Development controls - Smart technology

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Consultation has concluded

Help shape our draft Smart Technology Development Control Guidelines

Together, we’ll explore the opportunities for smarter technologies to enhance development and smart city investment, drive innovation and improve community and sustainability outcomes in Lake Macquarie, in line with the Lake Macquarie Smart City, Smart Council Digital Economy Strategy.

Over the coming months, Council is partnering with industry professionals and the community to create development control guidelines to support sustainable development. Our focus is now on smart technology.

These new guidelines will assist the development industry and community to navigate development controls and streamline information needed to complete sustainable developments in Lake Macquarie. Throughout the development of these new guidelines, Council will work together with industry and community to ensure we find the best and most practical solutions.

The aspects of smart and emerging technology we would like to focus on include:

  • Wireless networks
  • Big data
  • Smart parking
  • Smart street lighting
  • Smart environmental and utility monitoring
  • Smart transport
  • Smart homes

Thank you those who attended the community workshops and provided feedback, suggestions and ideas to Council, the next step is to combine the comments from the workshop with our online submissions and begin the development of guidelines. We'll provide a draft guideline for comment in late June/early July.

Sign up with Shape Lake Mac to stay up-to-date with the latest information.

Help shape our draft Smart Technology Development Control Guidelines

Together, we’ll explore the opportunities for smarter technologies to enhance development and smart city investment, drive innovation and improve community and sustainability outcomes in Lake Macquarie, in line with the Lake Macquarie Smart City, Smart Council Digital Economy Strategy.

Over the coming months, Council is partnering with industry professionals and the community to create development control guidelines to support sustainable development. Our focus is now on smart technology.

These new guidelines will assist the development industry and community to navigate development controls and streamline information needed to complete sustainable developments in Lake Macquarie. Throughout the development of these new guidelines, Council will work together with industry and community to ensure we find the best and most practical solutions.

The aspects of smart and emerging technology we would like to focus on include:

  • Wireless networks
  • Big data
  • Smart parking
  • Smart street lighting
  • Smart environmental and utility monitoring
  • Smart transport
  • Smart homes

Thank you those who attended the community workshops and provided feedback, suggestions and ideas to Council, the next step is to combine the comments from the workshop with our online submissions and begin the development of guidelines. We'll provide a draft guideline for comment in late June/early July.

Sign up with Shape Lake Mac to stay up-to-date with the latest information.

Consultation has concluded
  • Introduction to smart technology

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    The Smart City Revolution

    Smart technology, quite simply, is a game-changer. Cities around the world are leveraging emerging technology to drive growth, innovation, liveability, and sustainability:

    • Fixed and wireless communication networks to connect people, ideas, things, information and action (e.g. Optic fibre and Wi-Fi).
    • Vast arrays of sensors to collect ‘big data’ and improve city planning and efficiency (e.g. the Internet of Things, open data, and sensors for traffic monitoring).
    • Smart services for residents and visitors, including parking, smart energy grids, autonomous and electric vehicles, drone delivery, environmental monitoring, waste management, safety, and street lighting.

    Lake Macquarie is on the front foot, fully engaged with this digital revolution. Our commitment to smart city leadership is embedded in our Community Plan (2017-2027) and Smart City, Smart Council, Digital Economy Strategy 2016-20.

    City Builders, Future-Proofing Our City

    Council has a role to play. But we all help to build our future city. And our developers and builders, all those who design and construct our built environment, will play a critical role.

    With each new development - suburb, precinct, infrastructure or building - comes an opportunity to future-proof our City:

    • Embedding efficiency, amenity, innovation and value into our private and public buildings and spaces.

    • Integrating emerging technology into our built environment in early planning, rather than higher cost retro-fitting.

    • Helping us to accommodate a growing population with smart management of sustainability and congestion challenges.

    • Laying down foundation technology to plug-in new sensors, applications and services as they become available.

