Cairns City Centre Master Plan Final

Cairns City Centre Master Plan Report Final 14-10-2011 Prepared by: Architectus Brisbane Total Project Group Architects JP Pawsey & Prowse Landscape Architects John Gaskell Planning Planning Far North Cambray Consulting DMA Partners Kleinhardt Three Plus Rider Levett Bucknall

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Contents Part A

Part B

Executive Summary

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6.0

Streetscape

39

Cairns City Centre Master Plan Overview

7

6.1

Street Trees and General Planting

40

6.2

Street Furniture

43

6.3

Paving

44

Master Plan Contents Introduction

19

6.4

Lighting

45

1.0

Project Background

21

6.5

Signage

45

1.1

Previous Studies

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6.6

Awnings, Structures and Public Toilets

46

1.2

Physical Characteristics

22

6.7

‘Street Life’ Provisions

46

1.3

Culture and Heritage

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6.8

Stormwater and Floods

47

1.4

Consultation Process

24

6.9

Busway Integration - Lake St and Spence St

48

2.0

Urban Structure

25

6.10

City in a Garden Master Plan

48

2.1

Land Use and Public Space Structure

25

7.0

Built Form

49

2.2

Sustainability and Climate Change

25

7.1

Tropical Urbanism; Verandahs, colonnades, the Green City

50

3.0

Accessibility

26

7.2

The Urban Edge

51

3.1

Cairns Transit Network

26

7.3

The Podium Form

51

3.2

Green Bus

26

8.0

Outline of Scheme Amendments

51

3.3

Cycling

26

9.0

Catalyst Sites

53

3.4

Parking

26

9.1

CEP Precinct

54

3.5

Walkability

26

9.2

Pier Park

55

4.0

Activation

27

10.0

Implementation

55

4.1

Demand Drivers

27

10.1

Costs and Staging

55

4.2

Attractors and Attractions

28

11.0

Conclusions and Key Recommendations

56

4.3

Street Life

28

4.4

Public Art

28

Appendices

57

4.5

Culture and Heritage

28

i

Cairns City Centre Master Plan Background Information Integration Report and Design Brief

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4.6

Consultation Process

28

ii

Community and Stakeholder Consultation Report

93

5.0

Key Public Spaces

29

iii

Proposed City in A Garden Master Plan amendments

113

5.1

The Esplanade

31

iv

Proposed Planning Scheme Amendments

133

5.2

The Greening of Grafton

33

v

Costs

149

5.3

Shields Street Heart

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Cairns City Centre: a Green, Tropical, Walkable City Document_Template

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Executive Summary Cairns City Centre can be a compelling, must visit magnetic Tropical City, a cultural hub celebrating its unique Indigenous, European and multicultural heritage, its creativity, and its close association with Micronesia and South East Asia. It can be a place where the rainforest landscape predominates, and a City which nurtures, supports and celebrates Cairns Tropical lifestyle, climate and natural beauty.

Cairns Regional Council has clearly articulated a vision for its City Centre to be ‘the best regional centre in Australia’. This master plan seeks to capture, strategise and provide a framework for delivering the qualities of place that meets that vision.

The master plan provides a framework that connects and coheres the various ‘layers’ of City Centre activity, planning and development.

The master plan responds to catalysts for change which include: • a new regional planning scheme encouraging transit-supportive, more intensive and mixed use development; • the Cairns Transit Network which will increase public transport accessibility into the City Centre; • and the need to respond to the Global Financial Crisis downturn in tourism on the City Centre and mitigate its impacts on the local economy.

In addition a range of separate projects have been or are underway in the City Centre: a streetscape master plan, streetscape enhancement initiatives, traffic and parking studies, Cairns Port precinct plan, and a new Performing Arts Centre and entertainment precinct. All of these projects need to be integrated within a holistic physical design framework for the City Centre.

With its own major attractors, destinations and outstanding amenity, the future outlook for the City Centre is very strong. At the same time in the last 20-30 years the City Centre has become increasingly spread out and dispersed, with major ‘anchors’ out of the traditional core area attracting activity to the edges. The ‘drift’ of more

intense development towards Trinity inlet to capture mountain and water views and waterfront amenity has also pulled activity away from the traditional core. The City Centre therefore has structural issues that need redressing to ensure its primacy and success. A more compact, intense, and connected City Centre is a central strategy of this master plan.

It is important that the economy of the City diversifies, building on its existing tourism strengths while opening new markets for visitation. Also of key importance is creating more reasons for local residents to come to the City Centre and to spend time there by deepening and accentuating the difference between the City Centre and suburban centres.

Successful City Centres have great public spaces that bring its people together. A strong network of great public spaces can unite and cohere City fabric, making a City memorable, legible, and generous in its offering to the community. Cairns has outstanding public spaces on its northern waterfront, and an important public space ‘spine’ in Shields Street. In the future this public space network needs to expand to provide the public space around which the City can further consolidate, to ensure that what will be a denser more compact City also offers generous public spaces and a high quality urban setting. This public space network needs to strategically connect new and existing key destinations to create a consistent whole.

Cairns City Centre has the potential to be an outstanding, internationally recognised exemplar of Tropical Urbanism – creating a built environment – streets, spaces, and buildings – which is uniquely tropical – verdant, shaded, open and lush, with an

architecture of deep verandas and shaded cool retreats. Developing and promoting a strong Tropical Urbanism will enable the City Centre to respond to the challenges of environmental sustainability as well as reinforce its international prestige and distinctiveness.

In creating a more compact, connected and sustainable City Centre, it needs to be walkable, green, and welcoming. The streets and public spaces need to be of a consistently high quality where the defining characteristics of the climate and the locale are reinforced. The master plan envisages a shady, cool City Centre with a rich array of significant tropical plantings, building on the character and practicality of large scale median plantings and deep awnings that has already been established.

The Cairns City Centre master plan provides a physical framework for Cairns Regional Council and its partners to work towards creating the best regional City in Australia. The implementation strategy focuses on actions and projects to catalyse change, and highlights key priorities for the next 2, 5, 10 and 15 years.

The master plan therefore embraces key strategies to create Australia’s best Tropical City: • Create streets which are the tropical outdoor rooms of the City • Create a civic network of great tropical gathering spaces • Reinforce the unique physical characteristics of Cairns: its calm waters, verdant landscape, verandahs, shaded places and cool laneways • Celebrate its role as the cultural hub of the north, supporting events, creativity and diverse cultures and heritage in the City Centre • Concentrate, mix and intensify activity in the City Centre by creating a more compact and mixed use City Centre • Make it easy for people to get into and around the City Centre by supporting public transport, and balancing pedestrian and car access The holistic approach to the master plan that emphasises designing for climatic conditions and creating a compact walkable environment also creates a more sustainable City Centre which is less reliant on fossil fuels and more resilience to greater temperature variations.

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Part A Cairns City Centre Master Plan Overview The following section provides an overview of all the key ideas and strategies that are incorporated into the master plan, for ease of reference. A complete report and commentary on the master plan is contained in Part B of the Cairns City Centre Master Plan.

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Part A: Cairns City Centre Master Plan Overview Vision Cairns’ Regional Council has developed a vision for Cairns stating that Cairns should aim to be the best regional city centre in Australia. This vision is the foundation of the Cairns City Centre master plan. Cairns should aim to be: •

A place where people want to be for shopping, dining, entertainment and doing business.

•

A place where people want to live.

•

A tourist attraction in its own right, drawing local day visitors and visitors from around the world.

•

A vibrant, prosperous economic driver of our Region.

•

Environmentally, economically, socially and culturally sustainable.

•

A green, tropical, attractive Cityscape that is safe, friendly, efficient, accessible and human in scale.

It is the role of the master plan to provide a design and planning framework enabling Cairns Regional Council and associated stakeholders to deliver that vision. Cairns can become a compelling, ‘must visit’ magnetic tropical city. It could be experienced as cultural hub celebrating the unique Indigenous, European and multicultural heritage and creativity, and link to Micronesia and South East Asia. It can be a place where the rainforest predominates, where people shelter from the hot tropical sun and come out to celebrate the cool of the evening. It can be a community oriented centre where people can gather, live, work, shop, or just ‘be’ in the city. A place to watch music, talk, come together in a a centre which is a buzz of activity – prosperous, lively and exciting. It can be a welcoming and accessible place that nurtures, supports and celebrates Cairns Tropical lifestyle, climate and natural beauty.

A Green, Tropical, Attractive Cityscape

Cairns, Aerial View Document_Template

Cairns Esplanade: a Welcoming Tropical Space

Spectacular Green (Hilton Hotel, Cairns) 9

Planting: proposed typical street section

after Planting: proposed typical street

Typical streetscape view

The Great Tropical Living Room The streets of Cairns city centre should be welcoming, beautiful, cool and shady in the daytime and festive and lively at night.

Key master plan strategies: •

Roll out a simple program of large scale street greening to cool streets

before

•

Create deep cool awnings where there is no shade

after

•

Provide places to sit that are cool, shady and green

•

Create a festive and safe night time environment – restaurants, lighting, music

•

Create a new floor which is special to the City Centre and enhances its look and presentation

•

Support great street life through active frontages, outdoor dining and great urban spaces

•

Create Urban Planting settings in streets as mid block crossings including the network of arcades Landscape Strategy

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after Shields St Heart

after Greening of Grafton

Fantastic Tropical Gathering Spaces We need to make more gathering spaces throughout the City that are cool and shady. Spaces that are both wonderful retreats for small groups and individuals and places for large groups to gather. These gathering spaces will be the focus and civic structure of the City.

Shields Street Heart – a new heart and public space with sheltered seating

Stage 1: Grassed areas, covered multi-purpose space, seating, trees

and gathering spaces, refurbishment of the seating areas around the existing

Stage 2: Waterplay, grassed areas, seating, trees, speaker’s corner Shields St Heart

fig trees, play spaces for children and grassy areas for seating and respite.

•

before

Abbott Street

•

Lake Street

Provide new gathering spaces on key connecting spines and strategic locations – the City Triangle:

Grafton Street

Key master plan strategies:

before

“City Triangle” of Public Space

Greening of Grafton – new urban parks in Grafton St which create shaded green respite spaces.

•

Pier Park – a new green gathering space built over the car park.

•

Trinity Inlet – a network of boardwalks and public spaces.

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New Urban Park

New Urban Park

Greening of Grafton 11

Rainforest Landscapes, Green Buildings, Verandahs and Cool Laneways We need to support and nurture the special physical characteristics of Cairns that make it unlike any other place in Australia.

Master plan strategies: •

Encourage the urban rainforest throughout the City – no only in streets but as part of the buildings, upper level terraces and skyline

•

Create urban verandahs, shaded outdoor rooms and tropical terraces unlike any other in Australia

•

Enhance connections to the water

•

Enhance and reinforce the laneways through streetscape treatments

•

Build on the heritage of verandahs and colonnades

•

Encourage the urban rainforest throughout the City – at ground level and through sky gardens, green walls in all levels of the plan

•

Encourage shading, verandahs and places where people can sit out in the evening

•

Address and celebrate the heavy rainfall by incorporating rainwater elements in public spaces

•

Reinforce the special corners on the street grid

•

Reinforce distant mountain views

•

Protect and enhance the existing arcade network

The Green City: detail

Green walls, cool laneways, green courtyards; green city.

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Celebrate the Cultural Hub of the North Cairns is special for its people and its heritage. It is a creative and diverse community. The City Centre is the place where all of this can come together and be expressed.

Master plan strategies: • Create an arts hub around the new Cairns Entertainment Precinct • Create places for buskers, street performers and small scale events in public spaces • Enlarging Fogarty Park for larger scale informal gathering and events by the ‘completing’ the leisure precinct with a new park over the Pier car park.

