Engaging Community in Australian Master Planned Communities

Eltham T¹*, Woolcock G², Rosenblatt T³ and Walters P³

1. Delfin Lend Lease, Millers Point, NSW, Australia
2. UQ Boilerhouse Community Service and Research Centre, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia
3. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Facilitating the implementation of a master planned community involving large numbers of people and continuing over many years necessitates the ongoing engagement with the new community at many levels. This paper reports on research into the way one of Australia’s largest developers of master planned communities engages with community residents. The research is part of a larger project involving the University of Queensland and Delfin Lend Lease that looks at the creation of social capital in master planned communities. Application of social capital theory to new residential developments and strategies used to engage community are discussed and evaluated in the paper. The important process of disengagement from the community and its relation to community sustainability is also considered. The paper draws on data from a completed development project to provide a comparison with current practice.