Ideas for Townsville

About this document

This report synthesises the outcomes of a workshop held on 8 October 2019 with Townsville City Council and its stakeholders.

The workshop aimed to redefine what good urban development in Townsville would look like, when considered with water management in mind. It reflected the need to consider Townsville’s water context in the dry tropics, experiencing major floods and droughts, which influences the community's experience. It was also driven by a sense that business-as-usual approaches to development would not achieve the future to which Townsville City Council and the community both aspire.

By exploring the current water and development approaches in Townsville, with added perspectives from the CRCWSC’s researchers, workshop participants discussed what good development could look like. These discussions coalesced into ideas for an ‘urban forest’.

These ideas are useful in the context of both Townsville's City Plan and its infrastructure planning to manage water services. That is, they can help to shape how growth is managed by: urban planners, water engineers, and developers, who ultimately share a common goal of sustainable and liveable communities.

The ideas themselves are conceptual, and seek to demonstrate the range of development and infrastructure possibilities that can be achieved through an integrated approach to water and urban planning.

See also the companion report, Enabling water sensitive greenfield development in Townsville (IRP3).