The merging of community sustainability with enhanced environmental performance: a local government case study

The City of Port Phillip is an inner-metropolitan municipality within the urban area of Melbourne. The City is on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, and has a population of over 80,000 residents. It is a mixed use area of houses, apartments, offices, retail areas and industry, with an emphasis on leisure and tourism attractions, drawing visitors from locally and overseas. It has a strongly defined urban heritage, a community committed to arts and culture and a diverse socio-economic demography. Gentrification. and rising property values have altered the physical and social character of the municipality in recent years. The Council places a high priority on Cultural Vitality, Social Equity and Environmental Responsibility; three of the four 'pillars' of its Corporate Plan. This paper describes measures taken by the Council since 2000 to effectively integrate its range of environmental initiatives with programs to enhance the social well-being and connectedness of its citizens. It emphasises the importance of integrating programs that primarily address one element of the Corporate Plan but which, by proper planning and project management, can have beneficial synergies with others. Specific reference is made to programs that the Council has recently or is currently undertaking, including: Sustainable Design Strategy, and its implementation through the planning permit process, The Sustainable Living at Home Program (SLAH), in which households work co-operatively to reduce their 'environmental footprint', in terms of energy and water consumption, travel behaviour, purchasing practice, etc., Sustainable Community Progress Indicators (SCPI), a community based program which measures how we are progressing to a more social environmentally, culturally and economically sustainable community, " margins, memories and markers", a unique, State-funded program to improve mental health by enhancing peoples' connectedness with 'place' and community via story-telling and art installations, and Design-Ins and other consultation initiatives, which aim to include all sectors of the community in the development of more convivial and effective public places. The paper concludes with the contention that sustainable cities can be more readily achieved if local governments take a holistic approach to the integration of physical, cultural and social measures to enhance the lifestyles of residents, workers and visitors.