Planning for a new suburb, estate or major urban infill area is partly an adventure in imagining what the future population of the area will look like and what facilities, infrastructure and built forms will be required.

Sometimes it happens the other way around, where the plan focuses on the physical assets first and bases assumptions about the future community around the buyer profile.

We see this a lot in peri-urban housing estates, where the standard four bedroom plus, open plan living, plus media room, plus covered BBQ area, sums up the type of household expected to one day call the area home. Then masterplans will pencil in some suitable facilities such as a small local shopping centre, bus stops for school buses, and a park with room for dog walking and ball sports.

What has not been part of business as usual for masterplans is understanding and addressing the climate change impacts that are slowly but surely emerging and will only escalate in the coming decades.

To do so, development teams need to undertake a climate risk assessment, develop mitigation plans for those risks, and develop a community climate resilience and adaptation plan. This will mean that we must also operate with a much more granular picture of who will live or work in the area, including the socio-economic factors that may contribute to members of that population being at greater risk from climate impacts.

Green Star Communities requirements

The Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Green Star Communities tool has already established climate risk and adaptation as part of masterplanning practice since its inception, with a community resilience plan (CRP) required for any Green Star Communities rating. Creating a science-based Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) and Climate Risk Mitigation (CRM) strategies are also rewarded by the tool.

The CRP needs to support all members of the community to respond proactively to hazards such as bushfire, heatwaves, flooding and cyclones. It is highly localised, integrating appropriate linkages to local hazard alerting sources such as ABC radio or any specific local alerting system. It references the available information and guidance from emergency services, local government and the state government (if relevant) and puts it together into a cohesive resilience plan.

In developing an effective CRP, we also include checklists that cover preparedness for specific hazards, advice on emergency kit contents, how to stay safe during specific events and what to do in the immediate aftermath.

This last part is crucial to embed across all our collective thinking about resilience. Not only do we need to ensure every community has safe, accessible refuge spaces for during events, but we also need to consider what is needed to enable a community to connect and support each other in the aftermath.

The role of business

There is a meaningful role for local business in this also. In the aftermath of the deadly Lismore floods in 2022, for example, saw the Koori Mail newspaper staff and management become a central support source for the entire community, setting up a 24/7 help station in a carpark providing food, water, clothing, volunteer coordination, household goods and social support, despite having lost everything when their own building was submerged.

The role of government

Our new and evolving climate calls for more action from state governments to provide the information services that help build resilience. Currently, heatwave alerting is not provided across every state, despite heatwaves being Australia’s most lethal natural phenomenon, consistently, every year. South Australia has introduced a system through the South Australia State Emergency Services, which provides district-based advice on heatwave risk during the months November-April.

And then what?

Of course, knowing that there is a risk is only part of the solution – there still remains the question of what individuals have the capacity to do about heat, which brings us back to masterplanning and puts the spotlight on current real estate practices, architecture and construction.

While community heat refuges should be a thing in every region where temperatures reach over 35 degrees for more than three days in a row – which is the definition of heatwave – in practice, many heat-exposed communities have nowhere to go. Or they may only have options such as libraries which have limited operating hours. Retails centres, while often a default refuge, are not always designed for people to spend all day in without spending money, and those with the least disposable income are the most vulnerable to heat and other climate impacts.

Masterplanning whether for urban renewal, new greenfield sites or urban infill should consider where the safe places are that will be accessible to all members of the community during heatwaves, severe storms, bushfire or other event. School halls and sporting venues are often called into play as evacuation centres during bushfire or flooding, however, during a heatwave they may not be appropriate as refuges.

Perhaps the real solution is to design common property for the common good, using the tools available to understand the climate in 2030, 2050, 2090, and then backcasting into design the features that will be suitable for that climate.

This calls us to aim higher, and it also has a beneficial positive impact on the immediate future. If we design for cooler streets, optimised passive performance of buildings, reduced solar gain on pavements and building facades, more vegetated streetscapes, light-coloured roofs with solar panels to reduce thermal gain while harvesting energy, sponge city water sensitive design that maximises the ambient cooling capability of evapotranspiration while also protecting trees from drought, we actually create a much nicer place to live or work, while also providing a level of amenity that is accessible to and beneficial for everyone.

That is probably one of the most important contributors to community resilience – creating places where everyone feels they matter, and everyone’s wellbeing is supported.

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