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Spatial planning

Step 5: Develop land use framework

The aim of this step is to develop a conceptual land use framework to ensure that land use is aligned to the precinct vision and supports community needs and requirements and contributes to the precinct character.  The first part of this section focusses on general guidelines in developing a precinct land use framework, broadly applicable across different precinct types.  The second part deals with land use planning for Urban Hubs.
01
General guidelines
Some overarching guidelines for land use planning in precincts include:
  • Consider prevailing character in sub-precincts as identified in the status quo analysis phase.
  • Consider the current and future needs for social amenities and infrastructure services.
  • Determine the appropriate land use mix for the precinct, taking into account the need to strengthen the local economy and to address stakeholder needs and requirements.
  • Identify sub-areas for phased land use transition where current land uses may not support future land use needs.
  • Adapt flexible land use arrangements that can accommodate changes and new economic and social trends.
  • Where possible, co-locate mutually reinforcing land uses – this can also assist with defined character areas and sub-precincts.
  • Allocate land uses across the precinct to activate and reap benefits from the movement network.
  • Where land uses generate adverse impacts such as air or noise pollution, appropriate structuring arrangements must be made such as implementing buffers and transition zones.
  • Determine housing typologies, densities and the distribution thereof to support the desired precinct vision, character and function(s).
  • Plan for land use that promotes safety and security in the public realm, including active multi-use for extended hours on continuous street frontages to create active streets, and to increase natural surveillance.
  • Public transport systems only become viable when the land use mix and its related intensity and density can create sufficient thresholds. This requires that careful consideration is given to how land uses are allocated in relation to the PT services.
  • Plan for land use transition between the precinct and neighbouring areas.
02
Land use planning for Urban Hubs
The process of land use planning for Urban Hubs is as follows:
  • Identify the land use character zones
  • Identify and locate the public facilities and amenities
  • Locate commercial land uses
  • Identify and locate appropriate housing typologies
  • Clarify parking and emergency services’ requirements
  • Finalise the conceptual land use framework

01

Identify the land use character zones
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02

Identify and locate public facilities and amenities
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03

Locate commercial land uses
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04

Identify and locate appropriate housing typologies
READ MORE

05

Clarify parking and emergency services requirements
READ MORE

06

Finalise the conceptual land use framework
READ MORE
Explore more steps on precinct planning and design

Step 1

Precinct identification & definition
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Step 2

Stakeholder identification & strategy
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Step 3

Status quo assessment & precinct visioning
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Step 4

Design the access & movement network
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Step 5

Develop land use framework
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Step 6

Urban design
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Step 7

Plan finalisation
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Figure: Precinct planning and design

Step 1

Precinct identification & definition
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Step 2

Stakeholder identification & strategy
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Step 3

Status quo assessment & precinct visioning
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Step 4

Design the access & movement network
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Step 5

Develop land use framework
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Step 6

Urban design
VIEW NOW

Step 7

Plan finalisation
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Identify the land use character zones
The Hub can be conceived as a set of three interdependent land use character zones that result in the mutual reinforcement of transport and land uses.  These three zones include:
  • The Heart associated with the Interchange Zone
  • The Active Corridor Zones associated with the corridors that pass through the Hub
  • The Transition Zones which are the areas remaining that doesn’t relate to any higher-order PT service or route.
Figure: Urban hub character zones
The heart
The Heart is considered to be the most central, most public, most dense and intense area within the Hub.  It will include the interchange zone and its immediate surrounds.  It is where the key higher order public destinations such as district hospitals, magistrates’ courts, training colleges, government offices, civic square etc. will be located, provided that there is sufficient space to accommodate such facilities without turning the precinct into monofunctional land use.

The interchange zone will allow safe and comfortable pedestrian linkages between the rail station and other PT facilities and these facilities other key public spaces.  It will accommodate the busiest pedestrian spaces in the Hub.

As a result, this area will be the perfect location for a full range of economic operators to be accommodated.  It should also accommodate some residential development above ground level to ensure 24-7 activity and surveillance.  Parking arrangements should be minimised given the proximity to PT services.

Remember:     The identity / character of the Hub should inform the type of activities located in the Heart.
The active corridor zones
The active corridor zones relate to the primary and secondary connectors located within or adjacent to the Hub.  Their configuration is dependent on the nature of the route, as follows:
  • Nodal development is more appropriate for railway or higher-order road links
  • Linear corridor development is more appropriate for activity routes

Business and manufacturing land use will be permitted in these zones.  Manufacturing and/or light industrial could be considered along the rail reserve, and business should be accommodated along activity routes or nodes.  Ground floors along the key thoroughfares should be occupied by activities that can be active at least 16 hours/day.  Parking requirements should be minimised given their proximity to PT services.
The transition zone
The primary purpose of the transition zone is to mediate between the heart, corridor zones and the surrounds.   This zone will be the least dense, least intense and accommodate the most land intensive of the activities.  It would however not be optimal to accommodate all parking requirements for the Hub in this zone.