• Highlight special heritage places: o European heritage (buildings) in streetscape o Describe Chinese Heritage in Grafton o Indigenous Heritage in the City Heart o Environmental heritage •

Support more events in the City through the design of places

Cairns Entertainment Precinct: Arts Arbour

Proposed extension of parklands across Pier Carpark: parking is retained under park Pier Park Document_Template

Cairns Entertainment Precinct 13

Lively streets at ground level and above

Lively Streets

Concentrate, Mix and Intensify Life in the City Cairns City Centre has the potential to be more vibrant, compact, intense, diverse and defined. The centre can be a thriving compact hub that mixes living with work, shopping, and tourism. By defining and intensifying uses in a smaller area, the City can also support more engaging streets, with outdoor dining, public performance, street markets and stalls and a range of micro business which add to deepen the mix on offer in the City Centre.

Master plan strategies: • Change the definition of the edge of the City Centre – make it smaller • Encourage mixes of use and other economic opportunities such as medical tourism, education, and corporate headquarters for businesses operating in Micronesia and the Asia/Pacific region • Further encourage active frontage across a smaller, more concentrated area within the centre • Encourage a range of small scale businesses and ‘street activating’ uses – outdoor dining, small street stalls and micro-businesses Document_Template

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Plan of seat, planter & shelter

Seating with Shelter

Signage Strategy

Lighting Strategy

Create Ease of Access To the City Centre People need to be able to get to where they want to go easily, but that might not always mean using the car. The Cairns Transit Network will in the future provide a strong alternative for accessing the city centre. In addition, the City Centre needs to support a successful environment that is shared by pedestrians, buses, cars and cyclists. Once there, people need to be able to find their way around and feel safe and comfortable.

Master plan strategies: • Integrate the Cairns Transit Network (CTN) with landscape and ‘walkscape’ elements • Suggest a loop bus connecting the various cultural, retail and tourist destinations • Create an overall 40km zone in the city centre for safer pedestrian mobility and shared bike use • In line with the parking strategy, gradually move away from a car-reliant City Centre to a mixed-mode City Centre • Create public transport places that are special to Cairns and not generic • Create a consistently well-lit centre, with festive lighting in key spaces • Develop interpretive, directional and locational signage for the city centre • Create an integrated suite of street furniture with which brings together seating, signage, planting, shelter and Wi-Fi ‘hot spots’ Document_Template

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Part B Cairns City Centre Master Plan

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Introduction Cairns Regional Council has commissioned a City Centre Master Plan in 2010 to provide a framework for co-ordinated design and planning action to reinforce the role and primacy of the City Centre.

The master plan project is overseen by the City Centre Steering Committee, a body representing key CRC, business, community and State Government stakeholders. The project builds upon continuation of planning and analysis work undertaken by Council and others in recent years.

The project brief tasked the master plan with:

• Building on previous traffic, parking, transport, streetscape and planning documents • Provide a high level framework to integrate all previous studies • Developing public space, built form, land use and landscape initiatives for the City Centre • Providing a framework for implementing the master plan, including key projects to stimulate development

The master plan team comprises a multidisciplinary team. The team has formulated the master plan through a series of whole-of-team workshops and ongoing integration of ideas. The team comprises: • Architectus Brisbane (Architects, Urban Designers, Project Team Leaders (Brisbane) • Total Project Group Architects (Cairns) • JP Pawsey and Prowse Landscape Architects (Cairns) • John Gaskell Planning (Brisbane) • Planning Far North (Cairns) • Cambray Consulting – Transport and Traffic (Brisbane) • DMA Partners – Development Consulting (Brisbane) • Kleinhardt – Economic Consultants (Cairns) • Three Plus (Brisbane) Video fly through production (Brisbane) • Rider Levett Bucknall Quantity Surveyors (Brisbane/Cairns)

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The master plan has been prepared in consultation with the CRC City Centre Steering Committee, the Inner City Taskforce, the Urban Design Advisory Board, Council officers as well as key stakeholder and community groups. This process has informed the strategies, and both the process and outcomes of this consultation is described in appendix ii) of this document. The master plan has also been based on analysis of previous studies, existing information, and a comprehensive physical situation analysis.

The master plan sets in place a strong urban structure for the City Centre, and also describes public spaces, buildings, streetscape and detailed urban elements. In this way it provides a holistic framework for the future development of the centre.

Cairns City Centre is remarkably successful when compared to other regional cities in Queensland.

The City Centre has strong preconditions to achieve CRC’s stated aims of creating the best regional centre in Australia; it has sustainable underlying economic drivers and highly memorable and unique physical attributes: these key strengths are built upon and reinforced in the master plan.

Cairns 2010 Aerial View (Supplied by CRC)

The master plan will be an important tool for Council to drive positive development outcomes in the centre in the future. It expands on Council’s vision, and gives direction to policies and sitespecific initiatives. It provides vision and flexibility to guide a range of projects to be implemented over time, applying to both public and private sectors.

The master plan document describes the physical elements, strategies and mechanisms for delivering Australia’s best regional City; underpinning all of this is the urban life and experience that the master plan seeks to support.

The master plan is directed towards making a festive, vibrant, welcoming Tropical City where people can connect with one another, with the extraordinary place, and the remarkable creativity and cultural diversity that is Cairns.

Caption 19

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Figure 2. Excerpt from CairnsPlan

Figure 1. Cityport Master Plan

1.0 Project Background The City Centre has continued to be the primary focus of economic activity in the region. However changes in the planning and development context for the City Centre means that Council has needed to re-evaluate the pattern and dynamics of the City Centre’s growth to ensure its long-term prosperity, primacy and quality.

Cairns City Centre in previous decades was focused on the northern waterfront, with a tourism precinct stretching along The Esplanade, and the blocks deeper into the City Centre containing the ‘working’ commercial areas. Cairns Central, Shields Street eateries and the lagoon and surrounding leisure precincts now form another ‘axis’ of activity. More recently, with the development of Port lands, a new leisure and commercial precinct is emerging along Trinity Inlet.

The City Centre has also been designated the Principal Regional Activity Centre in the FNQ Regional Plan, and benchmarks for transit-oriented development in the City Centre have been established.

In response to this changing context,

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Cairns Regional Council has undertaken studies and community consultation on the future direction of the centre and the opportunities and constraints that exist. These studies have provided the background information for this master plan. In addition, our project team has undertaken a physical ‘situation analysis’ to provide a spatial understanding of how the City Centre works at present that has also been important background work for the master plan strategies.

1.1 Previous Studies The master plan has been founded upon a series of existing planning documents produced in recent years. These documents include: • The City Centre Strategy Discussion Paper 2010 • The Cairns Regional Council Climate Change Strategy 2010-2015 • Cairns Region Storm Tide Study • Cairns City in a Garden Master Plan

• Cairns Streetscape Master Plan

strong economic viability.

enhance.

being established gradually.

• Cairns Style Design Guide

The Climate Change Strategy notes that as Cairns is highly vulnerable to Climate Change, it needs to become a exemplar of mitigation and adaptation.

The Cityport Master Plan described intended development outcomes on the Cityport lands facing Trinity Inlet. It is an important document for the City Centre as it defines the use, character and form of the only remaining significant waterfront for the City. It envisages intensive development, with water front public space co-existing with the Cruise Ship terminal and associated operations.

The City In A Garden Master Plan provides a framework for the overall City landscape and streetscape work to reinforce the tropical identify of the City and its status as an international tourist destination. A key task of this master plan is to update and integrate the City In A Garden Master Plan within a more holistic planning and design framework for the City Centre.

• Cairns Cityport Master Plan (refer figure 1) • Far North Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031 • Cairns Plan (refer figure 2) • Cairns Transit Network Concept Design Report • Cairns CBD and Environs Car Parking Strategy • Cycling and Walking Strategy Key influences on the master plan arising from these studies are summarised below: The Far North Queensland Regional Plan provides the strategic planning framework for consolidating growth in the Cairns area and encouraging higher density through infill and redevelopment. It envisages the City Centre as the region’s highest order TOC (transit oriented community), supported by good urban design and

The Cairns Planning Scheme is the City’s primary instrument for planning in the City Centre, and highlights the primacy of the City Centre and the need to further intensify and consolidate within its boundaries. It is the task of this project to review Cairns Plan built form and urban design provisions to ensure consistency with the master plan.

The City Centre Strategy provides a broad policy document for the City Centre emphasising the need to enhance its vibrancy and functioning by focusing on localised economic development, enhancing public spaces and precincts, creating strong pedestrian linkages, showcasing tropical landscape and supporting public transport.

The Cairns Style promotes a distinctive tropical style for Cairns, which this master plan seeks to actively support and

The Cairns Transit Network will significantly improve public transport service into the City Centre, bringing high frequency ‘line haul’ bus routes into Lake St and Spence St. The master plan process has involved engaging with Transport and Main Roads to work towards achieving good urban design integration of the Transit Network with the streetscapes of Cairns.

The Cairns CBD and Environs Car Parking Strategy describes short, medium and long term parking solutions for the City Centre, highlighting a gradual moving away from high car dependency with a strong culture of public transport, walking and cycling

Kleinhardt’s have provided an economic issues overview for the City Centre, stressing the need for tourism industry to meet the challenge of matching the increasingly sophisticated expectations and needs of visitors, and be clear about its key point of difference from other destinations.

In general existing planning documents support a City Centre that is more compact, walkable, tropical, memorable and sustainable. The master plan seeks to implement these attributes.

More detailed summaries regarding the contents of each of the reports are provided in Appendix i).

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Figure 3. Heritage & Character Areas

Figure 4. Existing Structural Elements

Figure 5. Existing Landscape

Figure 6. Recent & New Development

1.2 Physical Structure and Characteristics The physical situation mapping highlighted a number of key themes: Cairns has grown out from its traditional core towards Trinity Bay down Shields Street and out from the Shields Street spine. The Esplanade area and lagoon is a highly successful public precinct in Cairns with exceptional landscape character and amenity. Shields St figs are also highly memorable and attractive features of the city centre, anchoring a lively street and the main ‘spine’ of Cairns. Cairns Central, the Cruise Ship Terminal, the Reef Fleet and the planned Cairns Entertainment Precinct are creating new anchors around the edge of the City Centre. This creates a ‘donut’ effect where there are streets that connect between the centre and edge that are underdeveloped and have poor pedestrian amenity; the southern ends of Lake, Grafton and Sheridan Streets all fall into this category.

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The mapping also shows that the Esplanade and Shield Street areas – which are the most successful community spaces in Cairns – are very green, with large trees, and rich landscape; clearly landscape and cool shady environments are key to providing community spaces which people enjoy.

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Figure 7. Pedestrians & Cycling

Figure 8. Existing Awnings

Figure 9. Activity Cycles

1.2 Physical Structure and Characteristics (continued) Mapping shade and awning cover is also telling – the key streets with ample awnings and trees are places where pedestrians are walking – the absence of any cover or shade along the southern ends of Lake and Grafton means that people are more likely to get in their cars to get to destinations on these streets rather than walk.

The mapping also shows that there is a distinct ‘night time’ and tourist precinct focussed around Shield Street and the Esplanade but that this precinct ‘runs out’ towards key destinations of the planned Cairns Entertainment Precinct/Cruise Ship Terminal/Convention Centre area.

The complete situation analysis is presented in appendix i) of this report.

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Figure 10. Aerial View

Figure 11. Shields Street, Cairns

1.3 Culture and Heritage The master plan seeks to recognise and support the key cultural and heritage elements that make the City Centre unique; clearly research on and integration of these elements can be entire studies and bodies of work in their own right. Given the depth and complexity of each of these heritage elements, we have summarised here for the purposes of the master plan the key potential sources of inspiration and opportunities for further work.

Indigenous Heritage: The traditional owners of the Walubarra Yidinji and Yirriganydi Aboriginal tribes have special associations and interests with the City Centre. The area of the foreshore of the City of Cairns was traditionally known as Gimuy- after the Slippery Blue Fig Tree.

There is a rich array of local stories that can be interpreted through in the design of new places in the City Centre. Local traditional owners are keen to see generally more recognition, interpretation and information about their traditional spaces and stories.

This is a strong element that can be incorporated into both the design and

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implementation of the master plan. The city centre, through interpretation, should more clearly express the role of the city as the gateway to regional Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander culture.

