The Lived Experience of Residents in an Emerging Master-Planned Community

Master-planned communities around the world are developed and purposefully planned to address housing sustainability and community connectivity; they often have a distinctive look, and appeal to a particular customer base desiring a strong, utopian-esque community. However, the lived experience of new residents joining master-planned communities has not been explored. This paper examines the lived experience of new residents within an emerging Australian master-planned estate, and reports on the first two stages of a longitudinal study focusing on the results of an online forum. This unique study presents real-life findings on a culturally diverse community. The findings reveal how the purposeful development of community identity in the early stages of the MPCommunity has not led to satisfactory levels of social infrastructure or social connectedness for the pioneering residents. The physical and social environment, as interpreted by residents against the developers’ imagined vision and marketing testimonies, has not been entirely satisfactory. Infrastructure issues—such as transport, and access to daily activities such as shopping, work, and school—were points of frustration and dissatisfaction. The findings provide insight into the challenges and opportunities for residents in a developing MPC, and further our understanding of the specific factors that inform us as to how social infrastructure can best encourage and support connection within existing and future MPC developments.

Revisiting the Bach: A model for New Zealand's coastal holiday communities

<p><b>The original holiday architecture of New Zealand’s coastline has faded from the nation’s memory. The bach was once an icon of national culture; it represented a simple, easy-going lifestyle that many aspired to adopt during holidays and on weekends. As some may remember, the bach was a small building that facilitated the very basics of life in a coastal context. It was small, in-expensive, and built with a strong sense of its surroundings. </b></p> <p>Regulation around building code compliance and resource management have slowly seen the coastal landscape change. Second homes are now required to be built professionally, usually on privately developed land. Subdivisions filled with luxurious beach houses now overwhelm the natural environment, as land-owners compete for their slice of sea-side paradise.</p> <p>This research aims to challenge the status quo by looking to the modest baches of the past for architectural solutions. Research into the bach typology uncovered what made them so treasured as holiday facilitators; whilst a model of shared land ownership addressed issues surrounding the planning of coastal buildings. A master planned community located in the Coromandel Peninsula at Waikawau Bay was developed to join these two facets together. As one of the last undeveloped beaches on the Peninsula, Waikawau presented a unique context for this research.</p> <p>Data-collection on historic bach buildings was completed through the method of Thematic Analysis. Following this; research through design reintroduced the architectural qualities of the bach to a contemporary context. The results showed that through shared-ownership models, the Coromandel Coast could continue to be developed and even densified through new planning methods and revised architectural design. These results suggest that future development of our coastlines can still occur, but new ideas about the planning and ownership of holiday towns are required; ideas that should be fore fronted by community and place, to sustain and enhance the coastal landscape.</p>

Revisiting the Bach: A model for New Zealand's coastal holiday communities

<p><b>The original holiday architecture of New Zealand’s coastline has faded from the nation’s memory. The bach was once an icon of national culture; it represented a simple, easy-going lifestyle that many aspired to adopt during holidays and on weekends. As some may remember, the bach was a small building that facilitated the very basics of life in a coastal context. It was small, in-expensive, and built with a strong sense of its surroundings. </b></p> <p>Regulation around building code compliance and resource management have slowly seen the coastal landscape change. Second homes are now required to be built professionally, usually on privately developed land. Subdivisions filled with luxurious beach houses now overwhelm the natural environment, as land-owners compete for their slice of sea-side paradise.</p> <p>This research aims to challenge the status quo by looking to the modest baches of the past for architectural solutions. Research into the bach typology uncovered what made them so treasured as holiday facilitators; whilst a model of shared land ownership addressed issues surrounding the planning of coastal buildings. A master planned community located in the Coromandel Peninsula at Waikawau Bay was developed to join these two facets together. As one of the last undeveloped beaches on the Peninsula, Waikawau presented a unique context for this research.</p> <p>Data-collection on historic bach buildings was completed through the method of Thematic Analysis. Following this; research through design reintroduced the architectural qualities of the bach to a contemporary context. The results showed that through shared-ownership models, the Coromandel Coast could continue to be developed and even densified through new planning methods and revised architectural design. These results suggest that future development of our coastlines can still occur, but new ideas about the planning and ownership of holiday towns are required; ideas that should be fore fronted by community and place, to sustain and enhance the coastal landscape.</p>

