City Futures Research Centre Arts, Design and Architecture

Department of Planning and Infrastructure

Organisation name Department of Planning and Infrastructure
Organisation type Governmental organisation
Organisation fields
  • Urban / town planning
Description The Department's role is to facilitate: - Sustainable growth in the right locations; - Improved investor and community confidence; - Diverse, equitable and pleasant neighbourhoods which reflect community needs and aspirations; and - Integrated delivery of regional infrastructure and government activities. The role of my section is to provide policy research and support which assists in achieving the Department's priorities.
Commenced Work More than ten years ago
Type(s) of HBE Activity
  • Policy development
  • Advocacy for healthy built environments
  • Research to better understand healthy built environments
  • Translating research into policy
  • Capacity building / staff training
  • Information resource
  • Guidelines for practitioners
  • Tools for practitioners
  • Provision of physical infrastructure
  • Workplace initiative (e.g. end of trip facilities)
Key objectives of HBE activities
  • To improve people's physical health
  • To increase people's physical activity level
  • To strengthen social capital
  • To promote active transport (walking, cycling, public transport)
  • To reduce crime through more people on the streets / passive surveillance
The organisation addresses the following areas of work in relation to getting people active
  • Promoting walking for daily travel / recreation
  • Promoting cycling for daily travel / recreation
  • Promoting use of public transportation for daily travel
  • Reducing urban sprawl
  • Providing public open space
  • Providing recreational facilities / playgrounds
  • Improving residential and commercial densities, land use mix
  • Improving connectivity
  • Improving accessibility
The organisation addresses the following areas of work in relation to strengthening and connecting communities
  • Influencing the location of facilities within a community to ensure they are convenient, central and clustered with other facilities
  • Influencing proximity to places of employment
  • Other - Addresses all of these to varying degrees and in different contexts
The organisation addresses the following areas of work in relation to providing access to healthy food
  • Supporting local food production (e.g., through zoning and land use regulation)
  • Advocating for public transport measures that support access to healthy food (e.g. schedules and timetables and routes, space to store parcels en route, shopping shuttles, home delivery services and/or support for local corner shops and convenience stores)
  • Other - Involved in signage issues in some circumstances in conjunction with other departments (education/transport).
The organisation takes part in the following specific HBE activities Planning for Centres - guidance; Planning for Places of Public Worship - guideance; Metropolitan Strategy for Sydney; Regional Action Plans; Review of State Environmental Planning Policies including those relating to: affordable housing; rural lands; intensive agriculture; design quality of residential flat development; Infrastructure; protecting Sydney's water supply; urban bushland; and development standards. -Input into the new Planning System (White Paper due for release in December 2012).
Target Population
  • General population
  • Other - Guidance generally for practitioners who will implement the policies which are for the benefit of the entire population (although some are specific e.g housing for older people and people with a disability).
Geographic Focus of HBE activities
  • All of the state
Website http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/