HCC Euro-trips

Peter and Lesley Brenner

IT”S time to add a morsel of new information to the puzzling overseas study tours of our Hobart City Council Aldermen cum entourage.

In early February 2008 – in good time for European study tour detail planning – we proposed a high quality, professional “Full Immersion Planning Visit to Zurich” to all HCC Aldermen and the HCC General Manager. The visit was to be documented by a filmmaker.
We offered free of charge a three-day full immersion liveability infrastructure planning induction. As suitably qualified Planning Institute Australia (PIA) Planning Award winners we would have acted on location as organisers, facilitators and contact brokers between the Tasmanian visitors and Zurich’s key urban planners.

Below is an excerpt of the email, we sent to all Aldermen and the General Manager. The GM’s secretary acknowledged receipt but that was the last reaction we ever had from official HCC sources in this matter:

Email excerpts: “In a nutshell we suggest that the delegation should include in its itinerary a (say) 3-day full immersion experience of the well functioning, liveability top rating city of Zurich.

Zurich is the globally sought after model for a number of urban planning approaches (eg public transport and timetabling, zero injury road safety, greening for social, economic, traffic, tourism and economic vitality, walkability, interdepartmental co-operation, environmental standard setting and energy policies, all accompanied by a highly developed public education and inclusion process).

It is little known that Zurich had a serious economic viability problem some 20+ years ago. The determination to turn things around soon developed efficient processes that now make Zurich the internationally highly esteemed, socially and economically interesting liveability model.

A group immersion experience of the reasons, workings and the spin-off benefits of liveability would help Tasmania gain an edge in successful urban planning and implementation.

Our program will be deliberately intense, will create a lasting experience and convey rock solid knowledge about proven standards of urban liveability infrastructure in the face of climate change, aging, new technology, social changes, economic stability etc.“

The email was accompanied by a detailed programme proposal that provided an abstract of what we wanted to do:

“Several days of full immersion participation in daily life in Zurich (along with background information and analysis of the experience) and what happens when binding policies of
• sustainability
• liveability
• traffic calming
• public transport
• UN Habitat Agenda 21 (and similar global programmes)
are implemented.

• What does it look like?
• How is it done?
• What benefits has it brought to society and commerce?
• What are the cost/benefit ratios?
• Why further improvements are constantly strived for and how.”

In our programme we explained why Zurich should be chosen:

“Zurich has for years been listed best or near best city regarding liveability and economic success worldwide.
• The policies that led to this status are easily accessible and exist in English translations.
• Zurich is the globally sought after model for a number of urban planning approaches (eg public transport, safety, greening, interdepartmental co-operation models).
• Peter and Lesley Brenner have good contacts to the “Green City of Zurich” department and the urban traffic executives and will be able to facilitate worthwhile collaboration with the Tasmanian group.
• Zurich is compact enough to easily allow diverse everyday living experiences as well as professional planning and implementation contacts.”

We also explained why we regarded a 3-day full immersion as the most suitable induction method:

“Tasmanians suffer from a drastic lack of exposure and awareness regarding urban planning and its ramifications for revitalisation, which, when properly done, quickly results in social and economic progress. This lack of experience on the Tasmanian home front has according to our observations, translates into not recognising successful urban details when seeing them on overseas trips. Our full immersion programme pleasantly plunges participants into a state of higher awareness.
• Prior to departing Hobart, participants will be driven around Hobart’s streets and suburbs and asked to observe and note predetermined planning and lifestyle details.
• When in Zurich, participants will be integrated in daily life circumstance over a number of days.
• They will be individually asked to observe and note predetermined details of daily life as experienced by the locals.
• Daily briefings, debriefings and analysis are foreseen.
• A final experience paper and a set of draft recommendations for Tasmanian urban planning to be finalised during the stay in Zurich. Follow-on meetings in Tasmania”

The official HCC reaction to this free offer was deafening silence. Three Aldermen (Briscoe, Christie, Burnett) personally were polite enough to come back with a “thanks, but I can’t”.

Meanwhile we are currently in Zurich and other liveable cities, once again updating our knowledge of successful integrated planning, while the Hobart City travellers are following their individual interests thereby again avoiding any structured in-depth collective experience of the real world of successful urban liveability infrastructure implementation.

The desire for individual discovery and idea gleaning whilst overseas is of course understandable, but major Council outings such as the Brest adventure are hard to digest for the average rate payer if at the same time the urgently required coming to terms with pressing liveability planning matters are deliberately shunted.

And by the way, the “Zurich full immersion experience” project was hailed by a good number of other Tasmanian planning decision makers as an excellent opportunity to tangibly involve Councillors and/or planning officers in a collective “leap frog” exercise in modern urban planning. We had all hoped that an intensive group experience would then translate into a concerted new drive for the Council to finally grasp the serious liveability and public education shortcomings in Hobart and its suburbs.

(Peter and Lesley Brenner are Planning Institute Australia (PIA) Tasmanian and national award winners in the category of Community Based Planning)

Download background paper: Full_immersion_Z_richFD0F6.doc