Multi-cultural Heritage: In the 1880s the numbers of British and Europeans amounted to 49% of the total population of Cairns: Cairns has a rich multi-cultural history. Chinese communities played an important role in sugar and other crop production. South Sea Islanders, Javanese, Malays, Indians and Sinhalese (from Sri Lanka) worked as indentured laborers in the district in the 1880s and 1890s. At a similar time German, Dutch, Scandinavians and Irish settled in the regional, and early in the 20th century Italian immigrants began to settle. Cairns has a very rich multicultural heritage which, through effective interpretation in displays, artwork, signage etc can deepen the understanding of history for locals and provide an enhanced cultural tourism experience for visitors.

Council has already started work on developing a Chinese Heritage theme for

1.4 Consultation Process new works in Grafton St, which is continued through the master plan.

Cairns is one of the few places in Australia where visitors experience a tangible connection with Micronesia and South East Asia in an urban setting, with many people from these regions visiting Cairns for the services it provides. Cultures and customs for food and gathering can have a strong influence on the experience of Cairns.

European Heritage: Cairns has a good ‘stock’ of heritage buildings in the City Centre which have a special character, comprising colonnaded Art Deco buildings or 19th century buildings with deep verandahs over the street. The corner hotels with their truncated frontages and decorative deep screened verandahs over the street are special to the City and define its Tropical character as well as heritage markers. These buildings, designed before air-conditioning, register their Tropical locale more clearly than most contemporary buildings, with their deep shaded indooroutdoor spaces and can be a source of inspiration for a contemporary tropical

urban architecture.

Cairns is also very tangibly a City of the arts; it has a very vibrant visual and performing arts scene, which is cast over a wide net in the region. The City Centre, through the Cairns Entertainment Precinct, but also through a range of local artistic initiatives, can be the ‘cultural hub’ of the north, bringing together the different art forms of the region through a range of street performances, installations, events and arts festivals happening in the City Centre.

Community and Stakeholder consultation has taken place early on in the formulation of the urban structure and also during the formulation of the ‘place-based design’ initiatives. Feedback from these sessions has been incorporated into the master plan, and detail of the content of this feedback is provided in appendix ii). In summary there has been good support in the workshops for the fundamental concepts underpinning the master plan – creating a shady, compact, tropical, vibrant city with shady streetscapes and inviting community spaces. However there are mixed views in the community regarding the Cairns Transit Network proposals for Lake St and removal of City Place. At the time of writing Transport and Main Roads (TMR ) was undertaking a comprehensive public survey about the proposal to ascertain the depth and breadth of opinion on this issue.

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2.2 Sustainability, Climate Change & Resilience

Figure 12. Proposed Urban Structure

2.0 Urban Structure Urban Structure defines how the blocks, streets, buildings, open spaces, activities, transport and landscape all fit together.

It structures movement, public spaces and private investment in the City Centre.

Urban structure influences economic performance, development dynamics, sustainability and people’s experience of the City Centre.

Cairns has grown outwards from its traditional core originally oriented towards Trinity Bay, with Port operations on the Inlet. In recent years new leisure, retail and developments around the port, combined with a very extensive footprint has meant that the City Centre has become very dispersed and spread out, and lacking clear edge definition.

With major destinations around the edge of the City Centre there is a fragmentation of activity. There is also a drift of activity towards Trinity Inlet. The original clustering of activity around Shield St and the Esplanade is being drawn towards Trinity Inlet, and there is a ‘donut’ effect with an

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Figure 13. Public Space Structure - City Triangle

2.1 Land Use and Public Space Structure absence of activity between the centre and the edges. This is compounded by a lack of good connection to new areas of development. The drift of commercial premises to outside the City Centre is also a significant issue.

The urban structure of Cairns needs to be more compact. Key destinations needs to be better linked. More activity needs to be encouraged in the City Centre through a deepening and diversification of uses that build on the existing key ‘magnets’.

The ‘wow’ factor for visitors and amenity for locals – a green, lush, tropical identity – needs to be extended, expanded and enhanced.

It is intended that this core contain the tallest development (up to 48 m), with mixed use and high degrees of active ground floor retail frontage. Frame precincts do not need to have either mixed use or the same intensity of active retail frontage, and are lower in scale. The code amendments section describes this more fully.

The master plan proposes a change in the definition of the edge of the City Centre and its overall structure, with public space acting as the ‘bones’ for the centre. It proposes a more compact City Centre of higher scale, mixed use activity bounded into a smaller area. The precincts, which are outside of the new boundary, then become the ‘frame’ precincts that support but do not directly compete with activity in the City Centre. These precincts are described in the attached plan.

The master plan also provides a clear public space structure for the City; the City Triangle, which connects the three key corner anchors of the City with the key

green gathering spaces in the City. This way the structure of the City becomes very clearly defined by tropical gathering spaces which also connect, cohere and provide structure to land use and development.

The combination of consolidating and providing a clear public space structure which recognises the ‘natural drift’ towards the water is instrumental in delivering the vision of a vibrant lively City with Tropical gathering spaces.

The master plan approaches sustainability in a holistic way that permeates all levels of the plan. Firstly at the level of the urban structure, creating a plan that is more compact, mixed and intense serviced by better public transport will reduce reliance on the private vehicle. The master plan also seeks to reduce energy use in the environment by creating a city where the ambient temperature is greatly reduced by extensive tree planting, people are encouraged to walk in shelter from the sun and the rain, and where buildings are encouraged to be shaded to decrease their energy loads. Green walls and roofs are also encouraged for carbon capture as well as cooling. Other initiatives at a more detailed scale which should be pursued in subsequent development of individual projects described in this plan include recycling stormwater for water features, and generating power for lighting by including solar panels on walls and roofs of city buildings. A clear sustainability framework should also be applied to all materials selection and construction methods in all city centre projects.

Resilience to climate change is an important issue for Cairns to consider for the future. According to the CRC Climate Change Strategy 2010-2015 report, annual average temperatures are predicted to increase between 0.5°C and 1.4°C by 2030 and between 1.0°C and 4.2°C by 2070 (compared to 1990 temperatures). This is likely to bring with it more variability in the local climatic conditions, including both less and more seasonal rainfall, and a possible increase in the number of more intense tropical cyclones. Estimates of total sea-level rise remain uncertain due to unknown rates of polar ice cap melting, however there is growing consensus among scientists that sea-level rise of 0.5 to

1.0 metres is plausible by 2100. Generally 0.8m by 2100 is estimated for Cairns.

In relation to storm tides, Cairns city centre is clearly at risk. CRC has evacuation and disaster management procedures for the city centre. Protecting the city centre from more intense cyclones and associated storm tides is more an issue of effective building codes, evacuation prodecures and disaster recovery resources; there is very little that can be achieved through the master plan to withstand events of the force of Yasi. However there are strategies that can be implemented via the master plan mitigate the day-to-day impacts of climate change.

The planting of more large trees in the street, the continuation of street awnings throughout the City Centre , and the use of green walls and the creation of cool shaded edges to buildings will assist with the management of projected increase of hot days in Cairns.

In relation to sea level rise, the current Q100 flood levels established for the city centre will need to be reworked to take account of this. Over time an incremental build up/increase of footpath and building levels will need to occur, both to deal with current Q100 levels and sea level rise. It is of paramount important to retain a strong horizontal connection between footpath and building levels, and for streets and buildings levels to be incrementally increased together. This will ensure that Cairns retains vibrant and welcoming streetscapes rather than streets lined with blank walls and unoccupied under crofts.

In addition to incremental building up of street and building levels, higher floor to ceiling spaces of new buildings can be mandated so that flood levels can be adjusted over time.

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Figure 14. Road Hierarchy

Figure 15. Green Bus Proposal

3.0 Accessibility

3.1 Cairns Transit Network

3.2 Green Bus

3.3 Cycling

3.4 Parking and Driving

3.5 Walkability

Creating a highly accessible centre is fundamental to its success and functioning.

The master plan envisages a centre which is not dominated by one form of transport but which creates a successful shared environment for pedestrians, cars, buses and bicycles. The master plan strongly recommends that Council investigate the introduction of a 40km/hour speed limit in the City Centre to reinforce it as a slow speed, pedestrian and bicycle friendly centre. The proposed change will need to be modelled using Council’s micro simulation model (2010) to ensure road hierarchy functions are maintained.

The Master Plan also recommends that a detailed disability audit is conducted throughout the city centre to identify opportunities for enhancing access for people with disabilities.

TMR are in the advanced planning stage of the Cairns Transit Network (CTN) which is a significant project for the City. It comprises a line of high frequency buses that extends to the northern and southern reaches of the City, and will greatly enhance public transport accessibility into the City Centre.

It will also help CRC attain its longer term strategic objective of achieving a more sustainable land use pattern oriented around public transport. TMR have advised that Cairns has at times had the highest rate of adoption per capita and patronage growth of public transport in the state outside of South East Queensland.

During consultation workshops with Council members and the broader community, the idea of a loop bus was consistently raised. This is proposed as a ‘Green Bus’ - a local feeder bus to complement the CTN, potentially servicing all the ‘edge’ uses; the Reef Fleet Terminal, Cruise Ship Terminal, Esplanade, Lagoon, northern hotels, Cairns Entertainment Precinct and Cairns Central and connecting these to the CTN. Figure 15 shows the loop bus relative to the CTN route. Local network bus routes are not shown in this diagram. CRC should investigate the feasibility of this proposal to provide an inter-centre and tourism function to service key destinations and edge uses. The feasibility should have regard to the Cairns Transit Network Plan and the findings of the Shuttle Bus Park and Ride Facility for Cairns.

Cairns’ topography means that it is well suited to encouraging more cycling. The master plan strongly supports cycling throughout the City Centre as part of a shared use of the street. The master plan works towards creating slower speed, more pedestrian friendly environments which bicycles can share throughout the City Centre. Provision also needs to be made for end of trip facilities (including change rooms, toilets and bike storage) associated with new urban projects including the Shields Street Heart, transit network and Grafton Street precincts, or redevelopment of Council buildings.

The master plan supports CRC’s road hierarchy in the City Centre, and proposed streetscape improvements reinforce this hierarchy. CRC’s parking strategy, which is to be implemented over a 10 year plus time frame, envisages gradually encouraging a culture of public transport, walking and cycling, with car movement balanced rather than the dominant priority. Parking will be more expensive and there will be a reduced supply of on-street parking. In the short term the reduced on-street supply will be countered with the construction of a new off-street car park which is designed to be able to refitted with new uses over time.

CRC should investigate alternative options for median parking meters to reduce the net loss of parking.

Creating a more walkable City Centre is fundamental to the master plan. Specific initiatives include:

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The route CTN through the City Centre had been endorsed by Council, although during the course of the preparation of this master plan mixed views from the local community to this route were expressed. Streetscape considerations of the Lake and Spence St routes through the City Centre are described in section 6.9. Figure 14 shows the CTN route in blue.

• Creating more shade in all City Centre streets to reduce ambient temperatures • Creating more sheltered awnings along all City streets • Improving footpaths • Improving signage • Creating a co-ordinated suite of street furniture and urban elements to provide resting places • Improving under-awning lighting to enhance night-time safety • Creating more places and spaces for seating

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Figure 16. Activation of Public Spaces

4.0 Activation It is important that the City Centre is Cairns’ most lively centre, as well as being the focus of higher order development, and the economic hub of the region. The local economy is suffering, and while the master plan obviously cannot address global factors such as post GFC tourism downturns, it can address Cairns’ attractiveness as a destination and the ability of the City Centre to offer more reasons to visit, shop, work, live and invest in the City Centre.

Larger scale tenants and government groups have located themselves on the western fringe of the city centre as well as outside the city centre frame. Increased economic demand for space in the Cairns city centre is seen as ‘on-the-way’ with the resources boom discussed below and the more compact form of city centre identified in this master plan will be capable of coping with this demand.

Given the size of the city centre in Cairns, much of the land use and built form development will continue to rely on tourism, accommodation and recreational visitation from local residents to drive Document_Template

4.1 Demand Drivers patronage and business turn-over.

Viewed in this context it is important that the city centre be both attractive and have attractions that generate patronage and a level of business and retail spending necessary to support a thriving business community.

