federal, state and local plans and policy; legislation and regulations; planning guidelines; tenure administration; land use
The attached document is the proceedings of a conference hosted by the Gold Coast Environment Centre on 13 February 1991. This copy has been scanned from the personal papers of eminent town planner the late Dr Phil Day and shows annotations in his handwriting. The file has been compressed to save disc space.The higher resolution original scan is available on request.
MidCoast Recreational Boating Infrastructure Plan 2024 – 2035
This boating infrastructure plan is part of the MidCoast Parks and Recreation Planning Portfolio.
It covers more than a hundred individual boating assets, which include boat ramps, pontoons and jetties, across our coastline, rivers and lakes, many of which are sensitive ecosystems. The Plan not only focuses on the assets but also on the activities that are conducted on the waterways, and which use the facilities. Environmental protection is the main focus of the Plan.
This leaflet dated 1985 is labelled “The City in the Country” – OPEN SPACE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY REPORT.
Waverley Park is located in Bondi Junction in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. It is the largest park within the Waverley municipality. It contains passive recreation space, sports facilities, contemporary play facilities and an extensive path network.
The WPMP is a contemporary PoM that contains up to date thinking on public open space management and provides the framework for other PoM produced in recent times.
A sample of Nick’s art
Nick Safstrom OAM (1947- ) as described by Neil Hordern, formerly of the firm EDAW:
“In a word or two as a leader, the best and still my benchmark for which I am always grateful! As a Landscape Architect – rigour and creativity underpinned by a strong moral compass. Someone who could deal with significant urban challenges and at the same time, share the marvel of often over looked cultural and environmental undercurrents. In my time at EDAW, Nick cultivated so many young landscape architects to collaborate and enjoy problem solving and in doing so operated at a level beyond their years of experience. “
Who is this man, Nick Safstrom who earned such a high accolade from a previous employee?
Profile
Nick Safstrom studied architecture and fine arts at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for six years (1966-1972), worked in that discipline for one year and then decided, as he was much more interested in landscape, that he would pursue studies in landscape architecture at RMIT (1973-1977). Nick’s design training as an architect, with the ability to mentally visualise an entire concept before he started working, certainly enhanced his landscape design practice as well.
Loder & Bayly
Nick was initially employed to establish a landscape architecture division for Loder & Bayly (L&B) a multi- disciplinary office in Hawthorn during the late 70s & 80s. It was an innovative practice with planners, urban designers, architects, sociologists, civil engineers, traffic designers and geographers, all working collaboratively under the same roof, to create strong design solutions for Melbourne and Australia. (One time an egyptologist was eagerly accepted onto staff as one who would bring innovative perspectives to the mix).
Loder & Bayly’s office work culture
Nick reflects that “Loder & Bayly had an amazing work culture. It was a very family-orientated practice with children and partners coming into the office after work every Friday night for drinks, while the children would play around the spaces of the open plan office in Power Street, Hawthorn and often head off for a Vietnamese meal in Victoria Street afterwards. If you had a birthday or won a project, you brought cake the next day! The group periodically holidayed together and their friendship links remain strong to this day. Sadly it was the economic downturn in the late ‘80’s which led to L&B being forced to close and then merging onto the engineering firm Sinclair Knight, but not before they had found a job for everyone in that practice.”
Loder & Bayly colleagues: L-R Jan Martin, Nick Safstrom, John Loder, Don Glasson, Bill Chandler, Michael Daff, Michael Read, Ian Wight.
Brown bag sessions
Nick established a weekly meeting for the whole office over lunchtime, called a brown (lunch bag) session. It became a very valuable ideas-sharing time. It could have been about a specific work project; philosophical ideas; world events; work culture; but everyone at that session was on equal parity. It was of enormous value for more junior staff to feel valued and a learning tool as well.
Master Planning for Melbourne’s metropolitan parks
One important assignment received by L&B in 1985 was Nick Safstrom’s appointment to design the master plans for all of the regional metropolitan parks around Melbourne. Alan Croxford, a visionary leader of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, observed that when most people visited national parks, their most common activity was to gather with families, have a picnic, kick a football and do a little walking. So he proposed and implemented adding a parks levy to every landowner’s rates bill, which gave the funding (via the Metropolitan Improvement Fund) to establish and maintain these important recreational spaces around Melbourne. These included Jells, Brimbank, Westerfolds, Banksia and Point Cook Coastal Parks.
His wife Heather writes: “I recall Nick walking around Jells Park directing the bulldozers to shape the ponds, which feed into the large lake in the flood plain valley, with islands shaped within it. This has become an important habitat for ibis and other wetland nesting birds and a greatly valued family recreational space for metropolitan Melbourne.”
