DEVELOPMENT CONTROL DESIGN POLICY, GUIDANCE AND STANDARDS 2015
1.3
DC 15
1.3.1 How to use DC 15 As discussed in the previous sections, the document moves progressively from the broader contextual considerations to focus on issues of urban form, leading to issues in relation to architectural quality and finally zooming into more specific architectural elements. This logic is based on the recognition that all the considerations discussed in the document contribute to the creation of a quality urban environment but it is equally based on the understanding that some aspects are more critical than others and therefore need a more forceful stand. In turn, this is reflected in the type of approach the document adopts – distinguishing among: • • •
Policy/regulation (P) which is to have the most onerous weight out of all the document’s provisions in the assessment of development proposals and where every effort is focused on objective criteria, not subjective ones; Good-practice guidance (G) that generally provides the intent and establishes the principle but that may then have diverse solutions to achieve such principle particularly given the subjectivity of some of these provisions; and Technical standards (S), which supplement the above in terms of specific quantitative targets and which are non-controversial, objective, universally-agreed numerical considerations.
The following symbols and colours denote the three types of provisions within the document (Figure 16).
Figure 16: (from left) Policy/regulation, Good-practice guidance and Technical standards
In line with the new legal framework, the Authority is obliged in its decisions to take into account other material considerations. Such material considerations may result in solutions that are different than those deriving from the strict interpretation of policy. The policy, guidance and standards are present to different degrees in the individual parts of DC 15, as explained and illustrated below (Figure 17). Parts 2 and 3 of the document, dealing respectively with contextual design and urban form, are mainly characterised by policies in the acknowledgement that these parts contain critical aspects that have most bearing on the context/street and that can make or break a streetscape – they are the ‘main shapers of the street’. These are therefore the parts that need to be controlled most, not to produce standardised buildings but so as to guarantee certain fundamental street principles and parameters. Part 4 of the document, dealing with architectural quality, contains a mix of provisions, with a reduced number of policies compared to Parts 2 and 3 and conversely a predominance of good-practice guidance.
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