The transition zone should also accommodate activities that encourage residents in the surrounding areas to move into the Hub and spaces that accommodate existing urban operators who cannot be accommodated in the more intensely developed zones.
Identify and locate public facilities and amenities
General
The public services/facilities provide the social infrastructure that supports health, education, security and social well-being.  It also includes the spaces that hold significance to the community as spaces of gathering, contestation, celebration, expression, relaxation and reflection.  These can be hard spaces such as sidewalks and squares and / or soft green spaces such as parks, that is typically collectively referred to and the Open Space Network that also include the spaces associated with key topographical and hydrological features such as wetlands, water bodies, rivers and high points.  The open space system is also the space within the public realm is made, and where significant scope exists for climate change adaptation and resilience.
Number and type of public services and facilities
Social amenity provision standards are used to determine the number and type of social amenities required. This will have been determined as part of Step 1: Assessment and Visioning. Note that there may be both (1) regional and district and (2) local facilities. For local scale facilities it will be necessary to calculate the local population.

Using a catchment area of 200 ha based on a feeder radius of 800 m from the key PT service hub, and average gross density of 119du/ha and an average household size of 3.1 people, the generic estimated catchment population is ±74 000. The list of facilities and amenities defined through the preceding exercise must then be tested against realities on the ground, including factors such as affordability levels and movement barriers.
Guidelines for public services and facilities
  • Public facilities and amenities should be located strategically within the Hub in relation to the community they are serving, as follows:
    • Highest order facilities: locate within if not close to the interchange zone
    • Local community facilities: locate on PT routes and key pedestrian links as appropriate.
  • Notwithstanding the above, it is not suitable to locate land intensive facilities such as large sporting grounds within the Heart. Land intensive facilities/amenities should be located outside of the interchange zones and active corridor zones if they cannot be designed to be less land intensive.
  • Consider options for co-locating or clustering complementary or compatible activities such as schools, libraries and recreational and community facilities. Note that some facilities such as police stations, hospitals handing emergency / related activities and other high-risk activities cannot be easily clustered with other facilities.
  • Land uses should contribute to activating streets and urban spaces by locating and making visible their public activities at ground floor level.
  • Emergency service facilities must be located in highly accessible locations outside of intense activity zones that would prevent easy entry and exit for emergency vehicles.
  • Amenities that are not normally frequented by the public, such as mortuaries, should not be located in intense activity zones.

The following diagrams locate facilities/amenities in relation to the proposed Access and Movement Framework and an Open Space Network.  Key higher order facilities are located within the Interchange Zone and other lower order facilities along the Secondary and Local Connectors and green corridors.
Figure: Locating the public facilities and amenities
Locate commercial land uses
Retail activities
Stand-alone mall type configurations are more exclusive, is not well-integrated within the urban fabric, and are land intensive with respect to parking requirements.  Instead, commercial activities should be better integrated with other land uses such as public transport, institutions, and residential development.  Related to this, new commercial development should more directly respond to pedestrian and commuter flows within the broader urban environment that will provide the following benefits:
  • Mutual reinforcement between commercial activities, public transportation and institutions;
  • More distributed but still continuous commercial activity leads to vibrant streets and a safer urban environment;
  • More opportunities for a broader range of commercial operators from the very small to large national chains.

These requirements and benefits provide designers with the opportunity to reconceptualise the form of commercial development which is presently dictated by the parking requirements of the respective zoning schemes.

The socio-economic analysis undertaken in Step 1: Assessment and Visioning may have identified points and routes where informal and formal businesses have agglomerated already and these, coupled with the real estate analysis and in combination with the proposed Access and Movement Network should provide cues as to where thresholds will be high enough to support new commercial development or consolidation of existing formal and informal commercial activity.

These activities will locate across the three land use character zones with the highest number of operators associated with The Heart and Active Corridor Zones to maximise on the thresholds generated by public transport.