Infrastructure of the Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Based on Examples of Italy and Poland

Binding and planned community regulations regarding INSPIRE and other documents resulting from work on INSPIRE have forced the member countries to implement new or updated regulations. The purpose of creating the spatial information infrastructure was to unify the exchange of geographical data at the national and international levels, create transparent and favorable conditions for the use of geographical data, facilitate decision-making and develop business activity, and, as a consequence, facilitate the creation of the INSPIRE geoportal by the European Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, which aims be the central hub of the European spatial information infrastructure. Land management systems use layers from geoportals and are also a data source because their task is to develop sustainable space development. The article presents the rules for implementing EU directives in Poland and Italy at various levels of detail and examines access to data and spatial information infrastructure. A comparative analysis of geoportals was performed in terms of the functionality and availability of free data (types of data) at national and local levels in terms of verification of compliance with the Ubiquitous Public Access Context Information Model (UPA) defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19100. National geoportals (Polish Geoportal 2 and the Italian-Geoportale Nazionale) and Municipal Spatial Information Systems from the cities of Olsztyn and Bari were compared.

Travel Behaviour of the Elderly in Planned and Unplanned Communities of Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria

Interests in the study of travel behaviour of the elderly have been growing in the last two decades and many of the works done are concentrated in the global north. Evidence from literature reveals that most of these studies focus more on the impact of individual and household socioeconomic attributes, urban form, travel attributes, and policy factors on the travel behaviour of the elderly, but less on the influence of neighbourhood planning. This paper examined the travel behaviour of old people in Festac town (planned) and Ketu (unplanned) community of Lagos metropolis, southwest Nigeria with a view to determining the influence of neighbourhood planning on travel pattern. The two neighbourhoods were carefully and purposively selected for collection of socio-economic and travel data through structured questionnaire that was administered on 155 randomly selected elderly respondents. The study revealed significant differences and some similarities in respondents’ socio-economic and travel characteristics. Respondents from the planned community have a higher daily mean trip rate and mean trip time than those in unplanned community. Residents of planned community also undertake higher work and social trips and rely on automobile more than those in unplanned community. Apart from the fact that the majority of respondents travel more during the off-peak period, frequent road congestion was reported as the top mobility challenge among respondents in the two neighbourhoods. The study concluded that neighbourhood planning affects travel behaviour and recommended a walkable neighbourhood concept and promotion of elderly friendly public transport system for the study area.

Travel Behaviour of the Elderly in Planned and Unplanned Communities of Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria

Interest in the study of travel behaviour of the elderly has been growing in the last two decades and many of the works done were concentrated in the global north. Evidence from literature reveals that most of these studies focus more on the impacts of individual and household socioeconomic attributes, urban form, travel attributes, and policy factors on the travel behaviour of the elderly, but less onthe influence of neighbourhood planning. This paper examined the travel behaviour of old people in Festac town (planned) and Ketu (unplanned) community of Lagos metropolis, southwest Nigeria to determine the influence of neighbourhood planning on travel pattern. The two neighbourhoods were carefully and purposively selected for collection of socio-economic and travel data through a structured questionnaire that was administered on 155 randomly selected elderly respondents. The study revealed significant differences and some similarities in respondents’ socio-economic and travel characteristics. Respondents from the planned community have a higher daily meantrip rate and mean trip time than those in unplanned community. Residents of the planned community also undertake higher work and social trips and rely on automobile more than those in unplanned community. Apart from the fact that the majority of respondents travel more during the off-peak period, frequent road congestion was reported as the top mobility challenge among respondents in the two neighbourhoods. The study concluded that neighbourhood planning affects travel behaviour and recommended a walkable neighbourhood concept and promotion of elderly-friendly public transport system for the study area. Keywords: Aging, community, elderly, neighbourhood planning, travel behaviour.