Clarence City Council is inviting the community to re-engage with the much-anticipated Clarence City Heart Plan and provide feedback through a fourth round of community engagement.

The Clarence City Heart Plan is an exciting vision for the future of our city centre. The Plan provides a conceptual long-term vision for the Clarence CBD that aims to transform the area from a regional hub into a vibrant city centre with thriving precincts for residents, businesses, and visitors. It outlines key goals and projects aimed at making Clarence’s City Heart a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive place for everyone. The Plan addresses areas such as culture, connectivity, housing, open spaces, and economic development.

The ideas in the Plan reflect what we have heard from the community and key stakeholders over the past four years, as well as building on our understanding of the context to make it a welcoming and vibrant place to work, live and play.

Since the Clarence City Heart Plan was last shared with the community, we have made a number of changes based on community and stakeholder feedback, including:

• refining the City Heart vision from the 'draft vision statement' in the previously shared Concepts Report
• redefining the six principles and directions in the Concept Report as outcomes in the City Heart Plan, with each outcome having several key strategies outlined, and a 'why this is proposed' section
• adding Rosny Parklands as its own precinct
• moving the location of the Rosny Parklands play park from the Gordons Hill Road end of the parklands to be closer to the Arts, Culture and Leisure Precinct, with this area named as the Art and Play Park
• changing the concept for the Active Park (within Charles Hand Park) from a youth focused park to being more inclusive and an active space for everyone
• reworking the Winkleigh Place mixed use development to allow access and movement around the building, retaining existing access to properties behind
• developing a 'how to use this plan' section to assist with understanding and interpreting the Plan.

Through re-engagement in the Clarence City Heart Plan, we are seeking feedback on the six key outcomes that guide the Plan with our survey questions based on the strategies which sit under each outcome.

Feedback gathered throughout this engagement period will help to finalise the City Heart Plan and prioritise the implementation plan. There will be further opportunities for community and stakeholder feedback as we move through the various projects, detailed designs and strategies that will be developed through the implementation phase of the Clarence City Heart Plan.

For now, we invite you to visit the City Heart and immerse yourself in the precincts to reconnect with the areas and the ideas put forward in the Plan and provide your feedback.

How did we get here?

A draft City Heart Plan was delivered by consultants MGS Architects in August 2023. The draft Plan built on the successful community consultation undertaken that tested the ideas in the City Heart Concepts report.

Clarence City Heart Concepts Report - (consultation report now available)

The Concepts report provides ideas for strategic sites within the City Heart area including the parklands, council owned car parks and the civic and employment hub. We have received feedback from the community and stakeholders which is now being considered in the drafting of the plan. An engagement report can be found here to read the consolidated feedback we received on all aspects of the draft plan.

Summary feedback (including the n=159 survey responses)

• We gathered feedback from across the full range of engagement activities and from very diverse audiences. Overall, there was a strong degree of support for the Key Concepts report identified principles and all the specific elements.
• Positive feedback was evident for the key idea of precincts within the City Heart area. For some this was reassuring that existing strengths of the area will be retained and celebrated, such as Bellerive For others, the precincts help to highlight key weaknesses and signal an intent for change and improvement, including the employment precinct highlighting the need for increased office space as well as the focus on diverse housing.
• Across previous stages of City Heart, the open space network has generated the most interest. Both the proposed principles and specific ideas for the open space network were well received. The re-wilding elements and connections were especially well liked. Critically, most (7 in 10) felt they would visit the parklands more often after changes. Our younger contributors especially liked the play and wild park spaces.
• The proposed mixed uses for carparks also has strong overall support across each of the sites. There is concern about the increased pressure on parking due to the ferry.
• The Civic and Employment precinct also has strong support overall. Especially liked are the connections and new open spaces, but also the focus on new spaces to meet the changing needs. There was feedback from young people about the desire for dedicated youth spaces.
• Bligh Street corridor received strong approval across all elements. Comments were positive from within and outside Warrane. Some feedback suggested that links are also needed to outside project area for the active transport element to be fully realised.
• Non-council owned strategic sites and their ideas were also well received, especially Eastlands and Kangaroo Bay.
• Overall, there was excitement about the possibilities across the key concepts. Some are concerned that it might not progress and there is still strong interest and a desire for clarity and progress on the Kangaroo Bay Site.
• The strong consistent positive community sentiment at this stage of the project is promising and we expect strong interest from the community in providing feedback on the Draft Plan in the next stage.

Project Background

The City of Clarence is growing, and as we grow, it’s important to plan for a successful and inclusive future together.

The City Heart Plan will help shape change in and around our principal activity centre. This will be a long-term shared vision and framework, developed with community involvement. It will consider future needs for community infrastructure, housing, open space, access and movement, commercial development and activities.

The Plan is being developed by a multi-disciplinary team led by MGS Architects, in consultation with stakeholders and the Clarence community. It aims to ensure that developments are coordinated and that decision making contributes to a more liveable, accessible, inclusive, healthy, and thriving future.

The Analysis and Key Directions report was released in December 2022. It proposed design principles, key directions and strategic opportunities, and is the evidence base for the concepts and plan.

If you live, work, play, learn or shop in Clarence’s activity hub, we invite your ongoing involvement to ensure your voice is part of the plan. There will be several opportunities to get involved and share thoughts and ideas.

The project area includes Rosny Park CBD and surrounding places including Kangaroo Bay, Sheoak Point, Rosny Farm, Bellerive Village, Charles Hand Park, Kangaroo Bay Rivulet and Rosny Parkland.

How have the community had input into the Clarence City Heart Plan?

Some of the key ways the community had their say:

• Reading the Clarence City Heart Concepts report and providing feedback via the survey.
• Attending the Future Forum 2. Read 'what was said' here and watch the highlights here (External link)(External link).
• Attending our webinar. The recording is in the video folder and gives an overview of the Key Concepts.
• The current engagement period was open for seven weeks from March 17 to May 8 2023 and is now closed. Thank you to everyone who shared their feedback and ideas.
• The latest consultation report is now available in the document library. Read what we heard here.

CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

City Heart Concepts Feedback

Thank you for taking part in this survey to provide your thoughts on the key concepts developed for the City Heart Plan. Please read the Clarence City Heart Concepts report (in the documents folder or click here) as this survey is designed to directly ask your thoughts on elements of the report. We will start with overall impressions of the precincts and then give opportunities to comment on individual concepts.

The survey should take around 10 minutes to complete, depending on your answers.

We will ask some structured questions and provide opportunities to share your reasons. Lastly, we will ask a few general questions about you.

We are looking for frank and honest answers. We assure you that your responses will be kept strictly confidential and data will be reported in an aggregated form that will not identify you.

CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

City Heart Plan: Key Ideas

To start with we would like to hear your thoughts on some priorities. These themes were identified as important in the earlier stage of community engagement 'City Heart Report by Timmins Ray' and current and as emerging issues and opportunities.