Education is changing. Many schools are increasing their student numbers. Space is at a premium. To preserve outdoor amenity and recreation space, buildings need to go upwards.
Botanic High, Westminster College, Pembroke School, Prince Alfred College, Marryatville High, Star of the Sea Primary School… all schools that contain buildings of three or more storeys.
Schools sit in different Zones under the under the Planning & Design Code – a variety of Neighbourhood Zones, Activity Centre Zones, the Community Facilities Zone, the City Riverbank and even the Park Lands Zone.
Height guidelines in these Zones vary. This can result in planning tensions when schools need to go vertical.
The Norwood International School recently opened its fantastic new, three-storey, middle-school designed by Swanbury Penglase. It sat in a Community Zone under the former Burnside Development Plan where the planning provisions stated that buildings “may extend to three storeys in height where they are located a sufficient distance from adjacent or nearby dwellings to avoid detrimental impact on those dwellings due to height, scale, or bulk of the development”. URPS prepared the development application. No neighbours objected and it was approved by the Minister for Planning.
The Designated Performance Feature relating to alterations & additions to schools in Community Facilities Zone under the Planning & Design Code refer to one storey. In our experience, the quantitative figures in DPFs heavily influence many Councils in their assessment work.
The future of education appears to be vertical, particularly on established campuses. The Planning & Design Code needs to be carefully applied to these campuses to facilitate inevitable vertical growth. We are always eager to work with policy makers to ensure the Code hits the mark.
Afterall, what is more important than ensuring that students have the best educational facilities possible?
