RESOURCES project

Introduction:

The City of Subiaco (City), located in Western Australia, is committed to promoting sustainable urban development while preserving the unique character of its local communities. To achieve this, the City has embraced cutting-edge spatial data solutions from Aerometrex, including MetroMap aerial imagery and 3D modelling. These tools have revolutionised the City’s approach to urban planning, enabling more informed decision-making, streamlined processes, and effective stakeholder engagement. It is a testament to the City’s planning team’s culture of innovation and commitment to best practice stakeholder engagement.

About the City of Subiaco:

The City of Subiaco, located in inner western metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, spans approximately 7 sq km and is situated about 3 km west of the Perth CBD. Known for its rich history and vibrant community, Subiaco has evolved from a working-class suburb to a gentrified area with extensive redevelopment since the 1990s. The City is committed to sustainability, heritage preservation, and community engagement, guided by its Strategic Community Plan and Corporate Business Plan.

Image. 3D Models within Subiaco Activity Centre surrounded by Aerometrex 3D data

The Challenge:

Best-practice urban planning requires a comprehensive understanding of local contexts, accurate data, and the ability to communicate proposed developments clearly to stakeholders. The City faced several challenges in this regard, including:

• Difficulty in conveying the impact of proposed developments to Elected Members, the community, and other government authorities.
• Time-consuming manual processes for assessing factors such as setbacks, overshadowing, visual privacy, and compliance issues.
• Limited ability to track changes in the area over time and identify potential issues early on.

The Solution:

To address the above challenges, the City underwent an innovative approach, adopting Aerometrex's MetroMap aerial imagery and 3D modelling solutions.

3D Modelling

The City commissioned Aerometrex to create a 3D model base world of the City of Subiaco local government area. All new development applications above a specified threshold are required to submit a 3D model, which is inserted into the 3D base world. The City’s local planning policy on 3D modelling supports this. The 3D modelling data has proven invaluable for the City in several ways:

1. Facilitating effective communication with stakeholders: By generating realistic visualisations and flythroughs, the City can convey proposed developments in context, mitigating concerns and using it as an engaging way to involve stakeholders.
2. Assess amenity impacts of the surrounding area: The 3D models enable the City to contextualise development and assess amenity impacts on the surrounding area such as overshadowing and visual privacy.
3. Value-adding statutory assessments: The 3D models have enhanced the overall robustness of decision-making by providing an innovative way to value-add to statutory assessments and involve key stakeholders.

MetroMap Aerial Imagery

MetroMap imagery has become a key tool for the City’s planning team in everyday practice, enabling them to:

1. Respond promptly to customer enquiries and reduce the need for frequent site visits.
2. Create quick maps for customers and strategic planning projects without the need for GIS expertise.
3. Track changes in the area over time, thanks to frequent updates to the aerial imagery.
4. Assist with compliance investigations once commenced, including matters such as setback violations or overdevelopment.

Results and Benefits:

By adopting Aerometrex's spatial data solutions, the City has realised numerous benefits:

1. Improved communication: The City uses the Aerometrex products to engage with customers and key stakeholders to contextualise development. This improves customer service and mitigates concerns among stakeholders.
2. Streamlined processes: The Aerometrex products have enabled more efficient processes, reducing the need for frequent site visits and manual data extraction. The 3D data has provided planners with a deeper understanding of proposed developments, allowing them to better assess key amenity factors such as overshadowing, visual privacy, and the overall impact on the local streetscape.
3. Better-informed decisions: The Arerometrex products give the City accurate and current data for a comprehensive local context view. This holistic understanding enhances decision quality, ensuring proposed developments align with sustainable urban growth and character preservation goals.

Image. Shadow analysis (different times of day) as seen using Aerometrex’s 3D data and Skyline’s TerraExplorer Pro

Conclusion:

The City's use of Aerometrex's spatial data solutions is assisting the City to achieve its urban planning goals more effectively. By leveraging the power of MetroMap aerial imagery and 3D modelling, the City has streamlined processes, improved stakeholder engagement, and is making better-informed decisions that help balance development with character preservation.

Looking to the future, the City is exploring ways to further leverage the 3D modelling data, including the possibility of integrating it with other software platforms for strategic planning projects. The City is also exploring ways to improve MetroMaps, including a 3D modelling interface that allows the public to actively engage with 3D modelling data. Further opportunities for the City include the incorporation of MetroMaps Insights, which uses AI and machine learning to extract specific features from aerial imagery, such as swimming pools, solar panels, and tree cover. This could further optimise their processes by automating data extraction and analysis. As the City continues to explore new spatial data opportunities, the partnership with Aerometrex is poised to drive further innovation in urban planning and sustainable development.