive for people to live in. Lend Lease went through a whole naming exercise because Rouse Hill was the name of the locality and people living at Rouse Hill at the moment in terms of residential subdivisions out there. That was the name that the Council had for the name of the locality and Lend Lease said “is that the best name for the Town Centre”? Lend Lease went through a whole exercise of looking through a whole lot of different names, Aboriginal names, place names for the area and it came back to with their community consultation most people recognised the area as Rouse Hill. So to create a bit of a new feel to it they’ve put the world “new” in front of it. But I think the “new” is only there for marketing purposes over time people will just recognise it as part of Rouse Hill.

Do you think that The New Rouse Hill development will become the blueprint for others to follow?

Indeed and the NSW Government and Landcom particularly are looking at promoting The New Rouse Hill development as a blueprint for other urban design developments not just in NSW but across Australia where they’re seen as being the best urban design Town Centre. And an opportunity to have mixed use Town Centre in an open environment as the forerunner for other types of developments like this to occur across this country. We’re hoping that this will be a model that other developments will be gauged upon and will be looked on as how successful Rouse Hill was. In ten years time I hope to be the town planner talking on what were our experiences were at Rouse Hill.

Inside Vinegar Hill Memorial Library and Community Centre (artist's impression March 2006)

I think Council’s challenges are to make the library, community centre work. It’s a design similar to Castle Hill. It’s an open plan library and community centre and so that will be an attraction to people. It’s got restaurants and coffee shops next door so it should be attractive. But to me that is a focal point for all the services for Rouse Hill and Kellyville and beyond out to Box Hill where future urban development will take place. People will come to Rouse Hill not just for shopping but also for community facilities. That is community facilities where people can go and do all those other services that Council provides such as counciling services. So Council can expand some of those services to serve more in the needs of the residents in the future out there. Rouse Hill is also going to be important for the Council to ensure that they have an ongoing role to play in the planning of it and what happens in these public domain areas. The public domain is the Town Square, areas within the Centre being owned by GPT but they’re open to the public. So the Council sits on an overarching committee that manages the Town Centre and this committee will look at making sure civic events can happen in the Town Square or the Market Square. That can be anything from Christmas events through Orange Blossom events each year. Council has an ongoing role to make sure that Rouse Hill is included in all the normal civic events that happen in the life of the Council.

Do you think that The New Rouse Hill development will necessitate a change of thinking by the Council regarding the future development in the Shire given the current community expectations and the financial limitations?

I think it should create thinking in the Council that there is an opportunity here for developers to provide these facilities in day one upfront. The Council should look at the benefits of that. They do not have to build these facilities in five or ten years time as they normally do with most Town Centres or villages. Where they come back later on and provide village squares or footpath paving or parks. But here we have the opportunity where the developer is providing it with the opening of the shops. The Council needs to recognise that and work with the developer to make sure that they then look after all those facilities. It is that unique delivery model which is different for the Council. Some recognition of that needs to be in the cooperation with the Council to ensure that happens and continues to work in a cooperative fashion with the Council.

Is there anything in the Rouse Hill development plans that you’re not happy about?

Part of my frustration has been I’ve had a number of different roles in this project and we set up a design process within the Council there, where there was an architectural urban design panel independent of Council. That looked at architectural design and we employed independent architects to advise the Council about the best urban design. That panel has been set up and is established and is working quite well. That panel was meant to give some assurance to Lend Lease to have quicker approval processes through. Unfortunately in the last twelve months the Council’s approvals have not been as quick as Lend Lease expected. So there have been some delays by the Council and delays by Lend Lease in delivering Rouse Hill. As the land owner the government expected Rouse Hill to be open two years ago but there has been a whole lot of issues there that they’ve had to resolve with the Council. Some of that frustration is to make sure that the principles have been established and all the planning work has been done now it’s about the delivery of it. It’s been slow to get up and running. Now that it is actually going to open later in 2007 I think the Council will see more confidence in it and will accept the process being established to follow through. So that urban design is being highly achieved in the outcomes. They’ll give the officers the authorities that they need to be able approve the applications fairly quickly and expeditiously.

So it’s been a learning curve for the Council as well has it?

I think a learning curve for the Council. There is a new set of Councillors on the Council and it’s been a bit of different thinking for them to not be in total control of everything. But to rely upon the planning expertise to say we’re getting the best design outcome for them.

Well I’ve gone through all my questions so far. We’re coming to the end of the interview is there anything else that you wish to mention that we haven’t covered in this interview, anything important that you want to put on record?

Rouse Hill is one of those challenges for Council to look at what happens for the expansion of the Shire. Rouse Hill will be the regional centre that services the North West sector and the Council has got a lot of planning out to do for the expansion out to Kellyville North and Box Hill for a major expansion for these new dwellings out there in the next ten years. The Council needs to look at how that could be incorporated with the state government through all the plans that are happening and the growth centres release. To make sure what gets developed is focused on new designs of neighbourhoods and trying to create neighbourhoods in the beginning of development. So you create a small neighbourhood where people can go and get their milk and bread or go to school. Create those little units of designs and they build that before they start subdividing land. The Council has always been under pressure to subdivide land and the subdividers tend to subdivide the land but forget about all those other services that go with that. I think it’s that really planning issue that’s at the forefront with release areas. The balance of getting residential subdivisions but also providing facilities in day one of development and that includes shops and community centres and places to meet and go to school and all those areas there. They need to be provided before areas are subdivided.

That sounds like it is going to be fantastic. We might do another interview in a couple of years when people have moved in and see what the outcome has been?

I hope to be as I said on the talking circuit about Rouse Hill to all the Planning Institutes across the country about the experiences of Rouse Hill. What we have learnt. We did some initial experiences about the design and it’s going to be about making sure the outcome is driven by what we expected and we get the best outcome out there. It would be good Frank, to reflect in two or three years time on how we achieved what we set out to achieve.

You’ll have endless source or information for conferences to give I think?

I hope so too.