Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report - Blue Mountains City Council

Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy
2. WHAT IS A CHARRETTE, WHY DID WE DO IT, AND THE CHARRETTE
OBJECTIVES
2.1 What is a Charrette
A Charrette is an intensive five day-long, design-based, publicly-interactive planning and design
process, held in a local venue, which Ecologically Sustainable Design Pty Ltd pioneered in Australia,
and which is intended to resolve complex, large and/or controversial projects, such as town centre
revitalisation activities.
2.2 Why Did We Do It Our Key Charrette Challenge: A Broadly
Supported Vision for Katoomba
Many problems, accumulating over the past decades, have weakened Katoomba, with efforts thus far
to correct the decline having been far from successful. Efforts to date, which had generally tried to
solve one problem or issue at a time, were not seeming to stem the decline of Katoomba. Indecision
and conflicting opinions about how to deal with Katoomba’s challenges were hobbling progress.
Anticipated increases in tourism because of the Olympics, plus a forthcoming State Government
election, triggered local initiatives to get state funding for improvements to Echo Point. Echo Point is a
world class tourism destination without commensurate facilities. With the advent of the Echo Point
initiative, the idea also emerged of seeking related state and local funding to revitalise Katoomba’s
Town Centre. However, state and local leaders recognised that funding for the Town Centre was not
likely if the context of indecision and conflicting opinions persisted. They needed to find a way to
forge an achievable vision for an improved Town Centre, which would earn broad local support.
The Blue Mountains City Council, in consultation with state government leaders and their
representatives, agreed that they had to undertake:
A process, which was as rigorous and comprehensive as Katoomba’s problems are complex and
inter-locking;
A process which could bring all stakeholders together to deal with these problems;
A process which could produce a practical plan which could earn strong support and could
therefore be both funded and implemented; and
A process which could deliver results quite quickly, well prior to the forthcoming state elections.
Blue Mountains City Council decided that a Charrette or intensive design workshop was the right
process to achieve these goals. After a limited public tendering process, Ecologically Sustainable
Design Pty Ltd (ESD) was commissioned by the Blue Mountains City Council to lead a Charrette in
October of 1998.
2.3 Charrette Objectives
During the preparation phase, ESD and the Blue Mountains City Council considered Katoomba’s
challenges and came up with the following objectives, which served as the ‘values’ which drove the
Charrette outcomes:
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