Cairns has been very hard hit by the events of the last 3 years both in Australia and overseas and the City is working hard to deal with and grow out of these challenges.

A city centre master plan is a long term strategic document aimed at positioning the City to achieve and deal well with growth and the economic demand drivers discussed here are viewed in this broad and longer term context. In general, economic development strategies for the city centre should be directed towards diversifying the economic base with other steady industries in addition to tourism to buffer the city from variability of tourism.

Tourism Tourism will remain a major economic driver of Cairns for the foreseeable future with the reef, Atherton Tablelands, and the Daintree Rainforest to the north being of great interest on a world scale.

However, Cairns City is a take-off point for tourism rather than a destination itself and it may be important to staying at the forefront of tourism to think of what Cairns itself can offer the visitor as an experience as well

as being the logistical support to other attractions.

Resources Boom & the Associated Mining Industry

Creative Cultural Industry

The resources boom of northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, and other Asian and Micronesian economies provide the strong platform for growth of Cairns as a major regional centre for Northern Queensland.

Cairns is the creative cultural centre for Far North Queensland, which is itself a strong generator of creative and often alternative cultural activity across European and indigenous cultures.

The master plan proposes more consolidation and mixing of uses in the district in which the major scale cultural facilities are located, and seeks to create space for incubator type facilities for creative arts pursuits. These initiatives are synergistic and will help drive Cairns to be the creative cultural City that many of its residents and visitors desire.

While difficult to forecast in economic terms the promotion and success of the creative arts in Cairns CBD will be a demand driver that helps bring the local residents into the city centre as place for recreation and cultural transaction.

The lifestyle opportunities offered by Cairns and North Queensland generally mean that the City can expect to be sought after as a centre for: • sourcing of a skilled workers equipped to work in the mining industry • mining and mine support logistics • aviation services to support many of the mining projects that need to be fly-in / flyout centres due to undeveloped locations of the key resources and minerals • accommodation of families with workers involved in mining – requiring good schooling, health care and a high quality of family life • accommodation for rotational workers on R&R – often 21 days on and 7 off

Various initiatives regarding work force training and marketing to pursue the above opportunities are in place via the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) Advance Cairns, Cairns Regional Council and the Chambers of Commerce.

‘Tropical Expertise’ Industry Cairns is one of the few developed economies operating in the tropical world with businesses that have adapted their work practices and approaches to doing business in a truly tropical environment.

‘Tropical business’ is a collective name for work across the sectors of tropical health care, environmental management, tropical agribusiness, and tropical infrastructure and design.

The Queensland Government has programmes and support in place to foster and promote ‘Tropical Business’ out of Cairns as a regional centre. In addition, CRC should advocate and facilitate the expansion of defense personnel in the region.

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Figure 17. Activation of Public Spaces

4.2 Attractors & Attractions Streetscape & Public Realm As a tourism and visitation based CBD the public realm – footpaths, medians, median parks, etc provide a good canvas on which Cairns can display its great natural beauty, tropical climate and horticulture. Details of how this might be delivered are discussed elsewhere in the masterplan.

Medical Tourism Australia is one of the leading countries in the world for quality healthcare and health research.

The cost structure of private healthcare in this country also makes it more accessible to many people from overseas locations than the systems of the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and increasingly Taiwan.

Many of the conditions suffered by aging populations require a term treatment approach and Cairns may well be able to establish itself as a destination for higher value and more complex healthcare services to this population where a patient will often be accompanied by a spouse or partner and where both require medium term serviced accommodation in a location that provides a high degree of amenity.

Industry Training Facilities

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The mining and resources boom discussed in section 3.1 provides the opportunity for a significant scale industry providing technical and vocational training to appropriate occupations such as plant operation, minerals processing, aviation, and the like. This industry may look to leverage off or be driven by the existing James Cook University campus.

An Activated Place for All – in the CBD Major retail centres to the north and south of Cairns, the amenity offered by the northern beaches and the beautiful forested hinterland mean that for many Cairns residents the CBD is not required to meet most of their recreational and shopping needs.

While the convention centre and upcoming cultural centre provide major regional facilities and performances and the waterfront provides excellent upper end restaurant options, as a service centre for residents as well as tourists, the CBD needs to provide more by way of attraction to attract a broader cross-section of patrons and drive commerce for the City.

In the vein of places such South Bank in Brisbane, Central Park in New York, and the like, it may be possible to amalgamate and develop the whole of the lagoon, car park and park space as a single destination.

A ‘place’ where activity, performance and activation occurs that is of interest to a wide section of the community including families, the young and old. It could provide a venue for evening family entertainment, food and cultural festivals, community events, markets, smaller scale triathlons and other events promoting health and well-being.

Catalysts for Economic Development • Facilitate relocation of appropriate State and Federal government agencies in whole or in part to be based in Cairns CBD • Attract the migration of corporate offices from outside North Queensland to the Cairns CBD • In collaboration with JCU, develop strategies to increase engagement of student life with the CBD

4.3 Street Life

4.4 Public Art

The current CairnsPlan contains mixed use provisions and there has in recent years been new residential development in Cairns City Centre. It is highly desirable to encourage further residential development within the City Centre to support its 24hour economy and to provide new customers for local cafes. The City Centre needs to be able to attract more residential development by presenting the best ‘offer’; the greatest amenity, the best ‘buzz’ of vibrancy, the best urban lifestyle. Inviting people into the City’s ‘tropical urban living room’ as well as providing more events spaces will assist this. In addition, targeting ‘active street frontage’ into the areas where they will count the most, that is, in the core area and on the key connecting streets of Grafton, Lake and Shields will assist in the medium term creation of a more vibrant City.

Public Art is instrumental to ‘bringing alive’ the concept of Cairns City Centre as a tropical cultural hub. In the next five years public art activities should be focussed on events and works that bring people together in the City Centre. This can include festivals, arts-based events, street performance, ephemeral and interactive visual art, particularly around art that involves families and children, as a way of offering a strong, more authentically Cairns alternative to shopping centre entertainment. A Tropical Food or a Tropical Music festival in town, for example, could be integrated with a public art program of installations or virtual public art specific to the event.

Cairns, as a tropical City, can also learn from some of its Asian neighbours by encouraging more ‘incidental’, ephemeral and micro businesses such as street food stalls and small markets to flourish in the City Centre. These ‘micro businesses’ should be developed as extensions of existing operating licences with the city centre, so that existing city centre businesses can create street stalls for food and beverage, both on a regular basis and for special events in the city centre such as arts festivals and markets.

such as engaging artists to design screens for buildings, stormwater elements such as textures in stormwater channels and larger decorative stormwater grates. The existing festive lanterns program can be extended to include lanterns in new public spaces.

A public art strategy for the city centre needs to be developed that is targeted specifically at arts-based events, activation and interpretive elements for new streetscape elements such as signage, street grates and lanterns. This will need to be developed in co-ordination with the public art advisory committee.

Virtually networked public art is another opportunity that could be incorporated with the master plans signage and Wi-Fi hot spots strategy described in the following section.

The other key opportunity for Public Art is in the integration as interpretive elements within the new streetscapes. Public art can be directed towards interpretation of local culture and heritage; particularly indigenous Heritage, European Heritage and Chinese Heritage. It can also interpret and recognise links to Micronesia and South East Asia. This can happen through integration of interpretive elements which help recognise the ‘tropicality’ of Cairns 28

5.0 Key Public Spaces Creating Tropical gathering spaces is at the heart of this master plan. At present Cairns has the Esplanade, and its associated green spaces, and the trees around City Place as popular gathering spaces. These can be greatly enhanced to create the defining character of Cairns City Centre – the connectors, the foci of the City. There is a sparseness of green, cool, inviting tropical spaces in the heart of the City and connecting to Trinity Inlet, and the popularity of the areas around the large figs in City Place attest to the community’s use and enjoyment of such spaces and the need for more. The master plan proposes greatly increasing the quality and quantity of green shaded and sheltered gathering spaces which are strategically located in the heart of the City Centre, forming the connecting ‘spines’ in the City Centre; the Heart of Shields and the Greening of Grafton.

Figure 18. “City Triangle” of Public Space

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Figure 19. “City Triangle” of Public Space

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5.1 The Esplanade The character and use of the Esplanade provides some important precedents for the master plan as it has many successful characteristics. Trees, green spaces which people enjoy, a slow speed environment, festive atmosphere, connection to water, cafes and night life – has many of the ingredients of the vibrant Tropical Urban Living Room that the master plan describes.

Outdoor Dining Future Esplanade outdoor dining areas need to align with the master plan.

Esplanade outdoor dining areas should be accessible, cool, sheltered dining spaces that positively contribute to the ambience of the street. To achieve these objectives, the principles outlined below should be adopted.

Location of Outdoor Dining Outdoor dining should be located on the street side of the footpath.

Consistency of Design Outdoor dining areas should comply with the setout shown in figures 21-22.

A clear footpath of 2.5 – 3.0m should be retained against the building. The outdoor dining built out area should not exceed the depth of a parallel parking bay. Dining areas should have planters at each end and at the edge to separate them from the road.

Built awnings should demonstrate the principles outlined below, but could use a variety of materials and construction types. Furniture should be good quality and suitable for outdoor use. Furniture should be properly maintained and cleaned to ensure the area retains a positive visual appearance.

Awnings Awning design should ensure that natural daylight to the footpath is maintained. The awnings over the dining areas built in the road reserve should have clear, heat and UV resistant sheeting on the building side - edge

of the awning. Awnings against the building should have a minimum of 5% area of skylight or clear sheeting. Cross ventilation of the footpath should be encouraged. A gap is required between the awning over the dining areas and against the building. Openings should be included in the awning against the building. (Refer to Figures 23-24).

Outdoor Dining Accessibility The Esplanade is an important edge of the city and connects to many of the city’s attractions including Shields St, Trinity Inlet, the Lagoon and links to the Reef terminal. The master plan strongly advocates upgrading the Esplanade in accordance with the master plan strategies including new paving, and lighting, clear signage, integrated street furniture and attractive outdoor dining areas.

1428 and the intent of the Disability Discrimination Act. The variety of footpath and building levels along the Esplanade mean that detailed design is required for each area of outdoor dining built into the road reserve. The Master Plan proposes that dining areas built into the road reserve should be at footpath level. Where the road level is higher than the dining area the road is retained by a low planter on the street side. (Refer to figure 22) Where the footpath and outdoor dining areas are above road level a planter retains the footpath and dining area along the road edge. Level changes must be made with AS1428 compliant ramps.

Outdoor dining areas should be accessible to all. Cairns Regional Council and building owners are obliged to comply with the requirements of AS

Figure 20 The Esplanade: Outdoor Dining

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Outdoor Dining:

Outdoor Dining:

Existing Footpath Level

Footpath Higher than Road

1. The level of the dining area built out into the road reserve is continuous with the existing footpath level to ensure accessibility for all.

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Figure 21 The Esplanade: Outdoor Dining - Existing Footpath Level

Figure 22 The Esplanade: Outdoor Dining - Footpath Higher than Road

Figure 23 The Esplanade: Outdoor Dining

Figure 24 The Esplanade: Outdoor Dining

2. The new dining area floor falls towards a stormwater grate at the edge of the existing footpath. The higher level of the road is retained by a retaining planter at the edge of the dining area

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Figure 25. Grafton St - Urban Park Sketch Document_Template

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Figure 26 Grafton Street Urban Park - Cross Section

5.2 The Greening of Grafton The Greening of Grafton is a proposal to create a series of shaded urban parks along the length of Grafton Street which links emerging retail, Rusty’s markets and a new creative industries precinct along Grafton St between the centre of town and the new Cairns Entertainment Precinct.

These urban parks are envisaged primarily as green, planted spaces, which can accommodate shaded retreat spaces in the City for lunchtime use, as well as places for small market stalls/juice bars and coffee stalls. These parks can be designed to incorporate Chinese Heritage interpretive elements, in line with CRC’s earlier plan for the street.