Litchfield National Park
In about 1986, the Northern Territory Government envisioned establishing a second park project following Kakadu, to increase tourism opportunities. They wanted to open access for visitors to Litchfield, which was officially declared a national park in 1986. Loder & Bayly was engaged to do the master planning for this project. Nick Safstrom, John Wood and Jan Martin, along with others drove in through wilderness areas, with snorkels on the exhausts of their 4×4 vehicles, to mitigate the effect of mud and floodwaters, to finally access the Wongi Falls area. There on the sandy banks of Wongi Pool, trestle tables were set up to do the master planning.
They asked themselves questions such as
Then a helicopter was flown in to give them an overview of the whole site.
This project has proved to be very successful, with high visitor demand creating the need for ongoing strategies by others to continue management to protect this beautiful area.
West Gate Bridge Park
The Chair of the West Gate Bridge Authority, Oscar Meyer, is credited with the inspiration for the establishment of Westgate Park. He wanted to create “a beautiful park straddling the Yarra River” to complement his sculptural bridge. He developed this vision soon after the completion of the bridge in the late 1970s. The federal government funded the development of Westgate Park to mark Victoria’s sesquicentenary in 1984-85.
Nick was involved with L&B and landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie OAM to win a competition with an ambitious design relying on a constructed landscape of hills and access tracks which framed and created views of the West Gate Bridge as the central sculptural feature, and with fresh and saltwater lakes as focal points. Planned features included an island visitors’ centre, as well as the planting of Australian vegetation, improvement of bird habitat and the incorporation of a narrow-gauge railway, a sound shell and sculptures. To this day this park has an active team of volunteers who continue to develop the planting and management of the park, under the banner of Parks Victoria. It is thrilling to visit this park today to see the wide variety of birds that now call this park home, only 4kms from Melbourne’s CBD.
For further information see Westgate Park Masterplan and implementation or enter Westgate/Lower Yarra River Project or Loder and Bayly in the Victorian Government’s Library Service catalogue.
Karkarook Park / Sandbelt Masterplan and Lower Plenty River Concept Plan
For reports of these projects, visit https://www.parksleisure.com.au/library/ and enter keywords.
Click here for the first Newsletter of the practice, issued in 1986.
EDAW Australia – Architecture & Design
(EDAW is an acronym derived from Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams, the names of four of the firm’s original partners). Peter Haack has shared some background about this practice.
“The EDAW story is certainly an interesting one. EDAW Australia was a national practice of multi-disciplinary design and planning professionals covering planning, site and urban design and landscape architecture, under the umbrella of the international landscape practice EDAW.
The arrangement with EDAW came about as a buy out by Sinclair Knight Mertz (SKM) of the Loder & Bayly practice. SKM took the urban planners, social planners and the traffic engineers, but the Landscape Architecture (LA) team went to EDAW. (Jan Martin as an urban designer and urban planner went with the SKM team). EDAW was 40-50% owned by SKM at that time and SKM helped EDAW break into the Australian market. EDAW already had a strong presence in NSW.
As part of the EDAW takeover of the L&B Landscape Architecture team in 1995, Andrew Irvine came from EDAW Sydney to join with Nick and Peter Haack to form the new EDAW Melbourne practice. John Wood and Michael Erickson of L&B Brisbane became part of the Brisbane EDAW practice. After the recession of the early 1990s, the L&B team was pretty thin with Neil Hordern and Marius Brits being some of the first new EDAW recruits.”
This then led to Nick’s managing the Melbourne office and eventually all of the Australian offices of EDAW in Queensland and NSW as well as a new office in Adelaide that Nick established, (managed by John Holland) – four offices in total. It was a highly successful international planning and design firm. EDAW was eventually taken over by AECOM in 2008. Following that takeover, much of the Australian design leadership within EDAW left AECOM. Click here for a capability statement of EDAW, date uncertain, but probably not long before 2008.
Some significant projects undertaken by EDAW
Nick returned to RMIT to join the teaching staff on a part-time basis to train landscape students in business practice.
Volunteering
An interesting piece of advice Nick received from a mentor in the early stages of his career was to volunteer his skills to an organisation. Acting on this, over a period of 30 years he gave his time to the Victorian National Trust on their management board, to eventually become Vice-Chairman of the National Trust, alongside Simon Molesworth OAM. Nick’s particular interest with the National Trust was preserving historical landscapes. This voluntary work for the Trust, along with his leadership in the landscape architecture field, eventually earned him recognition as a Fellow of the Institute of Landscape Architecture and an award of an OAM in 2007.
