Planning begins on Future Melbourne initiatives

Posted 1 April 2009 at 16:50

It's great to have this opportunity to update everyone on Council's progress with Future Melbourne.

I'm genuinely excited by the vision for the city outlined in this long term plan. Since undertaking an innovative public consultation process last year, and the plan receiving Council endorsement in September, my new Council is working on developing an implementation process to ensure the community's vision is put in place.

As Future Melbourne is the community’s plan, a wide range of community, business, institutional and government sectors will need to work together to make it happen.

From Council’s perspective, we’re looking at how we can best implement Future Melbourne through Council Plan 2009–2013, which outlines our vision and objectives for our term in office.

The councillors, Deputy Lord Mayor, and I have agreed to build our Council Plan around the six Future Melbourne goals. We believe they’re the right goals for our city. This will also ensure alignment between the Future Melbourne vision and the projects Council allocates funding to on an annual basis over the next four years. We have also adopted two additional goals, which address leadership and resources, in order to guide our organisational performance.

The eight goals of Council Plan are:

1. a city for people
   
2. a creative city
   
3. economic prosperity
   
4. a knowledge city
   
5. an eco-city
   
6. a connected city
   
7. lead by example, and
   
8. manage our resources well.
   

We feel these goals will provide a solid grounding on which to manage Council's activities over the next four years. As the Council Plan comes together, you’ll notice the ideas from Future Melbourne beginning to take shape.

One of the first of these will be our 1200 Buildings project, which has its roots in the eco-city goal. This ambitious program aims to retrofit 1200 of the city's existing buildings potentially eliminating 383,000 tonnes of CO2 currently emitted per annum. The city's existing office building stock is one of our highest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, so it's great to start the ball rolling with such an exciting and important project.

We’ve also launched a major community consultation around the redevelopment of Swanston Street. A number of design options have been developed including managing existing arrangements, re-opening the street to traffic, through to further pedestrianisation. Community consultation will commence in early April 2009 and conclude on Friday, 8 May 2009. You can view the design options and have your say on the City of Melbourne website.

Future Melbourne will also inform our review of the Melbourne Planning Scheme as the outcomes sought by the community will be translated into our statutory planning framework.

Council Plan will be finalised in June this year. A submission phase will occur from Friday, 15 May until Monday, 15 June. Visit the City of Melbourne website at that time to inspect a copy of Council Plan and have your say.

We’re looking forward to Council Plan playing a major role in realising the Future Melbourne vision of a bold, inspirational and sustainable city.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle

One Web Day 2008 In Melbourne

Posted 23 September 2008 at 18:50

As part of One Web Day, the City of Melbourne held a breakfast event above the Eureka Skydeck to share the experiences of the innovative, participatory consultation process used to develop the Future Melbourne Community Plan. Additionally, City of Melbourne Lord Mayor, John So, also contributed a blog post as the 55th ambassador to One Web Day - the post also appears on the One Web Day site.

Appearances - Andrew Gill (MC), Councillor David Wilson, Keynote: Dr Mark Elliott, Director, Collabforge

Panel discussion - Geoff Lawler, Director Sustainability & Regulatory Services, City of Melbourne, Paul Rees-Jones, Manager Planning Insights, Clemenger BBDO, Dr Mark Elliott, Director, Collabforge

Part 1 - MC's welcome, City of Melbourne representative address (Councillor David Wilson).

Part 2 - Key note speaker address, Dr Mark Elliott.

Part 3 - Panel discussion and questions to the panellists [Coming soon]

One Web Day 2008 & Future Melbourne

Posted 21 September 2008 at 16:00pm

We are extremely proud and excited at the City of Melbourne to be involved with One Web Day 2008. As an OWD ambassador, it is an honour to be publishing this blog on the eve of what will be a series of events around the globe to celebrate the empowering nature of the internet. I've watched with interest as this year's list of participating cities and countries has grown over recent months. To commemorate this year's event the City of Melbourne will host a breakfast for invited government and industry representatives where speakers will discuss the innovative, participatory consultation process used to develop the Future Melbourne Community Plan. In hosting our event we hope to inspire other organisations to follow in our footsteps.

This year's One Web Day theme of 'online participation in democracy' is closely tied with our use of wiki technology, a key component in finalising the Future Melbourne Draft Community Plan. We believe the decision to use a wiki to enable anybody to read, discuss and directly edit the plan represents a world-first on this scale and a significant step towards participatory governance. We hope others will be interested in what we've been able to achieve. Read on and see what you think.

Our decision to use a wiki was initially driven by the desire to engage more closely with the residents and users of the city and to also utilise wider knowledge networks than ever before. The Future Melbourne model involved a wide array of authors from both within and outside the City of Melbourne who could each provide unique knowledge and ideas. The possibilities of the wiki technology allowed these authors to collaboratively develop the draft plan.

