How Campbelltown plans to go ‘green’

CAMPBELLTOWN Council wants Campbelltown to be known as ‘Australia's greenest city’.

An artist’s impression of a future Mawson Park.

• Campbelltown Council wants to build ‘Australia’s greenest city’

A ‘GREEN’ canopy and a solar-powered city.

Campbelltown Council this morning outlined how it would realise its vision of Campbelltown as ‘Australia's greenest city’.

The council set itself lofty targets including a city centre powered entirely by solar, 70 per cent use of recycled water and a 70 per cent ‘green’ canopy cover.

The challenge for council will be reaching these goals while providing 55,000 jobs and enough housing for 35,000 people.

Campbelltown’s ‘green’ CBD.

Among the strategies proposed to create a sustainable city includes the greening of roofs, revitalising the existing canal network, retrofitting buildings to provide sustainable energy and creating stormwater creeks along footpaths.

Kinesis Australia director and planning consultant Bruce Taper said creating a ‘green’ canopy cover would lower temperatures in one of Sydney’s hottest regions.

“Campbelltown suffers more than most when Sydney is at its hottest, and you don’t need to be from Campbelltown to see how that plays out in the media,” he said.

“And if you work in the health industry you see how that plays out in admissions to hospital.

“We know that we’re surrounded by bush but we don’t have it in the centre and one of the things that a stakeholder group told us was that we have to bring the bush into the city and green things up, get rid of the grey.

“We know that an increase in canopy cover works ... a 10 per cent increase in canopy cover is going to lower the surface temperature.

“We don’t need to wait 10 years to start greening up, you can deliver that on day one and put in some planning decisions to make sure that every development that comes along has to meet that.

Mr Taper said the challenge going forward was to break down barriers between government agencies to help provide vital services.

“You put a five times multiplier on the water demand if you're going to keep that greenery alive and prospering,” he said.

“But you’re also going to lower peak demand on your electricity network in summer by at least 50 per cent.

“So we’re going to ask the infrastructure providers, not in 10 or 20 years time, but now; some hard questions about how are they going to serve the needs of Campbelltown.”

The strategy also aims to make Campbelltown a ‘walkable’ city, limiting reliance on cars by creating a mix of housing and business opportunities within the same precinct.

Among the ideas touted are the development of autonomous cars within the city centre, development over Campbelltown Station to better connect services along the rail corridor and decoupling car parks from developments to ensure less basement parking.

Mr Taper said one in four people in Sydney under 35 did not own car and while the majority of Campbelltown residents still owned cars, apartment living was on the way up and strategies need to be created now to cater for that market.