Community Solutions

PLANNING FOR LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY

Learn More About Community Solutions' Work by Following These Links...

• Sustainable Natural Resource Management
• Planning for local sustainability
• Social Planning
• Community Consultation, Facilitation & Engagement
• Advocacy Support
• Provision of Policy Advice

Planning for Local Sustainability

Increasingly over recent years, governments at all levels have recognised the importance of integrating the social, economic and environmental aspects of planning for a sustainable future and have sought to bring these together with good governance.

Such integrated planning is now recognised as ‘best practice’ and in some states is mandated within planning laws. The inclusion of local communities in planning for the future of their areas, integration across local government boundaries and the inclusion of ongoing monitoring and review processes are also increasingly recognised as important in moving to a more sustainable future.

Community Solutions has since the 1990s both advocated for and facilitated integrated planning processes that bring together the diversity of interests found in local communities.

Projects completed include:

Our Living Coast’ Environmental Sustainability Routemap
The Environmental Sustainability Routemap was developed as an early component of the NSW Environmental Trust funded ‘Our Living Coast’ project being undertaken jointly by Coffs Harbour City Council and the Nambucca and Bellingen Shire Councils. During 2010, Community Solutions worked with Jane Elix and Emeritus Professor Valerie Brown to design and facilitate the process that developed with the three councils and their key stakeholders, a ‘routemap’ to guide future development of shared sustainability projects across this mid-north coast region of New South Wales.

Urban Sustainability Support Alliance
A project in which Judy Lambert and Professor Valerie Brown assisted the USSA steering committee in reaching its full potential through enhanced integration and shared learning from a diversity of multi-stakeholder local sustainability projects.

Canterbury Council
A project led by SGS Economics & Planning, in which Community Solutions took responsibility for the community consultation and engagement aspects of the development of an Economic Development and Employment Strategy. A diversity of consultation strategies, underpinned by extensive community networking, were adopted to reach out into this multicultural community.

Marrickville Council
Working in close collaboration with project team leader SGS Economics & Planning, Community Solutions was responsible for community engagement and facilitation of community input to the development of an Urban Strategy for the Marrickville Local Government area. Adopting a Values Mapping approach, Community Solutions assisted the project in identifying and prioritising aspects of life in Marrickville then in obtaining community feedback and endorsement of the planning approaches proposed to address these key issues.

Baulkham Hills Shire Council
This Community Solutions led team worked with Baulkham Hills Shire Council and the University of Western Sydney’s ‘ecoprofessoriate’ to explore opportunities for collaborative projects on integrated social, environmental and economic development in the area. This project, funded in part by a SPRT grant to Professor Valerie Brown led to the formation of the Baton Forum for sustainability practitioners in local government .

Other local sustainability experience
Judy served as an elected local government representative on Manly Council from 1999 – 2008. During that time she chaired Council’s Land Use Management Committee (the principal committee of Council determining Development Applications), the Manly Sustainability Strategy Management Group and its Scientific Advisory Panel, the Manly Coastline Management Committee and the Social Plan Committee. Judy worked closely with Council staff to review and update Manly’s award-winning Sustainability Strategy and to ensure its integration into Council’s overarching plans.

Based on her role as an invited lecturer in both undergraduate and graduate courses in Environmental Planning at Macquarie University, Judy also served during 2008 and 2010 as a member of the advisory panel for accreditation of these courses by the Planning Institute of Australia