    • Establishing Lake Macquarie as a first-choice place to live, invest and visit.

    This project is about helping our city builders accommodate a growing population and create a more liveable, sustainable city with the aid of smart technology. This includes developers but also Council and other government agencies responsible for upgrading and maintaining the public realm on behalf of the community.

    Imaging and building our future city is an exciting prospect. We do not hold all the answers. We need your ideas, knowledge, expertise and collaboration.

    Council is seeking your feedback on how best to build our future city, to future-proof our City, and integrate smart technology into our built environment.


  • Future proofing the City project – outputs, objectives and process

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    Project Output

    To be a smart city, we have to build smart, integrating emerging technology into our built environment. Council wants to work with developers and our community to accelerate this process, and set new smart city benchmarks for Lake Macquarie.

    The principal output of this collaborative work will be new DCP guidelines for emerging technology - guidelines which help us to build our future city.

    Project Objectives

    Key objectives of these new DCP guidelines for emerging technology include:

    • supporting leadership, collaboration and innovation by our city builders
    • increasing awareness of emerging technology, the benefits and local opportunities
    • modernising standards of planning and development
    • gearing our City to take advantage of the Internet of Things
    • making our City more liveable, sustainable, and productive

    The Process

    The new DCP guidelines will be developed in consultation with our community, developers and key stakeholders. Council expects that this process will include:

    • an open consultation phase, with participation by the community, developers, innovators, businesses, the smart city and technology sectors, Council officials (elected and staff) and all other interested parties
    • review of current planning processes, gaps, opportunities, and best practice
    • preparation of draft guidelines and implementation strategy based on consultation and review
    • public exhibition of draft guidelines, to be updated based on final comments
    • approval by Council and ongoing collaboration and implementation
  • Smart technology - initiatives and options

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    There are many new and emerging smart/digital technologies that are being integrated into development around the world.

    To support discussion about smart technology for Lake Macquarie, this section presents an overview of such initiatives, especially the most common and most promising.

    Smart City Networks

    Digital communication networks are the foundation of a smart city. These include:

    • fixed broadband, typically provided by optical fibre or co-axial cable
    • wireless broadband, typically provided by Wi-Fi, microwave or satellite
    • wireless narrowband IoT, being low power wide area networks designed specifically for the Internet of Things
    • cellular networks for mobile phones and internet

    Smart Street-lights

    Upgrade of lights to LED and smart controllers are delivering huge savings in energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Smart street-lights allow real-time monitoring and control, including dimming by movement or light conditions.

    Street-lights are considered to be the backbone of a smart city, offering favourable positioning (in both distribution and height) for placement of networks and sensors. Many cities are combining LED upgrades with smart city deployments to reduce costs and integrate digital functionality.

    Street-lights may be retro-fitted with smart technology. Alternatively, many vendors are offering ‘all in one’ smart street-lights with an array of networks, sensors and smart services.

    Smart Homes/Smart Buildings

    Digital technology is becoming an increasingly important element of our homes and buildings. In-built sensors, networks, security features, and analytical programs, are being used to improve liveability, functionality and resource efficiency.

    This can include bio-security entry, building management systems, mobile/remote monitoring and control, sensors to measure and manage space utilisation, and building ‘pulse’ dashboards.

    Smart Parking

    Sensors and communications networks provide real time information about parking availability to make it easier for citizens to find parking when and where they need it.

    Smart Waste Management

    Sensors and big data analytics help to optimise waste collection, reducing over-flowing bins and unnecessary trips to pick-up half empty bins.

    Digital Utility Metering

    Smart water/gas/electivity meters provide real-time information to citizens and utilities, allowing the community to better manage energy and water consumption, and reducing the cost of metering.

    Urban (‘Living’) Innovation Labs

    Right around the world - in cities like Barcelona, Copenhagen, San Francisco and Seoul - Living Labs are being established to encourage ‘on street, in city’ testing of new technology. These Labs aim to trial and evaluate new ideas and solutions, and ultimately build a better city.

