MAPPING BALLARAT’S HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE Stage 1 Final Report September 2013 Prepared for City of Ballarat Context Pty Ltd 2013 Project Team: Context John Dyke, Project Manager Annabel Neylon Chris Johnston Louise Honman Urban Initiatives Tim Hart Leila Griffiths Report Register This report register documents the development and issue of the report entitled Mapping Ballarat’s Historic Urban Landscape: Stage 1 undertaken by Context Pty Ltd in accordance with our internal quality management system. Project Issue Notes/description Issue Issued to No. No. Date 1730 1 Stage 1 Report: Part 1 30.07.13 Susan Fayad 1730 2 Stage 1 Report Part 2 - preliminary 19.8.13 Susan Fayad 1730 3 Stage 1 Report – Final Report 13.9.13 Susan Fayad Context Pty Ltd 22 Merri Street, Brunswick 3056 Phone 03 9380 6933 Facsimile 03 9380 4066 Email [email protected] Web www.contextpl.com.au ii CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Background to the Project 1 1.2 Objectives 1 1.2.1 The overall project 1 1.2.2 Scope of Stage 1 2 1.2.3 Review and consultation 3 1.2.4 Limitations 4 1.3 Project Team 4 1.4 Acknowledgements 4 2 THE HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE (HUL) APPROACH 5 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 The emergence of the Historic Urban Landscape approach 5 2.3 Defining HUL and the HUL approach 7 2.3.1 Purpose 7 2.3.2 Defining historic urban landscape 7 2.3.3 Approaches 8 2.3.4 New tools 8 2.3.5 From an Australian perspective 9 2.4 Applying this approach to Ballarat 10 2.4.1 Past studies 10 2.4.2 The Stage 1 project 10 3 WAYS OF SEEING BALLARAT 11 3.1 Introduction 11 3.2 Seeing through the layers of history 12 3.2.1 Looking at the past from the present 12 3.1.2 Using themes to explore the past 12 3.3 Seeing the urban landscape through maps 17 3.3.1 Maps from the past 17 3.3.2 Looking at Ballarat in its regional setting 25 3.3.3 Looking at the City of Ballarat 32 3.4 Seeing through community eyes 44 3.4.1 Background 44 3.4.2 Distinctive identities 44 3.4.3 Ballarat Imagine 46 4 INDICATIVE CHARACTERISATION FRAMEWORK 49 4.1 Introduction 49 4.2 Methodology 49 4.2.1 Landscape Character Assessment 49 4.2.2 Our approach 49 4.2.3 Summary 50 4.3 Setting the scene 51 4.3.1 The south- west Victorian landscape 51 4.3.2 The visual landscape of Ballarat 52 4.4 The Indicative Character Framework 57 4.4.1 Introduction 57 iii 4.4.2 Information on each character area 58 4.4.3 Indicative Character Areas, Municipality of Ballarat 59 4.4.4 Indicative Character Areas, Ballarat Urban Core 83 5 DEVELOPING THE HUL APPROACH FOR BALLARAT: STAGE 2 AND BEYOND 110 5.1 Moving from Stage 1 to Stage 2 110 5.2 Potentialities of HUL 110 5.2.1 Conceptualising complexity 110 5.2.2 Urban planning tools 112 5.2.3 Boundaries 114 5.2.4 Leading change 115 5.2.5 Community and communities 115 5.3 Framework for Stage2 115 5.3.1 Engaging Ballarat’s community 116 5.3.2 Defining 116 5.3.3 Understanding 117 5.3.4 Pressures 119 5.3.5 Directions 120 5.4 Delivering the HUL approach 121 5.4.1 Resourcing and relationships 121 5.4.2 Keeping everyone informed and involved 121 5.4.3 What will the outcomes of Stage 2 look like? 121 5.5 In summary 121 REFERENCES 123 References consulted in Stage 1 123 Resources for Stage 2 125 APPENDIX 1: FIELD RECORD SHEET 126 APPENDIX 2: THEMATIC ANALYSIS 129 APPENDIX 3: IAP2 SPECTRUM OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 161 iv MAPPING BALLARAT’S HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE: STAGE 1 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Project Ballarat’s landscape today is the culmination of thousands of years of land management and change, not least the gold story which is of national significance. Ballarat is not just a collection of historic buildings, events, precincts or separate spaces but a whole landscape, layered, complex, and nuanced and one that can be celebrated as being unique from other places. Naturally the Ballarat landscape will continue to develop, as the preparation of the City of Ballarat’s Strategy Today, Tomorrow, Together recognises, and it is vital that the cultural and social values attributed to this unique urban landscape are retained, revitalised and celebrated. This project is the first stage of a larger project designed to understand this landscape from community and wider perspectives, and to develop new and more integrated ways to manage all its values. There is an increasing recognition both in Australia and internationally that all landscapes matter, from outstanding to everyday and that landscape, both urban and rural, should be viewed as a whole and not as specific places for protection. In this report, landscape is far more than the visual landscape. The definition of landscape and ‘historic urban landscape’ is examined in Chapter 2. The UNESCO recommendations on Historic Urban Landscapes in 2012 has offered the City of Ballarat an exciting model to guide the development of new approaches to managing Ballarat’s historic and contemporary urban landscapes. This model, the principles and processes that underpin it and the opportunities it offers are explored in Chapter 2 of this report. This project will form one of a series of international pilot projects that are contributing to the development of methodologies of mapping and understanding the values of historic cities and their settings – the Historic Urban Landscapes approach. It will also make a significant contribution to the City of Ballarat’s Strategy which will provide a long-term, integrated and overarching land-use strategy for the whole municipality. 