The parks are 12x72m – large enough to work as gathering spaces rather than ‘pocket hanky’ scaled refuges, and to be able to foster a range of activities. The “Greening of Grafton” builds on earlier CRC work for the street, being reliant on a single lane of traffic as per the earlier

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proposal, and supports even more strongly opportunities for temporary street closures for markets, festivals and events.

While there is a net loss of on street parking involved in this plan, this can be compensated for in the new Council parking station currently in the planning phase, and is in line with CRC’s CBD Car Parking Strategy for the City Centre.

The design of the parks can incorporate seating areas, and, importantly, will include trees of a very substantial scale, ultimately similar in scale to those which frame City Place. Small hardstand areas can be provided under built shade pergolas as seating areas. The Chinese Heritage theme can be incorporated through interpretive signage and art elements as well as through the lighting in the parks.

A plan of the proposal is included overleaf.

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5.2 The Greening of Grafton

(continued)

Bike lane

New Urban Park

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Spence Street

Shields Street

Bike lane

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Access to Corporate Tower

Bike lane

Arts Arbour New Urban Plaza

New Urban Park Bike lane

Hartley Street

Post Office Site

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Figure 27 Grafton Street Plan

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Figure 28. Shields Street Heart Sketch Document_Template

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Lake Street Abbott Street

Grafton Street

Figure 29 Shields Street Heart Plan

5.3 Shields Street Heart The Shields Street Heart is a proposal to create new community spaces in the heart of the City, whilst keeping the much-loved City Place fig trees, and functions of the current City Place and Shields Street areas which the community values. The proposal is to create a new community gathering space in Shields Street for the full block between Lake and Grafton Streets, and in a second stage create another new community gathering space in Shields Street for the full block between Lake and Abbott Streets. The pedestrian connection between these two public spaces across Lake Street is a strong priority. This will create a very large green public ‘spine’ of important City gathering space along Shield St. This is created by taking out the two turn around areas in Shield St and taking these spaces back as public gathering spaces. The proposal greatly increases the green, cool, shaded and sheltered spaces for people to gather in the heart of the City and in doing so reinforces the strategic importance of this space for the community. It is strongly recommended that this project is implemented in two stages, with the first stage being between

Lake and Grafton Streets. This is to ensure that stage 1 has time to be established as a successful urban space in the city prior to its expansion.

The two large fig trees that frame City Place will be kept and associated seating areas enhanced, and the gathering spaces below them refurbished to enhance safety.

Views to heritage buildings on the corner will be retained. The children’s playground will also be refurbished, and in stage two can be recreated as a zero-depth water play feature. The proposal includes a substantial roofed space with a decked floor, which can be used for busking, public speaking performances or simply sheltering from a downpour and eating lunch. This roofed space will work as public-scaled verandah in the city centre.

The roof is designed as a battened roof to provide shade whilst allowing daylight in to the space. Large grassy areas for sitting on are provided in the Shield St Heart, and new water features which collect and recycle water and celebrate the heavy rains of the Tropical summer. These water features also cool these areas and link

them to the Esplanade Lagoon. There is also a long textured paver slot the length of the Shield Street Heart across which rain tumbles before draining away. A speaker’s corner is also incorporated. Shield St Heart will be planted with more large-scale tropical trees and ground covers. There is also an important opportunity to evoke and interpret indigenous cultural heritage in this space.

At a practical level, the proposal accommodates the need to provide vehicular access to underground car parks, servicing access and cycle access via shared zones in the space. It also relocates taxi ranks to Grafton Street (heading south) and Abbott Street (heading north).

City Place is located in the heart of the City, and for many in Cairns is a significant gathering space. City Place has a playground, a sound shell which is quite well utilised for performance and public speaking, and a water feature.

In community workshops it was raised that City Place is a space that is highly valued in the community. We have also been told that the first incarnation of City

Place – constructed in 1984, and including grassy seating areas and a generous water feature and shade – is preferred to its current incarnation. The centre of City Place was redeveloped in 2001 and 2007 and in its current form has been criticised by community members as not containing enough shade and green space.

The location of the Cairns Transit Network through Lake St brings buses through the middle of City Place and City Place is now a contested space in Cairns. At the time of preparing the master plan Cains Regional Council had resolved to support Department of Transport and Main Road’s (TMR) proposed route through Lake Street, and so the Shields Street Heart proposal does not conflict with the TMR proposal, although some modifications to vehicular traffic movement are proposed.

The Shields Street Heart proposal can accommodate the current TMR proposal, a modified proposal which has private vehicles alongside the bus route, or keeping City Place largely in its current form, with the addition of more shade.

Members of the local community expressed mixed views to the TMR proposal and the master plan’s accommodation of the TMR proposal, and are concerned that taking buses and through the middle of the space is effectively devaluing City Place.

The Shields Street Heart proposal creates a much stronger, more generous, climatically responsive gathering space in the City’s heart for the long term benefit of the City.

Figure 30 Shields Street Covered Space: Conceptual Section Document_Template

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6.0 Streetscape 6.1 Street Tree Planting Cairns’ Tropical character is defined strongly by its planting; the large trees on the Esplanade, in median strips and particularly around City Place are strikingly beautiful and cool. The ambient temperature around them is lowered by several degrees. The large scale planting in the centre of City streets creates cooler and very unique environments, and there are a number of very successful planted medians with large canopy Tropical trees and lush understory planting.

There are excellent precedents for street tree planting in Cairns but the application of these is uneven. There are some trees squeezed into overly narrow medians that do not canopy out, and many streets in the areas between Trinity Inlet and Shields Street have no median planting.

Experimentation with a variety of species in a variety of bed types means that the planting is inconsistent.

Cairns is fortunate to have a road reserve width of 40m (very nearly twice as wide as the State’s capital) which offers the opportunity to create substantial median planting with large trees.

The master plan presents a consistent, clear landscape strategy to define and transform the City Centre. To create a cool, green, sustainable City all the streets need to be much greener, and key connecting ‘spines’ of Shield, Lake and Grafton can be the greenest streets with larger scale planting. The edges of the City Centre also need much clearer definition and this can be greatly enhanced through gateway planting.

Figure 31 Creating a cool, walkable centre through street tree planting

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Figure 32. Typical Street Section

Figure 33. Typical Street Tree Plan

Caption

6.1 Street Tree Planting (continued) Median Trees A consistent treatment of large canopy shade median trees and the understory planting is applied to all City Centre streets.

The minimum number of street trees in a long block is 5, and short blocks 3m. The planting plan shows that of the 5 large trees in each block, two can be accommodated on existing traffic median spaces and 3 in parking spaces. Each tree would need to occupy, as a minimum, a 6x6m bed.

This means that in the long blocks centre parking would be reduced by 6 car spaces per long block. On the short blocks, all 3 large trees can be accommodated on traffic medians on Spence and Shields Street; 2 trees can be accommodation on traffic medians in Aplin and Hartley Streets and 1 in parking spaces, the net result being that centre parking is reduced by 2 spaces per short block in Aplin and Hartley Streets.

The location of these median trees, and the treatments at their base, can connect to provide a ‘stepping stone’ or pedestrian refuge for the many laneways that permeate the City Centre.

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Overall this is consistent with CRC’s long term parking strategy (10yrs plus), where there will be a gradual reduction in parking supply, and an increase in public transport usage, walking and cycling.

A list of median trees and median planting is provided in appendix iii). The current ‘City in a Garden Master Plan’ proposes a list of median species; this master plan proposes a more restricted palate of options to achieve an overall greater consistency.

The power of the large trees in medians set a precedent for a consistent roll out of large canopy median shade trees that could have a transformative affect on the City Centre.

Through a program of large shaded median trees and understory planting, the ambient temperature of all City Centre streets could be reduced, and cool shady welcoming environments created. At the same time it is essential to keep the successful shady median planting with substantial trees that exist. Creating a City of large street trees

will take time and the existing successes need to be built on to establish a strong overall effect.

Street awnings are very important for providing continuous sheltered access to shops, and in most areas these awnings are close to the edge of the kerb, making it difficult to achieve large canopy shade trees on the kerb side unless deep build outs are made, and so median planting provides much less constrained opportunities to achieve a substantial shade canopy with new trees.

Figure 34. Street Tree Plan

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Figure 36. Gateway Section

Figure 35. Gateway Plan

6.1 Street Tree Planting (continued) Spine Street Trees

Gateway Planting

Street trees in the Shield St Spine and Heart and Grafton St can be very substantial, achieving the status of the ‘mega trees’ that currently exist in City Place. This will reinforce the character of these streets as the green connectors and very cool welcoming pedestrian environments. The Lake Street spine is also an important connector to the Cruise Ship terminal precinct, but a slightly different treatment is proposed for this street. Median planting will be important through this street but it may take a different form – a less broad, canopy form and more of a tall, more slender form than the trees in other streets to accommodate CTN bus movements.

In areas where it is possible to achieve planted build outs along Lake St this should be encouraged to enhance the shadiness of the street. This change in planting texture will also aid in defining Lake Street as something different –reinforcing the identity of Lake St as ‘the street where buses run’, assisting visitors and newcomers to navigate their way toward the Lake Street bus stops.

The more compact structure of the City needs to be clearly defined using planting.

The gateway treatments will be important, inviting drivers to slow down, park and walk through the City in a green environment.

The gateway planting will also clearly define the ‘threshold’ of the City Centre, its greater levels of pedestrian activity and more intense land use. The gateway treatments can include more sculptural Tropical plants and bring some colour to the understory.

Species for gateway planting are listed in appendix iii). Planting design throughout the city centre will need to have regard to Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles and impacts on the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance networks.

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Figure 37. Spectacular Fig Trees, Cairns

Figure 38. Landscape Strategy 41

Figure 39. Typical Streetscape View Document_Template

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Figure 40. Covered Seat Design

Figure 41. Seat/Trellis/Sign Design

6.2 Street Furniture Consistent, integrated street furniture and urban elements will enhance the presentation of the City Centre. The design of urban elements can also provide opportunities for planting and trellises, reinforcing the experience of a green, verdant City. The strategy for signage, lighting and shelters is to combine and integrate seats, lights, and signs wherever practical, and to always accompany public seating with planters on trellises. The street furniture strategy comprises a suite of parts that are adapted to suit various requirements. The detailed development of this ‘kit of parts’ is beyond the scope of this project however it is suggested that the suite be developed with a combination of ‘off the shelf’ items (bench seats, light poles, signage panels) and items constructed on site (planted beds and trellises). This suite of part should also be used in bus shelters and other structure throughout the City Centre to clearly reinforce City Centre identity.

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The urban elements comprise: Seat/planted bed combinations: we envisage a simple timber slab bench seat that is a further evolution of the slab bench seat along the waterfront at the Esplanade, to be located along the kerb edge between corners.

Seat/planted bed/signage/lighting/wi-fi/ trellis combinations: these ‘consolidated’ urban elements will be located a corners, providing ‘nodes’ or small gathering/resting places on the street, as well as wayfinding signage, and wi-fi stations. The setting also incorporates a signage and trellis panel.

Shelter combinations: For small scale seating shelters, local bus stops and CTN bus stops a consistent ‘language’ or tectonic is proposed that can be adapted to different scales. Using the same seats, lights and trellises will create a consistent visual identity and planted theme. The roofs of these structures can be lightweight, with a thin slightly translucent roofing material (e.g. Danpalon) which is UV and heat resistant. The idea of a thin, slightly

transparent roof is to minimise further reduction of daylight under street awnings, as well as creating a ‘floating’ roof that is more akin to a cool veil than a solid roof, and which again allows the vegetation to be a visually predominant element in the street.

The low pitch ‘biscuit’ thin design also allows for maximum visibility to surrounding shops. These roofs can also provide rainwater capture into planting elements and can be designed to combine with signage, seating and trellis elements as part of the integrated City Centre Suite. Bus shelters in particular need to be designed for maximum visibility of the oncoming buses which so a cantilevered structure is optimal (refer fig. 40).

planter arrangements at suitable locations along the street. More detail regarding street furniture is provided in appendix iii).

The seating/signage combinations on corners should also include Wi-Fi ‘hot spots’; this will both provide more activation of city streets and provide a useful facility for Cairns residents and visitors.

