INDUSTRIAL

HUNTER ECONOMIC ZONE LANDSCAPE STRATEGY

The Hunter Economic Zone is a planned 1,000-hectare integrated industrial estate within bushland in the Hunter Valley. The integrity of the existing bushland provides a rare opportunity to create a visually compelling, consistent and high quality bushland landscape structure throughout the development that conserves and supplements significant local biodiversity.

Landscape Principles in Practice:

• Value Our Landscape: Landscape strategy predicated on understanding and working with existing environmental attributes and processes to maximise landscape performance potential.  Cross-sector collaboration throughout project for design, management and monitoring strategies.
• Protect – Enhance - Regenerate:  Maximising retention & connectivity of bushland throughout development conserves fauna habitat and endangered vegetation communities. Project employs innovative soil restoration techniques, including detailed top soil stripping and reinstatement processes.
• Design with Respect: Proposed site use implies direct conflict with existing landscape character – design resolves issues of conflicting land use requirements in integrated manner, providing capacity for functionality across economic and environmental criteria.
• Design for the Future: Project explores potential for maximising landscape functionality within a high-intervention/construction context, and provides guidelines for future management of landscape components to assist long-term design integrity.
• Embrace Responsive Design: Monitoring of soil stripping and reinstatement process and seed database to inform future applications.

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