Orange City Council has announced a new precinct plan for the development of a small area immediately East of the CBD. A series of unrelated events (the relocation of a state government department, the demise of Holden and a planned upsizing of a different car yard) have meant that a roughly contiguous 4.5 hectare area at the doorstep of the CBD is more or less ready to be repurposed.

I haven’t noticed this plan really grabbing any attention locally, but it is actually pretty groundbreaking for the town. A mixed use “precinct” with townhouses, small apartment blocks with ground floor retail and a focus on walkability is par for the course in Sydney, but it doesn’t resemble anything currently in existence in Orange. Or, for that matter, the nearest comparable towns of Bathurst and Dubbo. In the Central West of NSW ‘high density’ is a row of 5 villas on a quarter acre block and new commercial developments tend to take on the US strip mall aesthetic, with plenty of parking out front. Hell, this plan even reduces residential parking minimums to “encourage the use of other modes of transport”. In a town with one registered motor vehicle for every 1.3 people, yes that’s more vehicles than licenced drivers, this is positively radical.

What’s most remarkable about this plan is that it isn’t just a cookie cutter Sydney style mixed use development with as many apartments as possible shoehorned onto a site. There seems to be a genuine desire to integrate the development into the surrounding neighbourhood and improve pedestrian links through the area. The 450m site frontage along the Bathurst Road currently has just 3 pedestrian crossings and is a right pain to cross in peak hour. The precinct plan places an additional 4 pedestrian crossings, giving an average of one every 65 metres, which goes a long way to improving the porousness of the street network in the area. For comparison, to the immediate East of the site, at present there’s a 500 metre gap between safe crossing points. Good pedestrian accessibility in the area clearly hasn’t been a priority until now.

Aerial image of Orange CBD and part of East Orange showing the Eastside precinct site as well as current and proposed pedestrian crossings
The area under consideration in the Eastside Precinct Plan. Existing pedestrian crossings marked in red and proposed additional new crossings in purple. Source: SIXMaps

Whether or not the plan comes to fruition as envisaged by Council is anyone’s guess, but a large portion of the site is currently sitting vacant, so there’s no doubt a few landowners licking their lips in anticipation.

The Orange property market has been going gangbusters all year, with rental vacancies below 1% and prices moving steadily up. In that climate, you could put any housing stock on the market and rest assured it’ll move quickly. Anecdotally though, it does seem like there’s demand for this type of housing and lifestyle in Orange. The town centre could be described as bustling and pretty much everything the town has to offer can be found within a short walk of the centre. Orange is the sort of town you could easily live in without a car, as long as you didn’t have any desire to ever leave the town. But I’ve complained about the poor state of intercity transport in the region before.

With the growth of the Cadia gold mine, an increasing state government presence, a moderate climate and a booming tourism industry, the town is well positioned to attract the sort of people to which a relatively car free lifestyle might appeal, i.e me. In fact, if the Orange City Council website is anything to go by, these ‘jazz class types’ are exactly who should be moving out West.

A family home that has enough opportunity to expand, schools around the corner, and a five minute drive between jazz class, the supermarket and salsa lessons. A commute to work that means you can sit in a local cafe and have a fresh, locally roasted coffee before you arrive at work – no rushing from platform to street, just easy, stress free living.

Orange City Council

I have no idea why houses in Orange might have more opportunity to expand than houses anywhere else, but apparently it’s enough of a point of difference to be the first thing that comes to mind.

It’s worth noting that a precinct plan is really just indicative of the sort of development Council would like to attract to the site. The current owners and prospective developers, as well as the inevitable NIMBYs worried about the changing character of their neighbourhood (I mean who does want their area rebranded as a masterplan ‘precinct’?) , will no doubt have something to say about whether Council’s dream will become a reality. Nevertheless, it’s exciting to see a plan that has bigger dreams for the City than a quaint 19th century main street ringed by ever sprawling suburbia.

The Orange City Council Eastside Precinct Plan is on public exhibition until the 28th of November.