Further detailed design of the street furniture will be required as part of the implementation of the master plan.

The master plan team is aware that the cost of providing on-site specials at every location would be prohibitive, so it is proposed that the integrated seat, planted bed, trellis, sign and light is located at every street corner only. Under awning light poles, can then be located according to the relevant Australian standard along the length of the street, and combination seat/

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Table 1

Paving Options

Paving

Longevity

Sustainability

Price

Maintenance

Appearance

Exposed aggregate

After 3-5 years patching, substrate movement can cause deterioration

Local aggregate can be used, but concrete has relatively high carbon output in production

Cheapest

Current preference of maintenance staff, however replacement of services, new development necessitates patching

Inappropriate visually for a city centre area – commonly used in driveways, suburban shopping centres. Patching can be unsightly

Concrete pavers

After 3-5 years joints deteriorate and need to be replaced. Lack of density of material means that after 10 years replacement desirable.

Can be source locally, but concrete has relatively high carbon output in production

Medium (base price in costings)

Not preferred by maintenance staff for dirt and trip hazards however this can be addressed through sealants and more stable substrate

Dark tone flagstone pavers suitable for city centre environment. Using a brush-based cleaning machine and sealant rather than gurney may improve longevity

Chinese granite

Very dense material means good longevity and ease of cleaning. Joints can also deteriorate but this can be addressed as part of maintenance regime

Carbon footprint of export and lack of opportunity for local employment a disadvantage

Close to concrete pavers

Dense material very long wearing, however unit pavers not preferred by maintenance staff without appropriate substrate

Suitable in appearance for city centre however ubiquity of product means city centre floor not ‘unique’ to Cairns, and future sourcing may be restricted

Very dense material means good longevity and ease of cleaning. Joints can deteriorate but this can be addressed as part of maintenance regime

Locally sourced stone.

Lowest carbon footprint

Most expensive

Dense material very long wearing, however unit pavers not preferred by maintenance staff without appropriate substrate

Highly suitable for city centre – long wearing, difficult to damage, can be readily recycled after flood damage, could be unique to Cairns, local product

Porphyry

(20% less than concrete pavers )

(10% more than concrete pavers)

(13% more than concrete pavers)

Figure 42. Paving Plan

6.3 Paving Over the years the ‘floor’ of the City Centre has become a mixture of different pavers, patterns, standards and treatments. There have been some recent projects that are quite successful in their treatments, however local business owners have clearly expressed a need and a desire for a more consistent floor of a character that suits Australia’s best regional City Centre.

The current palate shown in the City in a Garden Master plan is generally observed as being overly complex and difficult to build and implement. It is also desirable to use a paver that is not associated with a domestic setting, but which is clearly ‘urban and public’. From a practical point of view, the new floor needs to minimise trip hazards, and be robust and easy to clean, particularly in food environments.

Sustainability is another key consideration: which floor has the best longevity and the least environmental impact in its production?

The master plan proposes a new, consistent paving palate that is rolled out throughout all of the City Centre

streets which, instead of being done opportunistically with new development, is actually a funded and staged program of works to all City streets.

The master plan team has priced several options for the new floor. In selecting a floor, appropriate weighting needs to be given to the longevity of the material and its appearance over a an entire generation of growth and change; it is highly unlikely that the city will seek to replace the whole floor in another one or two generations, and the material selected should be the material that becomes the definer of the city centre, much like Bluestone is to the Melbourne city centre. While price is an important criterion, the upfront capital cost needs to be considered in relation to ongoing maintenance, reparability and longevity. The material needs to have a lifespan of 30-50years, be able to be easily patched and repaired, and readily replaced and cleaned up after flood damage. Local employment and ongoing supply is also an important issue.

The Porphyry rates high in all evaluation criteria except cost. We recommend that CRC takes the ‘long view’ of this project and gives the city centre a floor that will last generations. If that means that key targeted areas are done first, and a longer term staging program is needed, then this is still a better long term outcome for the city centre. The porphyry floor could focus initially on Shields, Grafton, Lake St and the Esplanade, with the Entertainment / Cultural waterfront precinct to follow on. A more economic concrete paver of same dimensions with porphyry aggregate could be used in other CBD streets such as Abbott, Spence, Aplin, etc.

We are aware that there are issues with pavers lifting due to substrate instability and washing away of grout in heavy rain.

We propose that the new paver is laid on a compacted decomposed granite base (similar to road base) except where there is vehicle traffic or an absence of awnings, in which case a concrete slab substrate is recommended.

The new paver proposed is a flagstone in a stretcher bond rather than a square in a header bond, a more substantial scaled paver which also has laying and cost advantages. To bring some variation into the palate, a random mix of a lighter paver (say 10%) can be brought into the pattern, creating a random ‘stepping stone’ effect (refer figures 42 & 43).

Marking the arcade and laneway entrances can also be an important function of the pavers, and this can be done with special mosaic or concrete infill panels which provide the name of the arcade and an element about its history/use or what it connects to – this can be a public art project. More detail on the proposed paving palette is provided in appendix iii).

Figure 43. Paving Plan Document_Template

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Figure 44. Lighting Strategy Plan

6.4 Lighting The master plan envisages a Cairns as a tropical, cultural hub with a 24 hour economy and evening as well as daytime liveliness. In Tropical cities, evening offers a respite from the day’s heat, and it is the time when people can come outside to enjoy more benign temperatures and cooling breezes. In cities like Rio de Janeiro, it is the time when the City comes alive; people dining on terraces, promenading on the streets, enjoying seeing and being seen; a festive environment predominates. Lighting is a very important part of creating an evening environment that invites use, occupation and enjoyment, and in Cairns there is a lot that can be achieved with improving the under awning lighting for general safety and ambience, and festive/artistic lighting for creating atmosphere and a sense of celebration. This in turn can encourage more evening visitation of the City Centre and enhance the ‘evening economy’.

Under-Awning Lighting There is a dearth of under awning lighting, which means that at night many places on Document_Template

Figure 45. Signage Strategy Plan

Figure 46. Feature Sign/Signage Blade

6.5 Signage the street rely on lighting from within the shop – resulting in places where the street is very dingy and in some areas simply unsafe. It is not practical to provide under awning footpath lighting that is attached to the awnings as the awnings vary so greatly so a street pole will need to be introduced along the edge of the footpath, and the spacing and luminance of these fittings will need to be provided according to the Australian Standard for footpath lighting.

During the consultation meetings signage often came up in the conversations; the street grid of Cairns and the mountain vistas in 3 of 4 directions can confuse visitors, and people felt that better signage was essential to a tourism-based City. The master plan proposes new signage panels as part of the trellis/seating/lighting suite at each City street corner, listing directions of key destinations, facilities and attractions as well as street names, in multiple languages.

Festive and Highlight Lighting.

A detailed co-ordinated signage package needs to be commissioned as part of the commissioning of the detailed design of the street furniture suite. This signage package would consist of two main way finding signs; a signage panel that is associated with the seat and marks the intersections of streets and mid block crossings and a self supporting signage blade with associated planter that is located to signify a particular precinct or important place e.g. cultural precinct, Shields St Heart etc. There may be other special purpose signs required, for example display boards with a removable cover to allow information about festivals,

The new and existing large median trees and planting can be highlighted as key features of the City Centre. Additional ‘accent’ lighting can also be provided at street corners, which emphasises heritage buildings on the corners, and new corner signage/seating suites.

More festive lighting can also be provided through the City. Building on the existing seasonal public art program of city centre lanterns Shields and Grafton Streets will highlight and bring festivity to these key public spaces at night.

events or programs be updated or replaced with current information. The current road lighting has capacity for fabric banners.

In addition the new signage can incorporate parking information on key entry corners into the city centre, as described in the parking strategy. This can include real time parking information about availability and capacity of parking in the city centre.

The seating signage would be located on opposite corners of each intersection and at mid block crossings and this would establish a repetitive and dependable orientation point in the City grid. The signage blade would be located at particular places to mark particular precincts and should incorporate more expansive way finding information (like a map) and interpretive material regarding Cairns’ indigenous and multicultural heritage, and nearby points of interest.

signs, and any other special signage and street banners should be consistent in appearance, graphics and text style. Each sign should be adequately illuminated at night by adjacent footpath lighting, or lighting built into the signage. The content of these signs needs to consider that most of the people relying on these signs will have little knowledge of Cairns, and English or the other languages on the sign may not be their first language.

These signs should be made of durable, vandal resistant material, like coated metal with tactile text and braille for the vision impaired. The design of the two

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Figure 47. Street Awning

6.6 Awnings, Structures & Public Toilets The street awnings throughout the City Centre are important for shelter from sun and rain. There is a lack of awnings in the area between Shields Street and the CEP/Cruise Ship Terminal, and through redevelopment it is important that ultimately continuous awnings are also provided along these streets .

In some cases the awnings become quite deep and very dark, particularly where there is covered kerbside dining, with awnings depths up to 5 or 6 metres and more. In these instances it is highly desirable to provide some day lighting through the awning along the edge of the shop/café/ business. To avoid heat gain, this is best provided in small rectangular panels with UV rated sheeting. Up to 5% of the awning structure can incorporate day lighting in this way. Ventilation panels can also be included in these roof lights More information regarding awnings and day lighting is provided in the following section and in appendix iv).

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Structures such as bus shelters, seating shelters and any covered stand-alone shelters should be part of the integrated suite of elements specific to the City Centre.

Again a simple, lightweight contemporary design, which allows landscape to dominate, is preferred.

Generally it is preferred for public toilets to be included in the envelop on buildings along the street edge rather than as separate structure in the streets and parks proposed as part of the master plan. When public toilets are located in the street or medians they block views, they are difficult to access and generally detract from the open tropical landscape qualities the master plan supports. Entrances to public toilets need to be visible from the street and well lit for public safety. For convenience it is ideal if a number of public toilets can be located throughout the city at approximately 500m radii.

Figure 48. Outdoor Dining

6.7 ‘Street Life’ Provisions The master plan seeks to encourage a vibrant, dynamic and unique experience on the streets of Cairns, where there is a buzz of activity. Street dining, public performance, and street markets are all seen as means by which people can be encouraged out onto the streets to participate in creating a lively atmosphere.

The streets should be considered by locals and tourists as the “Living Room” of the City - a place to go, meet up, hang out, eat, be entertained and have fun.

Current Council regulations for markets, activities on roads, and road side vending provide a good framework for ‘Street Life’ activities. These should be reviewed in response to the street life provision objectives. In particular the types of items sold from road site vendors is limiting, a wider range of items including for example ice cream and coffee should be included for the City Centre. Again it is important that this can be orchestrated as extensions of existing businesses’ food and beverage licences, so that these businesses are encouraged to further ‘populate’ key events

and activities and city centre businesses are supported.

The master plan seeks to continue to encourage outdoor dining on the foot paths. In general kerbside dining is preferred. The footpath width between the tenancy and the edge of the dining area should be a minimum of 2.5m wide. Tables on the kerbside should be set back from the kerb, and located in a zone of maximum 4m deep. Furniture standards should be established that encourage durable, attractive items that contribute positively to the streetscape. Where permanent dining barriers and awning extensions are required, the design of these should be consistent throughout the city and in keeping with the ‘kit of parts’ street furniture suite. Temporary cover such as market umbrellas or fabric awnings should not be located in a position where they reduce day lighting under the awnings.

The Esplanade streetscape and outdoor dining generally needs to align with the master plan. Kerb side dining is preferred, however daylight needs to be introduced

along the shop front with a consistent approach to awnings. Where cover is provided to dining areas within the road reserve clear, heat and UV resistant sheeting should be used on the edge of the awning to ensure that the footpath remains adequately lit. Currently dining areas that are built out into the road reserve of the Esplanade are raised to accommodate the camber of the road. A raised dining area is acceptable however it is important to also provide an outdoor dining area at footpath level to accommodate PWD patrons.

Footpath and road drainage should be handled so that water does not pool under these raised dining areas.

