Activity Centre

Activity centre is a term used in urban planning and design for a mixed-use urban area where there is a concentration of commercial and other land uses. For example, the central business districts of cities (CBD) are also known as “Central Activities Districts” (CAD) (also known as Downtown in North America or "Central Activities Zone" in the United Kingdom) in recognition of the fact that commercial functions are not the only things that do or should occur there. The term activity centre can also be used to designate an area for mixed-use development, whatever its current land use happens to be.

Activity centres can vary greatly in size from the central districts of large cities to regional commercial areas to neighbourhood shopping centres and strips. They can also refer to specialised agglomerations of activities such as urban university campuses or research institutes. They are an important concept in urban planning for Transit-oriented development or TOD, which seeks to intensify landuses around public transport nodes to facilitate greater sustainability in the way people and goods move around cities.

Activity centres are a key component of contemporary strategic planning for large dispersed cities like those in Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand. Examples of such planning include the Melbourne 2030 strategy for Melbourne and the City of Cities metropolitan strategy for Sydney.

“Activity Centres are defined as any place that attracts people for shopping, working, studying, recreation or socializing” (Department of Sustainability and Environment, 2002). This is a very broad and descriptive definition that is used in Melbourne 2030. The definition was later made more specific in Melbourne @ 5 million, by saying a mixed use centre is where people work, shop, relax, meet friends and family and also live. These centres are usually a reasonable size and are served by public transport of different sizes and intensities (buses, trains, tram and cars cater for most activity centres in Melbourne). This specific definition is meant to be one of the key aspects to Melbourne 2030 Activity Centre Policy being successful in its efforts in the reduction of car dependence (K. Sulervian, 2010)

The ideas of Activity Centres in Melbourne 2030 is no now concept for Melbourne, as it is a reinterpretation of a policy. The issue surrounding this idea is the ability of our State and Local Governments working together and learning from the past mistakes to create a policy where Govenemments will adopt a strong adopt a “strong regulative approach” (R. Goodman, S. Moloney, 2004).

District Centre Police of Melbourne was introduced in 1980s and was then later abandoned. This policy was abandoned because of powerful vested interested opposing the restrictions to lower car usage, that planners were applying. The pressure applied by stand-alone shopping centre owners to expand in the end was too great, and the Government gave into their demands. This was only the beginning with State Government landing the largest blow in 1984, when they approved a “major breach of policy” (R. Goodman, S. Moloney, 2004) allowing Coles-Myers to build their headquarter as a stand alone centre instead of in a district centre. This not only weakened the policy but also gave to other powerful organizations dismissing the District Centre Policy.

Goodman and Moloney have pointed out that the current Government has not learned from previous mistakes. The issues pointed out “lack of including Local Government in the process of selecting centres for designation and future growth, the value of enforceable guidelines and regulation to support the policy and the critical necessity of appropriate funding to enable implementation (R. Goodman, S. Moloney, 2004). Goodman and Moloney believed that State Government could step back and allow “Design to take place at a Local Government level as part of their Planning Scheme Amendment process” (R. Goodman, S. Moloney, 2004). Looking back at past mistakes, the State Government should step back and let Local Government help with the implementation of the policy at ta local level, and would also give strong direction for developers to work with.