• Site description
• Site history
• Strategies & policies
  • Land use information
  • Cultural policy
  • Access and equity
  • Sustainability

Sustainability

Since 1992 a number of international, national and state policies and legislative changes have placed increasing obligations on NSW Councils to apply the principles of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) to their internal operations. The Civic Place Project provides Council with a regionally significant and high-profile opportunity to adopt a leadership role in the design, construction and management of public sites and facilities by local government, by going beyond mere compliance with the statutory requirements. Civic Place is public space, under Council ownership and in this capacity Council seeks to explicitly demonstrate its commitment to the application of statutory principles to all stakeholders – public and private.

Council’s ten year strategy for sustainable development, the Environmental Management Plan for the City of Willoughby requires:

• the incorporation of the principles of ESD into the development of the Civic Place site
• the promotion of the Civic Place site as a model ecologically sustainable development

A team of Council staff and interested Councillors worked with Ms Maria Atkinson of Bovis Lend Lease in September 2000 to develop an outline vision and preliminary ESD targets for Civic Place, with the objective to equal or exceed, national and international ESD benchmarks in the design and development of the Civic Place site.

Civic Place has been designed to be a socially, financially, economically and environmentally sustainable project. The built form is designed with a life cycle to exceed 100 years.

Through the implementation of the objectives of briefs, for example, Environmentally Sustainable Design Brief and business plans such as the Cultural Facilities Business Plan that have been developed and reviewed as part of the progress of the design of Civic Place all objectives are currently being met.

The following plans have been developed to ensure the sustainability of the project.

• The Business Case for Civic Place
• Triple Bottom Line Assessment (Annual audit and report)
• Access Brief
• Environmentally Sustainable Design Brief
• Financial Plan (Annual audit and report)
• Library Business Plan (Annual audit and report)
• Cultural Facilities Business Plan (Annual audit and report)