There are new opportunities for increasing street life in the new public spaces of the master plan - in the Grafton St parks, the Sheilds Street Heart and in the laneways, through market stalls, creative performers including music, dance, and creative art, multi-media displays. These events could be regular and supplemented with some more focused or themed, occasional events. It is important that this activity should focus on providing unique Cairns

or North Queensland food and goods and be interactive for example street dancing lessons. We would anticipate that City Traders would have market stalls or benefit from the overflow trade from these events.

Due to the warm tropical nights most of these activities would occur in the evenings, which would also encourage tourists (back from day trips) to join in.

Street signage and banners would be used to foster awareness of these events and also contribute along with streetscape improvements to a festive atmosphere on the street. Permanent commercial signage should not dominate the streetscape (refer to attached diagram) while temporary moveable signage for businesses should not be permitted as it visually clutters the appearance of the street and can cause obstructions for pedestrians. Ephemeral signage for public events e.g. banners or posters of programs of events should be accommodated in permanent fixtures that have the capacity for changeable posters or fixings for banners.

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less is preferred

Figure 49. Flood Immunity

6.8 Stormwater and Flood The whole of Cairns City Centre is subject to Q100 flood levels, and the development of the City Centre over the years means that more recent development is at Q100 immune levels and others are not. For those developments where achieving Q100 has entailed a difference in footpath and freeboard levels of greater than 500mm, a number of solutions have been adopted which have had very poor outcomes for the quality of the street environment; in the worst of these being where a disability access ramp occupies most of the width of the footpath and severs the frontage from the street.

It is critically important that new development around the Trinity Inlet end of town creates vibrant, active, lively street environments, which means that building frontages need to engage with their streets very directly. The horizontal integration of active frontage with the street is paramount in these areas, and a gradual stepping of levels between building and street is the preferred outcome. CRC needs to investigate whole of CBD and/or street scale options for addressing these level changes.

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Cairns has very high seasonal rainfall, which comes in great deluges that last for days. On these days the City becomes a City in the water – the streets are filled to capacity, and water sheets deeply over uncovered footpaths.

solution might be locating PWD ramps and parking bays in the centre of each street, to provide ease of access to all business on the block.

The sheer volume of water that runs down the streets during the wet means that higher kerbs are generally necessary. In some instances the kerbs comprise 3 steps, a result of a combination of stormwater flows and flood levels. During consultation workshops participants have commented that ‘wet’ and its effects on streets and public spaces are characteristic events that can be celebrated through the design of the streets.

Disability access is significant challenge and a comprehensive all-access audit would need to be done before any new paving, kerbing and channelling was designed Providing ramps at each street corner might prove unworkable given the crossings, lack of immediate proximity of parking due to footpath build outs at corners, and increased volumes of pedestrians corners. A more workable 47

Figure 50. Lake Street Section

6.9 Cairns Transit Network Integration – Lake St and Spence St The Cairns Transit Network (CTN) represents a tremendous opportunity to enhance the accessibility of the centre to both locals and visitors, and to support a genuine ‘mode shift’ away from private vehicle reliance. The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) envisages a significantly higher level of patronage and public transport usage if the route is in a central City street. To ensure that the service and the master plan are well integrated, and to deal with streetscape implications of the bus route, throughout the course of the preparation of the master plan, the master plan team has been meeting with the CTN team from TMR to discuss options and design concepts for integration.

In relation to the interface with CTN City Centre Master Plan prioritises: • A tropical, planted City where slow speed road environments (40km/hour) are shared between cars, buses and bicycles.

• A very walkable and pedestrian friendly

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It was not possible, in the course of the preparation of the master plan, to resolve the integration of all of these elements with the CTN team, however during the course of the project the following points were covered and will need ongoing resolution:

shared slow speed road environment for buses, cars, and bicycles. The impacts of the dedicated bus lanes are less space for cars for kerbside parking and/or less space for large-scale median planting.

The section of Lake St at City Place is also closed for vehicles, limiting easy access to nearby retail. The master plan team has proposed that when the CTN comes into the City Centre, it should be part of the general traffic solution, in line with the ‘sharing’ of the road environment, with bus priority lanes and signals at intersections only. This would facilitate a ‘low impact’ solution in terms of appearance, amenity and street function in the City Centre area, similar to Brisbane’s Adelaide St. This proposal needs further consideration and review by TMR in terms of its impact on the network.

Bus priority: TMR’s concept design shows a dedicated bus route in both Lake and Spence St to maintain frequency and consistency of the route. This is at odds with the concept in the city centre of a

High-order retail activation and bus stops in Lake St: In consultation meetings Chamber of Commerce representatives have expressed concerns that bus stops on Lake St will ‘sterilise’ or make inactive a

green City Centre with ambient cooling and character defined with substantial median planting throughout the core. Lake St is an important east-west connection street • Highly active and animated retail frontage throughout the defined core with deep awning shade • A consistent approach to street furniture, signage, and bus stops/stations – all part of the same suite of elements.

• The creation of the Shield St Heart – ultimately linking across Lake St.

6.10 City in a Garden Master Plan very important central frontage area within the City Centre. Some of the issues can be ameliorated through design, their concern remains and more work to be done to resolve this issue.

Left hand turn lanes into Shields Street: The master plan and CTN team have agreed that the left turn lanes into Shields Street are undesirable from an operational and amenity point of view.

Planting: Large scale median planting will be rolled out throughout the City Centre as part of the implementation of the master plan. It is a priority that large scale planting can be accommodated in both Lake St and Spence Streets. The form of the trees can be changed in Lake and Spence Streets to accommodate buses.

Furniture and Shelters: The streetscape pavers, furniture and shelters proposed as part of the master plan can be worked into the design of the Lake St and Spence St stations to visually integrate the stations with the City Centre. It is understood that the bus way will have its own corporate identity, but it is suggested that in the City Centre that this corporate identity can be ‘tuned’ to the identity of City Centre elements. Of key importance is ensuring that no structures obstruct views of the four heritage corner buildings.

Permeability: It is desirable for traffic to be slow moving to allow for the normal informal street and road activity of a City street.

The connection across Shields Street is particularly important and the current TMR concept for Lake St recognises this.

Discussions have also been held about bringing cars as well as buses through the junction of Shields and Lake Streets to improve accessibility to businesses, and the Chamber of Commerce has raised this as a particular priority.

There is still more work to be done in successful integration between these two projects, however the key principles and a constructive dialogue have been established.

The master plan proposes a number of changes to the City in A Garden master plan document to bring it into line with the City Centre master plan strategies and approaches. We propose a renaming of this document to bring it into line with the master plan concepts. The proposed name is City In A Rainforest Master Plan – suggesting a more verdant and shady place more supportive of local ecologies. In general, a simpler, more consistent planting, paving, and street furniture treatments and palates are proposed. The overarching approach is that all urban elements should defer to a lush landscape rather than compete with it, so a contemporary, lightweight palette with simple forms is adopted. Proposed amendments to the City In A Garden Master Plan are included in appendix iii)

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7.0 Built Form

51. Tropical Urbanism in Cairns Document_Template

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Figure 52. Tropical Urbanism

7.1 Tropical Urbanism; Verandahs, Colonnades, the Green City In seeking to create the best regional centre in Australia, and a national and international ‘must see’ destination, Cairns can harness its local architecture to express tropicality and unique qualities of the locale. The pre air conditioning architecture – where architects had to develop ways for building occupants to stay cool without mechanical assistance – yielded an architecture of screens, colonnades and verandahs that can still be seen in the great turn-of-thecentury pubs (deep screened verandahs), late 19th century public buildings (generous colonnades and deep shaded windows) and in some of the remnants of civic and commercial architecture from the 1950s and 1960s (patterned breezeblock screens, expressive precast sun shades). These additional shade and sheltering elements often created indoor/outdoor spaces which can be the best places to be in the Tropics.

These ‘in between spaces’ and shaded edges create a rich, tropically unique architecture that can be restored through the master plan. While in recent decades

reducing heat loads on buildings has not been a high priority, this is changing and it is becoming a matter of some urgency cost wise to reduce the amount of energy expended on air conditioning. In Cairns’ tropical climate, this means shading on all four sides of the building, and the master plan creates new provisions for this in scheme amendments, detailed in section iv). The scheme amendments also support an urban architecture with more verandahs, screened indoor/outdoor rooms, tropical in-between spaces.

urban design. The master plan proposes scheme amendments that provide for new development to address the creation of a tropical urban environment.

The master plan proposes that Cairns embraces ‘tropical urbanism’ in all dimensions, not just at street level. Like Singapore, Cairns can be known as a very green City, with roof gardens, sky gardens, green walls, green roofs, and planted courtyards which cool the environment, reduce heat loads and extend the tropical experience throughout the building. The City can be a leader in the promotion and delivery of tropical building and Figure 53. Abbott Street, Cairns

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Figure 54. Targetted Active Frontage

Figure 55. An activated, green urban edge

7.2 The Urban Edge 7.3 The Podium Form Creating an urban edge that interacts with the streets and public spaces is central to creating a more vibrant environment.

At present there are ample successful examples of shops interacting with streets in the tourism precincts. The Cairns Planning Scheme includes effective provisions for ‘active frontage’ in the City Centre, which the master plan supports.

The master plan proposed further targeting and focussing of these provisions into key areas– particularly in the connecting streets to Trinity Inlet.

The conviviality of the street is also contributed to by what happens above street level. Podiums containing parking which abut the street alignment create ‘dead’ areas above street and a sense that no one lives in or occupies the City Centre except for cars. Where second level verandahs are present for residential or café uses, the City streets benefit.

Planning scheme amendments therefore suggest prohibiting car parking facing street frontage above ground level and encouraging cafes, dining terraces and residential verandahs above street level.

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The podium-style development that has predominated in recent years has had both favourable and less favourable outcomes.

It has enabled CRC to maintain a separate ‘street scale’ and ‘tower scale’ in the centre.

It has provided a very successful model for hotels and accommodation buildings where function areas and car parking are located in the podium, and recreation areas are on the podium roofs. This has created a ‘secondary landscape’ of recreation spaces above the ground in the City Centre. The worst outcomes of the podium form have been when they are filled with car parking to the edge of the street, (noted in 7.2) and when commercial buildings have ‘filled the envelope’ available to them but built to only a few storeys high, resulting in commercial buildings with very deep floor plans in some areas and ungainly ‘stump’ formed buildings which are not a favourable expression for the region’s primary centre.

The proposed scheme amendments include an alternative acceptable solution target towards medium/smaller scale commercial developments that allow an increased street frontage height provided

8.0 Outline of Scheme Amendments a courtyard building is created. This alternative will provide a comparable GFA for the developer but will provide the City with a more appropriate commercial building form.

Implementing the master plan will entail some changes to the existing planning scheme. A detailed scope of these scheme amendments is provided in appendix iv).

These amendments include: • Changes to the Desired Environmental Outcomes’s to reflect the strategic intent of the master plan • Changes to the zoning of land between Aplin and Florence Sts to reflect the master plan City Centre structure and more compact footprint

of shading, colonnades and verandahs • Tropical Urbanism provisions to encourage use of green walls, roofs, sky gardens, planted courtyards and gardens at street level • Provisions for day lighting under awnings • Implementation of podium car parking setbacks • Alternative acceptable solutions for commercial buildings

• Changes to precinct designations to reflect intended heights for the City Centre (i.e. the tallest in the core) • Provisions for precinct planning around the Cairns Entertainment Precinct end of Grafton St to facilitate arts-related start-up businesses and practice rooms • New flood immunity streetscape provisions which require level changes to occur inside the building envelope • Design codes to encourage greater use

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56. Arts Arbour Document_Template

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Figure 57. Precinct Sketch Plan

9.0 Catalyst Sites

9.1 Cairns Entertainment Precinct/Cruise Ship Terminal/Convention Centre Precinct

New public domain works throughout the City Centre will catalyst redevelopment and revitalisation of the City Centre. There are also two key projects that involve both private and public sector elements that will further catalyse activity in the City Centre beyond the streets and public spaces.