1.2 Objectives 1.2.1 The overall project The goal for the project as a whole – that is for Stages 1 and 2 - is to provide an ‘evidence- based, holistic, integrated and community-led’ analysis of Ballarat, creating a rich and nuanced understanding of its values, and resulting in a Statement of Significance that will guide the development of effective and integrated management tools to ensure that what is valued is retained in the city’s landscape into the future. In essence therefore, the project as a whole will involve: understanding the complexity and diversity of community values and perceptions, engaging with the communities of Ballarat, and recognising too the values held by wider communities – visitors, researchers, Victorians and Australians mapping and recording in other ways the values embodied in and expressed through Ballarat’s historic urban landscape to ensure that what is valued is not lost understanding how Ballarat is changing and will change into the future as a result of external forces, and how the shared vision of a desired future for the municipality can be achieved defining the urban landscape management tools – strategies, policies, plans and guidance – that are needed to retain valued landscape attributes in the face of change; some of these 1 MAPPING BALLARAT’S HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE: STAGE 1 tools may already exist but others may need to be invented to suit Ballarat’s particular circumstances. Other projects currently underway through the City of Ballarat will contribute to the achievement of these bold goals, including strategic planning processes such as the Ballarat Strategy. Implementation of the completed project may well involve further investigations. And recognising that values may change over time and new threats to those values may emerge, the recommendations arising from this historic urban landscape project will need to encompass review and continuing adaptation. 1.2.2 Scope of Stage 1 Stage 1 has a more limited goal: it is to provide an indicative characterisation of Ballarat’s historic urban landscape which will then be tested with all stakeholders and refined in Stage 2, enabling a comprehensive Statement of Significance and urban landscape management tools to be developed. Stage 1 of the project examined the whole of the municipality of the City of Ballarat and was essentially an exploratory phase. Specifically, the scope of and tasks in Stage 1 were defined as: 1 – Landscape typology and characterisation: This involved a number of inter-related tasks and represents the main body of work undertaken in Stage 1, and included: Developing a framework for the indicative characterisation mapping, including examining the HUL approach and relating it to other landscape characterisation models Examining the range of data available on the City of Ballarat – historic and contemporary maps, plans, reports (and other documentary sources), including evidence of community- held values Through overlaying of selected data sets identifying key historic urban landscape types and a working draft of potential character areas Testing and refining this analysis and the potential character areas through field study using a consistent approach Through a visual analysis identifying significant landscape elements, reference points and viewpoints, and examining the visual experience offered by key travel routes Consultation with a selection of community informants to start to understand the diversity and complexity of community readings of the landscape. 2- Stage 2 methodology Another key task for Stage 1 was to develop a methodology to guide Stage 2. The requirements included: Defining a community engagement plan for community input into the final characterisation, building on the Ballarat Imagine initiative that forms part of the development of the Ballarat Strategy Review and refinement of the draft indicative characterisation developed in Stage 1, identifying the work required to test and develop it into a more comprehensive model that explicitly encompassed community values, historic themes and contemporary perceptions How best to develop a comprehensive and over-arching Statement of Significance that would guide urban landscape management approaches.