Guidelines for retail activities:  
  • Retail centers regardless of scale and type should be located in highly accessible locations such as along PT routes, around PT facilities and within the Interchange Zone.
  • Small scale vendors must be located closest to high threshold spaces.
  • Strategies to ensure that the smallest scale vendors have access to a full range of basic and affordable spaces, units and/or services must be developed. This must be informed by engagement with the full range of stakeholders including the vendors themselves.
  • Commercial environments should allow the formal and informal economy to operate side by side, however the interface between the two must be carefully considered from both a spatial and management perspective.
  • Commercial development should allow for the agglomeration of similar type products and services.
  • Retail environments should locate tenants carefully to ensure that operating hours are extended in certain strategic locations. Restaurants, internet cafes, libraries etc can extend operational hours to 18 hours / 7 days a week which is preferable for areas related to transport facilities or key public spaces.
  • Large anchor tenants should where possible, be located behind an edge of smaller scale operators fronting onto public spaces and roads.
  • Retail environments should not enclose and / or securitise precincts larger than an average 60×60 block. If they do, the public roads are to be respected as public ‘rights of way’.  These public ‘rights of way’ can be roofed but they cannot be managed / controlled to restrict access.
  • The scale of the saleable / lettable modules within commercial precincts should allow for a full range of operators including the following:
    • Large retail operators who typically locate in commercial centres of between 14 000 m2 and about 25 000 m2. These operators prefer to locate with other large tenants and banking institutions in the larger centres but can stand alone as anchors with smaller tenants in smaller centres.  The smaller centres typically cannot support banking institutions (Isandla Institute, 2011).
    • Smaller retail and service-related operators who locate themselves in highly accessible but more affordable locations outside mall developments along the busier pedestrian routes.

Street vendors who locate where thresholds are high, typically in areas associated to PT facilities or alongside larger retails operators.  Street vendors operate from a variety of different structures including roofed, secured and serviced spaces.  Municipalities need to invest in or enter into partnerships with the private sector to provide the necessary storage, canopies, lighting, security and utility services. The Hubs should also allow itinerant trading in places to provide opportunities for those entering the sector at the lowest end.
Office development
Office type development logically locate where other key office development locate.  Large businesses don’t always require interfacing directly with the public in the same way that retail does.  They frequently require privacy and security and for this reason locate above ground level.  Notwithstanding this they will locate mainly with The Heart for the locational benefits such as access to restaurants and fast food outlets during lunch breaks and for easy commuting.

Guidelines for office development:
  • Where offices are located on ground floor they need to activate the street or public space onto which they front or alternatively locate behind banks of smaller scale operators to ensure that public interfaces are activated.
  • Offices should be integrated with other land uses in particular public transport and institutional development.
  • Where business is integrated with residential it should be of a finer grain i.e. smaller spaces where work spaces are connected to living spaces directly e.g. loft studios etc.
Industrial / manufacturing activities
The market and context normally inform the type, size and extent of the spaces required for industrial type land uses.  While market demand is normally for serviced sites in secured ‘parks’, the demand in townships is often for smaller manufacturing and / or warehousing business premises. Industrial / manufacturing development within the Hubs must therefore ensure that the full range of serviced industrial premises are provided including a range of smaller spaces.

Development that responds to the recent trend of combining living spaces (lofts in particular) and workshop spaces for the creative industries should also be incorporated into the central parts of the Hub to create options for working from home.

An ideal location for ‘less clean’ industrial activities may be hard up against the rail line, which is generally less optimal for other uses or outside The Heart and Active Corridor Zones.  Note however required road capacities (load bearing capacities, road widths and requirements for turning circles for large vehicles).

Guidelines for industrial / manufacturing activities:  
  • Where large industrial estates are considered they must not be developed at a scale which restricts pedestrian movement through the Hub but rather within the urban block that can be secured if necessary by buildings.
  • Where industrial manufacturing precincts are considered, they should be designed to add value to the public streets as a component of the public spatial network and as a result should look to more urban building types and layouts.
  • Industrial buildings and facilities should as far as possible blend with the surrounding urban fabric, including in architectural style. Large smoke-stack configurations should be avoided.
  • Industrial activities should be limited to clean / light manufacturing that is compatible with residential uses.
  • Locate large industrial sites away from The Heart and closer to rail lines or to primary connectors, with due consideration to road and traffics requirements for large industrial use,
  • Locate small scale manufacturing such as creative/bespoke manufacturing alongside retail to allow smaller operators the opportunity to produce and sell from the same location.

The following diagrams locate the various forms of commercial development in relation to the proposed Access and Movement Framework.  They propose that key destination retail and service developments locate close to the key PT facilities within the Interchange Zone.  Retail, office and service-related activities must also located to support the key PT and pedestrian routes which will include the secondary connectors and local connectors servicing the local residential populations.  Industrial activities must be located away from dense residential areas and highly active central zones that should attract more intensive land uses.
Figure: Locating commercial developments
Identify and locate appropriate housing typologies
Thresholds are critical to ensure that PT services are viable and to create vibrant living environments.  A ridership of 40 000 passengers in each direction daily is said to support rail or a dedicated PT route as a BRT.  This offers a guide as to the optimal densities to achieve within the Hub and its immediate surrounds.  PT viability can also be related to employment density. The CSIR (2000) suggests that ridership increases significantly upon reaching a threshold of 1 employer/100 m2 in a centre with more than 10 000 jobs. This is an incentive to create jobs as well as shopping opportunities within the Hub. This section focusses on density as a means to increase thresholds and vibrancy.