    Innovation/Smart Working Hubs

    High-speed connectivity makes the world our office and our marketplace. Dedicated spaces for remote working and innovation are being integrated into new development to increase local employment, reduce transport congestion, and support commercial activity.

    Open Data

    Smart cities are fuelled by access to data, and our suburbs and buildings are giant data catchments. Sharing and opening up data sets can improve city planning and operations, as well as support transparency and innovation.

    Smart Planning

    Cities and regions are using big data and computer programs to develop accurate 3D city models that improve city planning outcomes, streamline planning processes, and encourage community co-creation.
  • Smart development case studies

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    Yarrabend, Melbourne – The Parkview Apartments

    In Yarrabend, developers of the Parkview apartments have set themselves the challenge of future proofing their suburb, and pushing smart city boundaries.

    Set along the Yarra River, six and a half kilometres from the city, YarraBend is a 17-hectare master-planned site that will include up to 4000 new houses, townhouses and apartments.

    Key smart city elements at Yarrabend include:

    • Free public Wi-Fi throughout the precinct.

    • The Yarrabend app allowing residents to carpool kids to school, bike-share, view public transport schedules, get to know their neighbours, compare electricity usage, buy things, and check how busy the gym is.

    • Electric car charge points.

    • An on-site tech concierge who will fix everything from Wi-Fi connections to setting up a home entertainment system.

    • Super smart fitness studio, where cloud-based software is integrated into the mirrors to help correct the posture of weightlifters and analyse their current and previous workouts.

    • A virtual reality yoga studio, and swim classes that offer immersive experiences to “gamify” exercise.

    Ginninderry, Canberra

    The Ginninderry development in Canberra aims to be a benchmark and template for sustainable and innovative development.

    Ginninderry covers around 1600 hectares, of which half is protected. The community will be built over 30-40 years, eventually housing 30,000 residents in 11,500 dwellings. This will be the first cross-border development in the ACT and NSW, with 6,500 dwellings in the ACT and 5,000 in NSW.

    Smart city elements at Ginninderry include:

    • Encouragement to test and trial new technology within the development.
    • Integration of smart city networks to drive connectivity.
    • Development of a smart energy grid, allowing smart generation, storage, and sharing of energy.
    • Fibre to the home for every dwelling.
    • Award of a 6 Star rating (the highest possible) under the Green Star Community program.

  • Supporting smart technology in Lake Mac

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    What effect can big data and sensors have on liveability in Lake Macquarie? How can urban innovation labs work in our City? Lake Macquarie City Council is inviting all sectors of our community to help answer these questions and work together to create a smart technology guideline for development in Lake Macquarie.

    Council’s Manager Sustainability, Alice Howe, said Council is seeking input from the building industry and community to help create the guideline and find the most practical solutions for inclusion of smarter technology in different types of developments across the City.

    “New technologies are constantly entering the development space and we are looking to connect with our building industry and community to maximise their use in Lake Macquarie developments,” Dr Howe said.

    “Opportunities created through emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, smart homes, open data and environmental monitoring, will generate a more liveable, sustainable and productive City.

    “The guideline will highlight the benefits and local opportunities for including smart technology in local development, and provide a baseline to ensure consistency in how technology is applied throughout Lake Macquarie.”

    Workshops are being held in early April to explore the opportunities for smarter technologies to enhance building development, drive innovation and improve community and sustainability outcomes.

    Workshop details

    Thursday 5 April, 9-11am or 6-8pm

    Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility, 13 Park Road, Speers Point

    Register at shape.lakemac.com.au/smart-technology

    Drop in to share your ideas for the guideline and explore the ways smart technology can enhance development and shape Lake Macquarie for a smart future.

    With a number of development control guidelines to support sustainable development being drafted over the coming months, Council is encouraging interested industry professionals and community members to register with shape.lakemac.com.au to stay up to date with the latest information.