Open dialogue at Dairy Road

Posted on 8 August, 2018

NIMBYism – the cry of ‘not in my back yard’ from local residents – is not always simply a reactionary response to change.

It often reflects the frustration many people feel when they see development going up in their neighbourhood and realise they were shut out of the planning process and have no real agency in how their community will evolve.

If consistent research has found that the size, location of types of development are not what affect development – it’s whether or not people have a say – then it makes sense that open dialogue is central to any new development.

And this is exactly what the team at Molonglo Group are doing at Dairy Road.

For decades, Dairy Road was a storage, transport and distribution centre in the far corner of Fyshwick. Few people travelled down the road unless they made a wrong turn to the airport. But over the next decade or so, Molonglo Group plans to transform the site, which sits within the wider East Lake Urban Renewal Area south and west of the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, retaining the existing industrial buildings and progressively adding additional layers and uses over the coming decades.

Credit: Anthony Basheer

The very beginnings of transformation are underway, and Molonglo Group calls it a “vast experiment” or a “prototype” of living and working in the future. Dairy Road will experiment with building uses – artists’ residents and light manufacturing will bump up against restaurants, offices and residential development – to create a “dense urban village”.

This approach is radical for a city with rigid planning rules and suburbs zoned for particular uses like Canberra.

There are already some innovative businesses onsite, including Red Robot, the largest manufacturer of photo booths in the southern hemisphere, 42 Lines letterpress, a local company specialising in printing and design, and indoor bouldering by BlocHaus. Dairy Road is now also home to Barrio coffee roasters and Capital Brewing, while Vertikal Indoor Snowsports has three downhill ski slopes and Big River Distilling Co will open its doors in mid-August.

The Red Robot team. Credit: Lee Grant.

As a neighbourhood, Dairy Road will “come into being pretty slowly,” says Dan Honey (pictured above), Molonglo Group’s Executive Director of Creative Operations.

“Right now, we are at the very beginning of the process of imagining Dairy Road’s future, and we think this is a really significant moment because we have the chance to bring new people and perspectives into the project.”

Dan admits that the development industry doesn’t always do the best job of the “community consultation” phase of the conversation. And this is why Molonglo Group wants this to be an open discussion with the community – so that the end result achieves more than just “binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ approvals,” she says.

“With Dairy Road, we are genuinely seeing this as a great opportunity and an important one. We think people should have access to, and participate in, the conversations that shape their cities. It is our responsibility to find out what people need, want and value in their communities.”

Building 3.4 at Dairy Road. Credit: Anthony Basheer.

For this reason, Molonglo Group is playing with the traditional format of public consultation.

The public participation and engagement program for Dairy Road will run for six weeks beginning mid-August. The program is designed to gather diverse perspectives on what makes for a good neighbourhood. Insights from this process will – along with additional research – inform the brief for an international design competition for the master planning of Dairy Road.

An exhibition, Make Good Neighbourhood, will run for the full six weeks. Canberrans will be able to build their own neighbourhood, vote on principles to guide urban design and hear some stories about Dairy Road.

Credit: Anthony Basheer

Tyronne Bell and Adam Shipp will host a walk around the Jerrabomberra Wetlands to share secrets of bush tucker and explain how the landscape has changed over time. A workshop and discussion with Yolande Norris will examine the complex relationship between art and development. Writer Mark Butz will tell the wild (and wildly unknown) story of Dairy Road’s many chapters – from lush wetlands, WWI training grounds and troubled teens, to its ongoing life as Ngunawal land.

There’s an online survey via a chatbot and plenty of drop-in sessions for one-on-one chats. Molonglo Group is also running a series of roundtable discussions that focus on specific themes and reach out to particular communities.

Don’t expect the usual images of apartments, Molonglo Group warns. The team has “no idea” what the residential product will look like yet – because they are genuinely waiting to hear what Canberrans think.

The 42 Lines team. Credit: Lee Grant.

There are years of hard work ahead to create an interesting place. And if the team’s hard work is successful, they hope people will want to live there.

So, the question is: how do you create such a place?

Feature image: Dan Honey. Credit: Lee Grant.