City of Rockingham urban diversity strategy is streets ahead

Local governments have expressed concerns to the Department of Planning and land and housing industries that variations to the R-codes were promoting single-storey, high site coverage single dwellings with no trees and little landscaping. They said narrow streets were being dominated by garages with many crossovers, few street trees, limited parking and little amenity.

It was found residential densities had increased in response to market demand for smaller lots, high development costs and home prices. Councils are looking into what can be done to prevent the uniformity of housing after the City of Rockingham released its Streetscape Strategy prepared by Mackay Urbandesign.

Mackay Urbandesign recommended a suite of design principles and associated minimum standards to create an attractive and functional suburban street.

Some of the recommendations were tree-lined streets, vegetated landscape interfaces, houses with large windows facing the street, parking structures set back from the street and footpaths for every dwelling.