Mooramong
One role Nick managed on behalf of the Trust was running Mooramong, a property that had been bequeathed to the Trust. Mooramong is on a working farm in the Western District of 4,000 acres, running sheep and producing crops. Nick would attend monthly management meetings with local farmers who also donated their time and advice to run the farm. What should be planted and when? How should sheep be managed and purchased or sold? Using profits from this farming activity, a large area was fenced to exclude predators to re-establish a nature reserve with habitat for Eastern Barred Bandicoots and other Australian species including the Wedge-tailed Eagle and Brolga. It was a very exciting day when the first release of bandicoots was made into the compound. For further information, enter Mooramong into the search box of the website of the National Trust, Victoria.
Early retirement
In 2000 while in his early fifties Nick experienced a stroke, which left him with aphasia and unable to talk or write. It’s just as well that he can draw, as all communications are now made by mime and drawing. Heather writes: “You won’t catch his wife playing Pictionary just for fun!” However the multiple skills he had developed over his lifetime have led to his enjoying his unexpectedly early-retirement with great satisfaction.
Once back on his feet he returned to painting, something for which he hadn’t had time, during his busy career. Multiple successful art exhibitions were held in their family home between 2002-2023 and his work has been sold all over the world. He still draws using his non-dominant left hand.
Until recently, he and Heather travelled with their campervan and 4×4 through outback Australia for fifteen years, spending three months each winter in very remote places, exploring beautiful landscapes, painting and exploring. A musician all of his life, he now sings in two choirs and still plays his tjembe for the Stroke A Chord choir.
So, his enjoyment of life continues, enriched by his innate curiosity and varied interests with great contentment.
He certainly deserves a place under the heading “Inspiring people”. He is an inspiration to many.
Nick in 2023, in his ‘habitat garden’, a creation 40 years in the making.
NICK SAFSTROM’S COLLEAGUES
With characteristic modesty, Nick has asked that some of the achievements of his colleagues be recognised in this narrative.
John Loder and right hand turn lanes – An enduring L&B innovation
Loder & Bayly was the first stand-alone planning firm in Victoria.. Prior to that, planning was an add-on to civil engineering and architect offices. The founding Principals were John Loder, a transportation planner and engineer, and John Bayly, a town planner and architect.
One of the important legacies left by John Loder (deceased) was to introduce the concept of right hand turn lanes. As an inspiring planner, frustrated by delays at traffic lights by right-turning vehicles, he organised a trial project within Hawthorn and following its success, this concept was run out all over Australia. It’s something we take for granted now – but what a difference that planning initiative has made to all of the driving public.
Don Glasson and Melbourne’s bike paths
Don Glasson, also a town planner and architect, joined the firm early after its inception and later became the third partner. Don played a key role in the growing recognition of cycling as a significant transport mode. He prepared comprehensive bicycle plans for many cities, towns, suburbs and regions from Cairns in North Australia to Adelaide and parts of South Australia. He carried out the first Rail Trail Policy and Evaluation work in the Victorian Ovens Valley, followed by many other trails in Victoria and South Australia. As part of the MMBW’s and L&B’s overall strategy of linking parklands throughout the metropolitan area, Don, a keen cyclist, designed many of Melbourne’s bike paths.
Nick, Natalie Grey, Peter Haack Bill Chandler Jan Martin Andrew Irvine
(Bill, Jan and Andrew are all deceased).
The attached file is the 2016 6th edition of Dr Ken Marriott’s leisure planning book, Managing the Planning and Provision of Leisure and Recreation Opportunities in Australia. This was initially published by the Tasmanian Government in 2010. Dr Marriott advises: “I have full permission to use it and amend it from the Tasmanian Government. It was commissioned by Sport and Recreation Tas as the course text for a VET diploma course I developed for them, Diploma of Management (Recreation Planning). Over 3-4 full courses between 2008-16, it was attended by around 50 mature-age students from Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and SA between 2008 and 2016. As you will see from the title page, the book also became the course text for a 2nd/3rd year recreation planning and policy course that I ran for many years as a sessional lecturer at Victoria University.
“The 2016 book forms the basis of my 2021 book with Tower and McDonald (Routledge UK). For Australian users, it is a far better book than the 2021 UK publication as it has a solely Australian focus and much of the very specific case material had to be deleted for the UK publication.”
Summary
Supporting materials for recreation studies at undergraduate years 2 and 3 levels.