The decision to enable public editing flowed naturally after settling on the wiki platform. Directly and creatively engaging the city's residents, workers, students and visitors in the plan's development was an essential requirement driving the project's success. Enabling direct participation can accelerate public 'ownership' of a plan and thereby increase its likelihood of long-term success. In other words, when someone takes an active role in creation, this investment tends to stimulate greater affinity and concern for the outcome.

So what were the results?
Well, during the formal consultation period we witnessed a tangible contribution from a wide cross section of the community. Between 17 May and 14 June 2008, the Future Melbourne site received more than 30 000 page views by nearly 7 000 individuals. More than 200 edits were undertaken to the plan by members of the public. These spanned the spectrum from corrections of spelling and grammar through to extensive well-considered contributions on the future of the city. When compared to traditional consultation programs which often involve town hall meetings and hard copy documents, we were extremely happy with the level of accessibility and interest in the plan stimulated by the wiki and the sustainability of the process.

Interestingly, during the four-week consultation period the site did not receive a single incident of spam, off-topic posting or offensive content. We were pleasantly surprised that we did not need to refer to the legal safety net of our Terms and Conditions. This was perhaps because the consultation period was not simply a case of City of Melbourne leaving the front door open before heading off on a four-week holiday—so to speak. Instead, council officers were actively editing and engaging with wiki participants throughout the consultation period. People were able to learn from experts by discussing and witnessing the real-time incorporation of their contributions into the plan.

Perhaps most exciting about the process was the possibility to draw upon a global pool of knowledge. We saw registered users from Nepal to New Zealand and India to Indonesia. It's true that many of the challenges we face as a city today are global challenges also being experienced in many other cities around the world. The potential to collaborate on this scale with those who possess specialised knowledge and ideas opens exciting new horizons for city planning.

While the Future Melbourne wiki was a major tool in the public consultation period, it's important to also note it was just one of many tools. We were careful to ensure that traditional opportunities for engagement were also available for those not able, or not willing, to participate online. These included face-to-face Question and Answer sessions with the public, a variety of public forums, opportunities for written submissions and distribution of hard copies of the plan to local libraries and community centres. Since June 2007, more than 15 000 people have been consulted in some way, shape or form as part of the Future Melbourne project.

The next step for us will be an in-depth review of the wiki consultation process involving interviews with wiki participants as well as extensive quantitative analysis. A decision is yet to be made on future applications of the technology.

The City of Melbourne prides itself as a progressive organisation, intent on embracing world's best practice and indeed, leading the development of best practice. We've demonstrated that direct and open public participation in policy development is achievable. We now hope other organisations will feel empowered to take the next step and we challenge them to follow our lead.

From all of us at the City of Melbourne, have a great One Web Day 2008.

Lord Mayor John So

Carol Schwartz, Reference Group Chair

Posted 4 June 2008 at 10:50am

Hi. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Carol Schwartz and as Chair of the Future Melbourne Reference Group, I have been appointed by the City of Melbourne, together with the other reference group members, to gather together from all concerned, passionate, and involved Melburnians, all the great ideas that are bubbling away out there, to pull them together and present them to the Councillors as a basis for formulating their strategic planning.

As the Reference Group chair, I meet regularly with the other group members and with Council staff, to discuss the progress of the plan. We try to use the experience that our various professions have provided in order to identify potential gaps in the strategy. Future Melbourne is a collaborative project that values the input of any contributor, no matter what their relationship to the city. But I think Council has identified the benefit of also involving prominent and enthusiastic Melbournians such as Sid Myer and World Vision CEO, Tim Costello, who you might also have a chance to hear from over the coming weeks.

Ultimately, as champions of the Future Melbourne plan, the strategy will require the Reference Group's approval before we officially hand it over to Council on 30 July. But until then, I hope you make the most of what is an amazing opportunity to directly contribute to Melbourne's future. Be sure you register before the public consultation period ends on the 14 June and then read, edit and discuss the Future Melbourne plan to have your say!

Carol Schwartz,

Reference Group Chair.

Welcome to the Future Melbourne wiki, where you can edit the plan for the future of our city!

Posted 17 May 2008 at 09:00am

So what's a wiki? It's a website that allows you and the rest of the community to comment, discuss and directly edit the content, which in this case is the Future Melbourne draft plan - a bold vision for Melbourne's future that will affect everybody who visits, lives, invests and works in the municipality.

Through launching this wiki, the City of Melbourne is proudly entering a new era of online community consultation. We believe it's a world-first on this scale for city planning.

To use the wiki you'll first need to register using the link at the top left. After that, you can click the 'edit' button to directly edit the content. The 'edit' button can be found on top right hand corner of almost every page. If you'd prefer to make a comment, click 'discussion' then 'edit' to join the conversation.

The complete Future Melbourne draft plan can be explored using the menu on the left of every page. Here you'll also find the Future Melbourne goals, which are a great place to start. You don't need to read the complete draft plan, simply follow your interests and contribute as you go.

Thanks for contributing to the Future Melbourne wiki. I hope you enjoy participating in this ground breaking collaborative project to create a shared vision for Melbourne's future! -- Lord Mayor John So