Activity Centre - Retail

Retail

Retail is one of the four main components of activity centres, towards the broader social and environmental sustainability plus economic objectives of the increasingly preferred polycentric approach to planning and managing cities.

Incorporating retail into the activity centre mix of uses provides benefits for the immediate centre and surrounding community including a: o more equitable access to shops and services, o source of employment, o Strengthening and opportunities for marketing local economies and independent small businesses – in turn more able to compete and respond to demand, o greater work / life balance through more efficient use of time by being able to shop near where people work and/ or live o Physical connections with public transport, reducing car use and promoting short pedestrian commutes as associated with Transit Oriented Development (or see transport section) o Emotional connections through providing ‘fine grain’ opportunities for human interaction and activity such as hairdressers and cafes

Planning for retail within an activity centre framework generally promotes a hierarchy of traditional and existing high street strip shopping and cautions, if not curtails, further development out of centre/s. Exception to the general activity centre rule are single use, stand alone zones such as existing shopping centre malls, distribution centres and “bulky goods” or big box retail where the physical scale of goods sold requires larger floor plates plus heavy vehicle, loading dock access and car parking, which may better be provided stand alone.

A range of factors including determines the retail mix within a centre: o Policy directions of governing bodies, the relationships between (such as local and state) and view of the market. For example in Australia, both NSW and Victoria state government’s have defined their policy role in terms of retail as to regulate ‘location and scale’, leaving the market to ‘determine the need for retail and commercial development’ . o Mechanisms such as determining land use zones, processing development applications and developing overarching floor space ratios of retail to other uses mix; o The lobbying and influence of private sector such as property developers and major retailers and business groups such as Chambers of Commerce; o A centre’s position within the overarching activity centre policy hierarchy – as metropolitan planning documents use to represent the range of physically large and regionally important down to smaller neighborhood oriented centres. Bigger centres are associated with a diverse retail environment where the offering in smaller centres is more limited o Competition, health and other laws and regulations such as restricting larger chain and discount department stores in centres already served by independent and local retailers, certain types of retail such as more bottle shops in a community concerned about alcohol-related violence, and other government department regulations such as Health seeking to manage the number of fast to fresh food outlets.