Prominent consultant Dr Ken Marriott delivered an important paper to the Victoria/Tasmania Regional Conference of Parks and Leisure Australia in June 2023. It presents climate change as a here-and-now challenge to local governments and others providing leisure facilities. The paper has been uploaded to the PaRC Document Library along with accompanying slides.
Discussion of and responses to any of the issues and recommendations presented in this paper are invited. Similarly, anyone wishing to join a “working group” on the issues is invited to make contact. The author’s contact details are provided at the end of the paper.
This translation of the international Earth Charter incorporates much more English than a version written in, say, the Melanesian Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea would contain. There are of course many ‘pidgin’ or trade versions of English.
During the 1990s in Queensland, guidelines were developed by policy officers for management planning of broad acre State forests with the intention of achieving multiple (and sometimes conflicting) objectives. Championed by forestry officer Brett Waring, a comprehensive kit was developed and advocated around the State. Implementation suffered through repeated departmental restructures and downsizing of the staff in engaged in non-commercial forestry. This leaflet explains the process. The “Department of Natural Resources” attribution dates it to after the 1996 restructure of departments.
This narrative has been edited from a draft written for an international audience in October 1994 by Peter Nicholls, Trustee of the AIPR Trust Fund-Education. Many of the trends are highly operative in the early 2020s.
The impact of change
Alvin Toffler, in his book The Third Wave suggested that the world is going through a “Third Wave” of development. The first wave was the agrarian revolution which took thousands of years, the second wave was the Industrial Revolution, which took about 100 years, and the third wave is a sort of ‘Information Technology’ revolution which is changing the face of the world in just a few short decades. This is creating a huge impact on management in all sectors, including parks and recreation. Not only must managers cope with change but with an accelerating rate of change.
It is in this frame that we need to assess the trends affecting parks and recreation in Australia. Much of Australia’s parks and recreation management is delivered within the public sector and we have to accept that governments have rarely been proactive at dealing with change. This inherent conservatism justifies grave fundamental concern about the future of parks and recreation management in this country (and elsewhere in the world). Governments need to fundamentally review how they can effectively rise to the challenges of a world of rapid change.
An aspect requiring carefully assessment is the role of the private sector in parks and recreation and the scope for increasing public and private sector partnership. I shall discuss this further, later in the narrative.
Major trends
What are the major trends affecting the future of parks and recreation management in Australia? I suggest that they include the following:
Whether these trends will continue relates less to the level of available funding and more to the extent to which these practices meet the challenge of rapid change. We are only now beginning to recognise the enormity of the challenge in coping with changing circumstances (internal and external).
Funding
Although the most recent period of economic recession is now [1994] behind us, it has had a strong influence on funding allocated for parks and recreation. The current trend is to substantially reduce government sector spending, in favour of encouraging free enterprise in the private sector. Whether or not this trend will continue is difficult to say as there is evidence within the currently centrist [Keating Labor] national government (known as the Commonwealth Government of Australia) of a swing back to increased public sector spending. Given that under the Australian Constitution the national government has little direct responsibility for parks and recreation – these being reserved to the states and, by delegation from them, to local governments – this trend is not yet benefiting our profession. Note however my comments later on the greater centralisation in government controls.
The need for visions, missions, goals
The terms in this heading are clichés which have been bandied around by management consultants for a long time. The pity of it is that we have yet to realise how important it is to settle them if we are to progress through this era of rapid change.
Procedures come and go in times of change. The greater hope of stability lies in definitions of what we want to achieve. A simple example (to explain but not to achieve) is a vision of ‘wanting equal opportunities for all people to have access to the recreation opportunities of their choice’. The aim is clear and no amount of rapid change will alter that ideal. What will alter is the procedures and resources for achieving that aim. We need to identify our visions and agree to stick to them. With our visions clear, we can then put change to our advantage in our efforts to achieve our visions.
The future of our heritage
Why speak of heritage in a paper on future trends, particularly a future which is subject to turbulent changes? It is important to remember that our world has been built on our heritage. Whatever the world of the 21st century might produce, to be reminded of the heritage on which it is based will aid stability.
The word ‘heritage’ has some political status in Australia (notably by national and state government in the context of regulatory protection of assets) but the power it wields is more one of accommodating political forces than any real sense of pride in and protection of the physical assets and social influences on which the modern world has been built. Relevant to parks and recreation, there is little doubt that Australia’s international image is built very much on its natural heritage of wild places, beaches, flora and fauna. We speak of world heritage lists of places in Australia – unique natural areas – which need to be protected. Yet we are obliged to continually combat the economic mindset which views all areas as fair game for mining and logging.