The Cairns Entertainment Precinct (CEP) will be a significant new ‘anchor’ and drawcard for the City of Cairns. The Convention Centre and Cruise Ship Terminals are already ‘magnets’, but they are not part of a lively, engaging precinct and the pedestrian environment accessing these areas is not welcoming or inviting.

The port is currently seeking to address the urban amenity around the Cruise Ship Terminal with new urban space works through to the Hilton and the Reef Fleet Terminal, which is welcomed.

It is crucial to the long term success and accessibility of this end of town that development in and around Grafton Street, Lake Street and Wharf Street embraces a broader vision of what the precinct can become: an exciting people place with street performers, cafes, and shaded arbours. The new development onto Grafton Street and Lake Street needs to contribute liveliness and activity to the street. The end of Grafton Street can become a green urban plaza, with a Green

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Grafton park in the centre, activated by a new central stair to the Convention centre, street performers and cafes.

The precinct can also include an ‘Arts Arbour’ – a shady two storeyed covered planted structure that connects the new buildings in Grafton St through to the CEP. This ‘Arts Arbour’ can become a memorable feature of the precinct, planted with bright flowering vines, and supporting ephemeral artwork displays and information about what’s on in the CEP. The ‘Arts Arbour’ needs to be connected at ground level to shops and cafes to provide a lively edge space.

Land uses in the precinct can support practice rooms and arts incubator businesses to reinforce this end of town as an ‘arts hub’. Development incentives will need to be offered to support a stratum of affordable rents in the precinct.

Hartley, Lake and Grafton Streets; the Cairnsport owned site fronting Wharf St, and the Council-owned post office site which is to be redeveloped as a Council car park. Each of these sites need to contribute to the liveliness and success of the entertainment precinct. Street fronting active ground floor uses, shaded arbours over the streets and incorporation of some space for arts-based businesses will be important components of each of these developments.

Wharf Street needs to be a walkable pedestrian environment that is not ‘sacrificed’ to all the servicing needs of the precinct, which need to be handled with thought and care.

The key sites for redevelopment in this precinct are: the site on the corner of

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Figure 58. Pier Carpark Section

9.2 Pier Park The Pier car park is a convenient and well used facility with access to key destinations. However it is also on a piece of land that has tremendous potential value as a significant public park. As a longer-term proposal the master plan envisages the creation of new parkland and green space on the site of the Pier car park, without removing the car park. This can be achieved by creating a half level below ground car park that is terraced over with a new parkland area. In combination with the existing park areas around, a very substantial public green space can be created in Cairns, a perfect venue for events and performances, as well as just more enjoyable green space for the City and the community. This new park can contribute to the creation of an outstanding leisure, recreation and event precinct linking the lagoon, Esplanade, Reef Fleet terminal and Fogarty Park sound shell. The diagonal pathway through the park would be kept, and the long distance coach

transit interchange can be relocated with the area to be opposite the pier shopping centre, with a turn around area at the end of the access road. The option exists to create a development site on the southern edge to help fund the creation of the park.

Figure 59. Pier Park Aerial Sketch Document_Template

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10.0 Implementation The content of the master plan stretches across several discipline areas including Council departments, State Government agencies and stakeholder groups. Its integrated nature means that it needs a body or entity that can maintain the overview while also ensuring the detail meets the strategic objectives.

Implementing the master plan will also require strong partnerships.

The key aspects to implementation are the economic development and physical works co-ordination and implementation. There are also a range of individual projects to be pursued and developed which need to be co-ordinated within the broader remit of the master plan.

10.1 Costs and Staging Priority Action: Activation Develop a detailed Public Art Activation strategy for the city centre – a unique program of arts-inspired events, festivals, markets, installations, performances etc that bring more people and more life into the city centre

It is of high importance that the economic development strategies for the city centre proceed in parallel with the physical works: the city needs more business, more development, more investment to thrive.

There are a number of key areas where further investment and development can be encouraged:

Priority Action: Detailed Action Plans Develop a detailed action plan for targeting the following sectors within the city centre: 1. Creative Industries 2. Medical Tourism 3. Government Agencies 4. Corporate HQ for Micronesia/Asia Pacific regional mining, logistics etc.

Priority Action: City Centre Champion Identify an economic development ‘champion’ or advocate for the city centre; a person who is able to negotiate and lobby on behalf of CRC in the boardrooms of major regional corporations and State and Federal Government This person should have high level government and industry experience, and be able to negotiate positive incentives for corporations to located to Cairns on behalf of the city.

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• Development of design of median planting – including costing and funding • Development of footpath upgrades – including costing and funding • Ongoing integration of works with TMR Lake and Spence St works

Co-ordination of Project Development and Implementation The master plan needs to be implemented in an integrated way – all the relationships of projects at different scales need to be co-ordinated across different departments and disciplines.

Priority Action: Place Manager

Economic Development

furniture and signage – including costing and funding

Appoint a Place Manager for the City Centre – a specific resource to implement the master plan. The key requirements for this role are: • It needs to be a sufficiently senior role within Council to be able to negotiate resources (staff and money) for the project, and co-ordinate and manage other departments’ roles in project implementation • The person/s occupying the role needs to have has a creative design background and preferably strong urban design experience and skills as the quality and consistency of the implementation is vital to the success of the project • The person/s occupying the role needs to have excellent negotiation, presentation and consultation skills as stakeholder engagement is vital to the success of the project The Place Manager will need to coordinate, manage, identify budgets and funding sources, and deliver all of the following projects: • Oversee changes to the planning scheme and City in A Garden Master plan • Development of design work for Shields St Heart – including costing and funding

• Paving, signage and street furniture – development, costing and staging • Further development of the ‘interpretive layer’ for the city centre – what are the key stories from variety of cultural backgrounds and how can this be brought into the city centre works?

• CEP precinct ongoing integration and design co-ordination • The development of the public arts activation strategy • Ongoing co-ordination with parking initiatives and traffic design • Ongoing community and stakeholder consultation and communication about the city centre

A detailed cost estimate for all of the works described in this master plan are included in appendix v of this report.

A summary of the key costs is as follows: Greening of Grafton: 2 blocks Shields to Hartley; $5 million (later stage to Wharf approx $3.5m to coincide with CEP timing) Shields St Heart Stage 1 Grafton to Lake Timing to coincide with CTN $4.7million Shields St Heart Stage 2 Lake to Abbott $4.5million Streetscapes – median and footpath Typically $4.9 million per long block, $3.8 million per short block Total $40million Figures Include 15% contingency + 5% profit + 10% fees But not GST The preferred order of priority of works is as follows: • Median planting; start sourcing mature stock immediately, program roll out can commence ASAP once a successful ‘pilot’ has been established • Develop a pilot ‘exemplar’ of the new streetscape upgrade with new paving, seating, signage etc to demonstrate what’s to come. This can be done in Grafton St and/or Lake St. • Shield St Stage 1; to be implemented prior to the CTN Lake St works • Greening of Grafton; to be implemented prior to the opening of the CEPStaged Roll out of balance of city centre streets • Pier Park

• Development of design work for Grafton St – including costing and funding • Development of design of street

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11.0 Conclusions and Key Recommendations The master plan provides an holistic framework for the development of the city centre for the next 20 years, covering broad strategies as well as specific built works. It builds on previous studies and the city centre vision prepared by CRC, and is strongly informed by the existing successes, special qualities and memorable character of Cairns.

The key recommendations of the master plan can be summarises as follows:

With its own major attractors, destinations and outstanding amenity, the future outlook for the City Centre is very strong.

It also has outstanding natural features and unique culture and heritage. Cairns City Centre has the potential to be an exceptional city which is uniquely tropical – verdant, shaded, open and lush, with an architecture of deep verandas and shaded cool retreats.

• Encourage intensification and mixes of use in the city centre

In creating a more compact, connected and sustainable City Centre, it needs to be walkable, green, and welcoming. The streets and public spaces need to be of a consistently high quality where the defining characteristics of the climate and the locale are reinforced. The master plan envisages a shady, cool City Centre with a rich array of significant tropical plantings, building on the character and practicality of large scale median plantings and deep awnings that has already been established.

The master plan therefore embraces key strategies to create Australia’s best Tropical City: • Create streets which are the tropical outdoor rooms of the City • Create a civic network of great tropical gathering spaces • Reinforce the unique physical characteristics of Cairns: its verdant landscape, verandahs, shaded places and cool laneways • Celebrate its role as the cultural hub of the north, supporting events, creativity and diverse cultures and heritage in the City Centre • Concentrate, mix and intensify activity in the City Centre by creating a more compact and mixed use City Centre • Make it easy for people to get into and around the City Centre by supporting public transport, and balancing pedestrian and car access Document_Template

Urban Structure: • Change the definition of the edge of the City Centre – make it smaller • Introduce a ‘city triangle’ of key public spaces that connect and cohere the centre

• Further encourage active frontage across a smaller, more concentrated area within the centre

Streetscape: • Roll out a simple program of large scale street greening to cool streets • Create deep cool awnings where there is no shade

• Suggest a loop bus connecting the various cultural, retail and tourist destinations

by attracting the ‘drivers’ of development to the city centre – corporate HQ, medical tourism, creative industries.

• Create an overall 40km zone in the city centre for safer pedestrian mobility and shared bike use

• Create an arts hub around the new Cairns Entertainment Precinct

• In line with the parking strategy, gradually move away from a car-reliant City Centre to a mixed-mode City Centre • Create public transport places that are special to Cairns and not generic • Create a consistently well-lit centre, with festive lighting in key spaces • Develop interpretive, directional and locational signage for the city centre • Create an integrated suite of street furniture with which brings together seating, signage, planting, shelter and Wi-Fi ‘hot spots’

• Support great street life through active frontages, outdoor dining and great urban spaces

Public Space: • Create a new Shields Street Heart – a public space with sheltered seating and gathering spaces, refurbishment of the seating areas around the existing fig trees, play spaces for children and grassy areas for seating and respite.

• Create new urban parks in Grafton St create shaded green respite spaces • Create Pier Park – a new green gathering space built over the car park • Support Ports North work at Trinity Inlet – a network of boardwalks and public spaces

Accessibility: • Integrate the Cairns Transit Network (CTN) with landscape and ‘walkscape’ elements

• Enlarging Fogarty Park for larger scale informal gathering and events by the ‘completing’ the leisure precinct with a new park over the Pier car park.

• Develop a public art strategy targeted at arts-based events in the city centre • Highlight special heritage places: o European heritage (buildings) in streetscape o Describe Chinese heritage in Grafton Street

• Provide places to sit that are cool, shady and green • Create a new floor which is special to the City Centre and enhances its look and presentation

• Create places for buskers, street performers and small scale events in public spaces

o Indigenous heritage Tropical Urbanism: • Encourage the urban rainforest throughout the City – no only in streets but as part of the buildings, upper level terraces and skyline

o Environmental heritage To implement these strategies economic and physical strategies need to be advanced in parallel. In particular Council should:

• Create urban verandahs, shaded outdoor rooms and tropical terraces unlike any other in Australia

• Identify an economic champion for the city centre

• Enhance and reinforce the laneways through streetscape treatments

• Appoint a Place Manager with high level design, communication and management skills

• Build on the heritage of verandahs and colonnades • Encourage shading, verandahs and places where people can sit out in the evening • Address and celebrate the heavy rainfall by incorporating rainwater elements in public spaces • Reinforce the special corners on the street grid

• Undertake a program of works with an order of priority defined by co-ordination with key projects and ‘high impact’ opportunities.

Implementation of the master plan can proceed in the knowledge that the strategies and principles have been broadly supported in stakeholder and community consultation.

Activation: • Support economic diversification of Cairns • Attract investment and development

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Appendix I Cairns City Centre Master Plan Background Information Integration Report & Design Brief

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Appendix II Community & Stakeholder Consultation Report

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Appendix III Proposed City in a Garden Master Plan Amendments

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Appendix IV Proposed Planning Scheme Amendments

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Diagram Illustrating Active Frontages

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Section showing Option for Achieving Daylight in Street Awning

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Awning Plans: Options for Daylight

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Podium Building: Carpark Sleeving Diagram

Tower Building: Carpark Sleeving Diagram

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Appendix V Costs

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