Placemaking Palmwoods master plan

This master plan will help shape the 'look and feel' of the public space and streets in Palmwoods. It draws inspiration from the town's identity, character and community values.

It will:

improve pedestrian connections across the roads (particularly Margaret Street)
consider pedestrian connections through properties in future planning
investigate future off-street car parking.

The master plan is available to view below:

chapter 1 - introduction (PDF, 1910KB)
chapter 2 - community engagement (PDF, 7350KB)
chapter 3 - placemaking themes (PDF, 1636KB)
chapter 4 - public domain master plan (PDF, 4565KB)
chapter 5 - character palettes (PDF, 1230KB)
chapter 6 - implementation plan (PDF, 568KB).

Overview

The community provided input into the Placemaking Palmwoods public domain master plan. From November 2013 to March 2014 council held various stakeholder meetings and 2 workshops with the community.

The community's priorities were to have:

most of the construction budget spent on a town square
some minor funding to go to traffic calming, pedestrian crossing facilities and trees on the sides of the road in Margaret Street.

These priorities will be delivered subject to funding.

Community identity and values

The following activities were done to gain community feedback and provide an overview of Palmwoods identity and values:

an identity and values survey
a community video
a snapshot of stories and information about Palmwoods, history and town centre captured in the collection of stories of Palmwoods (PDF, 1524KB).

Town square

The community fully supported a new town square. This open space would provide a large flat open area for community events and social gatherings.

The concept supported by the community allows a two-way street in front of the shops, with parallel car parks. It is not possible to provide vehicle access from Main Street to the square due to technical design constraints. However, people of all abilities could access the area using ramps and stairs.

View the designs for the town square:

town square sheet A (PDF, 1889KB)
town square sheet B (PDF, 2056KB).

Margaret Street

2 options were developed for Margaret Street and following feedback from the first workshop, a third option was sketched to reflect the community's request. This was based on a simplified option for the street that looked at retaining the existing parking and centre median line marking, with 2 improved pedestrian crossing facilities - One opposite Rick's Diner and the other in front of the Heritage Bank/Post Office. This third option was the preferred option when presented at the second workshop. There was some support for option 1 with a planted centre median. There was minimal support for option 2 with angled parking on both sides of the road.

Overall, the community accepted traffic lights at Main Street and Margaret Street if required in the future. There was limited negative feedback.

There was overall support for a 40 km/hr zone through town on Margaret Street with limited negative feedback.

View the designs for Margaret Street: