b'SYDNEY - BOSTON - FUKUOKA 2018 - 2019 Focusing, however, on the Ward Streetto be significant, even excessive, to offset proposal, it is a perfect example of thethe obvious risks in committing very large condition described above in which,fixed capital sums into new projects.in the absence of a dynamic spatial imagination, plans , ideas and accountingExample 2: Sydney Metros over station are confined within the boundaries of adevelopmentsite. The simplistic view of value capture confinedThe impacts, to and from all buildings into one site, as represented by the Ward Street the block and far beyond, are significant,proposal, is exactly the approach being taken and cannot be ignored in this way. Toby Sydney Metro.give two examples: (1) the proposedSydney Metro compulsorily acquired four community facilities and public opensites on Miller Street at or near Berry Street, space envisaged in the schemeamounting to 4800 sqm, for construction will themselves generate positiveof the underground Metro station serving Figure 5 (left) & Figure 6 (right): Value components.externalities such that all land values (Redrawn from Hassell 2018, p100) in the area will increase as a result;North Sydney. There is an important item of (2) equally, the measures used to raiseAustralian urban planning history involved Figure 5 shows a much bigger project. In thecapitalmassively larger buildings builtin this acquisition. One of the four sites was case of the Ward Street precinct master plan,up the hill and to the north of the areaoccupied by Tower Square at 155 Miller the consultant is contemplating an office towerwith already the highest pedestrian flowsStreet. It was a two-storey complex of small of up to 57 storeys!will impose significant shadows andbusinesses of the kind that enrich a city winds on the area and thus will reducecentre - in a modest building of courtyards The costs are all higher, the final valueboth amenity and land values to somewith balconies and stairs in a vaguely Spanish is higher, and the residual land value isdegree. style - operating within favourable economic increased. circumstances since the development rightsIn other words, the uplift and its oppositehad been transferred to 65 Berry Street in the Figure 6 compares the various amounts,(downdrop?) arising from the positive1980s to enable a larger office building to be hypothetically. Again with good luck and goodand negative impacts of investment inbuilt there. In other words, the Tower Square management, the land value has increaseddense city centres are many, varied andsite was undercapitalised, which enabled many significantly. geographically extensive. Any attemptmodest businesses to operate to the benefit to recover the unearned property valueof the city centre, in a pleasant people place It is this increase that can be attributed to theincreases that neighbours receive with a polite built form maximising patterns of project, and allows the council to achieve somethat is, to capture some of this valuesunlight and shade.measure of value capture.requires a much more sophisticated analysis.Purchase of the strata titles and compensation There are some serious problems with this Trying to account for these and otherof the owners and tenants of the Tower Square approach, or at least with applying the termpositive and negative impacts must besite might have cost Sydney Metro $50-value capture to the scheme. an essential element in assessing the60 million. The site has now been sold on merit of the Ward Street proposal, andby Sydney Metro for significantly more thanFundamentally, the scheme is misplaced,that (maybe double the cost of acquisition),20in that the council should be consideringsuggesting there will be a narrow form ofsince past planning commitments have the whole city centre, not just thevalue capture without considering these been administratively swept aside and the unimpressive block where it ownsimpacts could be highly misleading. Floor Space Ratio has been effectively land, and employing every mechanismFinally, the Ward Street proposalincreased from 1 to 12.5. The difference is available to itlevies, charges, demonstrates the enormous incentiveswrongly claimed to be value capture. A better partnerships, agreements, swaps, that are required to encourage an ownerdescription would be site exploitation.transfers, etcto trigger and sustain a to demolish a building and replace it with transformation in the quality of public something bigger: the margins for profitTwo of the other three properties on the spaces and public life in the city centre.and increased land value are only twoamalgamated 4800 sqm site were moderncomponents among many, and they needmulti-storey office buildings, requiring Master of Urban Development & Design 2018-2019INTRO 8pt.indd 21 26/11/2019 4:11:27 PM'