Clearly a basic task of the parks and recreation profession is to ensure that all Australians have adequate and accessible opportunities to appreciate their country’s natural heritage. Ecotourism is beginning to be accepted as one of the great ways of attracting tourists to Australia. But also we appreciate the need to preserve those attractions in the face of the disturbance that tourism development brings to those natural areas.
On the urban and near-urban scene, one positive trend is the increasing awareness of the need to preserve creeks, rivers and streams as greenways. People are keen to see linear parks and nature corridors, either just to allow them to enjoy nature or as a means of travelling from one place to another (e.g. from home to the shops or school). Walkways, cycleways and (rural) horseriding paths are booming and it is likely that this trend will continue.
National programs
As mentioned earlier, there is little national political interest in parks and recreation other than during periodic controversies about the effects of particular development proposals on the natural environment; and periodic complaints by the environmental movement about underfunding of park management.
The fact is that the professional interests of parks and recreation managers and those of the national politicians are still far apart. However, if and when our national government decides to take seriously the fact that we are heading for an environmental disaster, their interests and those of parks and recreation management are much more likely to converge.
Centralisation
There is in Australia a trend towards greater centralisation of control over public funding. The national government has been the sole collector of income tax in Australia since the Second World War. Traditionally the national government has given large untied grants to state and local governments. In recent years such funds have been greatly reduced and that which is granted is increasingly subjected to conditions of use – ‘tied grants’. [The introduction of a goods and services tax in 2000 significantly increased the flow-on payments to states, but the author’s point about predilection for tied grants remains valid].
Given that the national government has little responsibility for parks and recreation issues (except in the Territories), this trend to greater fiscal centralisation is likely to increasingly add to the woes of parks and recreation professionals at the state and local government level as they seek to gain the funds vital to the needs of their work.
The Role of The Private Sector
The era of ‘economic rationalism’ [Australian term for neoliberal economic policy, dating from 1983] has brought extensive outsourcing of parks and recreation operations, but less thoughtful attention to how private enterprise and the visions of the parks and recreation professional can mutually benefit. There is an inherent tension between the need for private firms to extract a short-term profit and the long-term ideals of the public sector, which chronically lacks the resources needed to bring those ideals to reality. Successful mutual partnerships are known. The professional associations offer a major avenue for strengthening these partnerships.
In local government, where the bulk of public sector expenditure on parks and recreation occurs, the contemporary squeeze on public funding is resulting in a growth of the practice of compulsory competitive tendering for parks and recreation services. It is interesting to hear that while this practice is now well-established in Great Britain, there is growing evidence that it is not working and the policy pendulum may swing back (but to what?).
Already widespread in Australia is the practice of contracting services out to private firms, both in maintaining parks and gardens and in the management of recreation facilities. Contracting out saves the council much in the highly expensive areas of staffing and capital machinery. Indeed, there are examples in private enterprise where the major part of the work has been contracted out, leaving only those people who have the expertise which is unique to the organisation.
The management of leisure centres (wet and dry) is heavily swinging towards the private sector as councils see the benefits of being seen to provide a service to the community at a much reduced cost to the ratepayer. The community is generally accepting except there are those who are still concerned that social justice principles may be ignored in favour of the user-pays principles. Rather than talking of ‘user pays’, we need to be asking ‘who pays?’ This line of questioning opens all the options available along the continuum from total funding through rates and taxes (rare these days) to various proportions of public and private sharing of the costs (of which the user is only one of many possible funding sources).
Parks and recreation organisations In Australia
There is a need for a new form of communication between politicians and parks and recreation professionals and for improved decision-making procedures which are more responsive to the issues which are rapidly emerging in the field.
At present a plethora of professional associations cover the provision and maintenance of parks and recreation assets and services. None can claim to be influential in the affairs of public administration. These associations should consider consolidation as they face the challenge of remaining viable while having a small member base in contrast to the sophisticated mass marketing of private enterprise upon which these organisations depend for sponsorship.
The Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation took the lead and set up a process through which the many related associations in Australia could meet and discuss the potential mutual benefits of establishing a new major organisation along the lines of the British Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management and the American National Recreation and Parks Association.
The new organisation Parks and Leisure Australia has the potential to influence the above-mentioned trends – reduced public sector funding, expanding role of parks and recreation in improving the health of the natural environment, and strengthening the links between the public and private sectors.
Conclusion
It seems that pendulums of societal change are swinging ever more rapidly. Professionals and practitioners in the parks and recreation sector need a clear understanding of the visions they should be pursuing and be prepared to effectively use whatever trends present themselves in the cause of turning those visions into reality.