An average base gross density of across the entire urban area of 25 du/ha (PG: WC, 2009) is necessary to support a reliable PT system according to international standards.  Within a metropolitan and/or sub-metropolitan hub in the vicinity of PT routes, interchanges and stations, near civic precincts, and where is a diverse concentrated mix of land uses, activities and services, a density of 100-375 du/ha (net) is preferable (CoCT, 2012).

This translates into a gross density of approximately 50-187 du/ha, assuming that net densities are about half of gross densities, and an average gross density of 119 du/ha.  This is relatively high and will result in residential development of between 4 and 7 storeys, and higher in the long term.

To achieve medium densities will require residential developments over a minimum of 2 to 4 storeys but varying densities will have different spatial and physical manifestations.  Residential development located on the periphery of the urban blocks around semi-private courtyards will generally create better defined street spaces and more vibrant public spaces.  Medium density could also be achieved through row housing where all units have ground level entry.

Given the starting point of many of the Hubs, it will be necessary to provide a mix of housing solutions that include:
  • A mix of tenure forms (e.g. ownership, rent-to-buy and rental units); and
  • Targeted housing solutions for different income groups across the land use character zones; and
  • A mix of housing solutions to meet different lifecycle needs, with residential units in The Heart and in the Active Corridor Zones to attract smaller unit sizes to optimise on places of highest accessibility.

Guidelines for housing provision:
  • Ensure that there is a range of tenure and accommodation types provided for within each development and an appropriate split over the Hub in response to housing needs identified in Step 1: Assessment and Visioning.
  • Provide a range of live-work opportunities close to activity routes.
  • Locate higher density developments close to the main transport routes, facilities and within the Interchange Zone reducing the need for parking.
  • Do not locate residential development close to potential annoyances such as dirty and/or loud or polluting activity.
  • Integrate residential development with other land uses to activate ground floors, offer relief space and increase levels of service to local residents. The mix of land uses can be achieved vertically or horizontally.
  • Provide sufficient space to accommodate a transition zone between the public and private domains. This is especially important in dense and intense environments.
  • Locate residential development around key public spaces and places to activate and increase passive surveillance over the public domain.
Figure: Medium to high density housing
Clarify parking and emergency services requirements
Parking can be one of the largest consumers of space in cities and can negatively affect the quality of environments.  By structuring development around PT services, the need for cars and parking can be reduced.  The Hubs must be set up as ‘Special Zones’ where parking requirements in the respective zoning schemes are reduced.  Beyond this design must be employed to mitigate the visual impact and ensure that parking does not create a sterile and socially inactive precinct.

Emergency services must be accommodated within the Hubs in locations that allow quick ingress and egress.  They should therefore if possible be located outside of the busiest PT and pedestrian zones although this must be considered against the need.  The most dense and intense areas may need satellite services that rely on smaller vehicles and foot access.

Guidelines for parking:  
  • Provide limited convenient street parking but not in continuous bands as continuous car parking forms a barrier to movement across the street.
  • Provide basement parking where possible but limit the size of entrances and exits as far as possible as they sterilise block edges.
  • Provide parking associated with activity corridors behind the first layer of commercial/public land uses in landscaped parking courts.
  • Minimise the visual and environmental impact of parking by limiting the size of parking areas, planting trees, and reducing the amount of hard surfacing.
  • Where associated with residential areas and/or higher order public facilities, parking areas should be designed as multi-functional spaces e.g. play courts or markets when not in use for parking.
  • Avoid ‘structured’ parking within the first two levels above ground to prevent sterile public interfaces.
  • Cluster public facilities and amenities to help reduce the total extent of parking required especially when activities can be staggered over the day or night.
  • Consider strategies to limit loading, off-loading and servicing to non-peak times. This allows the use of road edges through the day for other activities including trading, cafes, social activity, public transport services and parking.
Finalise the conceptual land use framework
The conceptual land use framework should be understood as a plan comprising a set of layers where overlaps are essential to ensure integrated development.
Figure: Land use layers informing the conceptual land use framework
The plan should clearly reveal a logic that sees The Heart and Active Corridor zones attract the highest density of land use activity and the most land use overlaps.

The plan must be accompanied by a high-level land use breakdown in which the proposed commercial bulk, residential densities, public facilities, services and amenities for the Hub as a whole is presented.

The Conceptual Land Use Framework document must at this point be able to identify whether the proposed land uses, densities, bulk and parking are in accordance with the relevant town planning scheme parameters.  Should they not be, strategies to establish alternative parameters including the creation of overlay zones should be identified for potential consideration.

The next section of this Toolkit, focussing on conceptualising the form of development, provides guidance on how to accommodate the layering of land uses to optimise urban performance.  While land use layering can ensure the complexity of required to support an efficient and meaningful urban environment it is in the shaping of the interfaces between various land uses, and the buildings and streets and open spaces that urban performance is maximised.