GCC2023178 Data and Spatial Analysis and Visualisation - GCC2023178

Background 

The Greater Cities Commission Act 2022 (GCC Act) provides the foundation for the Six Cities Region (SCR), bringing together strategic planning for Greater Sydney, Lower Hunter and Greater Newcastle, Central Coast, and Illawarra-Shoalhaven. It also provides for the consolidation of the previous five Greater Sydney districts into three Cities.  

The Commission has key responsibilities under both the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) and the GCC Act to prepare a regional strategic plan for the Six Cities Region by the end of 2023. The Commission also has responsibility to prepare individual City Plans for each of the Six Cities.  

The Six Cities Region Plan (SCRP) and three Greater Sydney City Plans (Central River, Eastern Harbour and Western Parkland City) will be prepared by the end of 2023.  City Plans for Lower Hunter and Greater Newcastle, Central Coast and Illawarra-Shoalhaven Cities will be prepared during 2024. 

The preparation of these plans will respond to the Commission’s Discussion Paper Six Cities Region (2022) and will involve a critical review and update of existing strategic plans across the Six Cities Region. The Greater Sydney Region Plan (GSRP) was released in 2018 alongside the Five District Plans for the each of the Greater Sydney districts. The Commission’s planning will also build on the Department of Planning and Environment’s (DPE) Regional Plans and associated strategic planning for the Lower Hunter and Greater Newcastle, Central Coast and Illawarra-Shoalhaven. 

The Commission will prepare several working drafts of the Region Plan and three City Plans for Greater Sydney to June 30, 2023, with the first working draft due by 9 December 2022. This will allow the Commission staff to engage with Commissioner’s and key stakeholders as the plans are refined and updated through 2023. The plans are expected to be exhibited in draft form in August 2023, with documents ready to run through approval processes by April 2023. 

Project Objectives 

As outlined in the Discussion Paper, since the 2018 Region and District Plans were published, housing affordability has continued to decline, housing supply continues to fall short of demand, climate vulnerability has increased, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fault lines of social inequity, and the challenge of ensuring infrastructure aligns with growth remains critical to metropolitan planning. These issues, as well as other priorities areas, are framing our thinking as we move from planning three Greater Sydney cities to a Six Cities Region.  

In addition, there is a significant amount of new data and policies that needs to considered in preparing the updates to the Region Plan and City Plans including (but not limited to) 2021 

Census data, information on carbon emissions, active transport networks, 15-minute city priorities, infrastructure commitments, elements of innovation ecosystems and strategic plans published by local councils and government agencies including Transport for NSW and Infrastructure NSW. 

The next round of Region and City Plans will focus on providing user-friendly visualisation, graphics and maps that translate complex data and policies into easily understood information that clearly communicate the trends, evidence and background analysis that inform the strategic planning priorities in our strategic plans. The design intent is to provide informative and easy to understand maps and graphics that illustrate the evidence supporting the content in the plans.  

The Commission requires a spatial and data analyst who can support the production of graphs and infographics that provide clear illustrations of the analysis and trends (eg. census data and journey-to-work data) and support the production of maps to communicate the resulting strategic planning outcomes and actions.  

In the first instance this will involve updating existing info graphics and graphs in the Region and District Plans using data prepared by the Commission’s data team. Analysis is required to provide insights that informs the design of and prioritisation of infographics, graphs and policy maps to be included in the draft Plans.  

The info graphics, graphs, spatial analysis and policy maps will: 

?Clearly illustrate the underlying trends and data analysis that has information the drafting of the Region and City Plans.

?Be created in a systemised way that can scale up to six city region and be broken into individual cities

?Provide a visual translation of complex planning information.

?Build on, and update, the existing info graphics, graphs and policy maps in the existing City and Region plans (as well as other key strategic documents).

The output of this work is to be compatible with the GCC data management (refer Other consultancy requirements) including: 

?Data tables in excel table, with spatial attributes where required compatible with GIS systems suitable for export to Adobe Illustrator for visualisation

?Map outputs in QGIS, Adobe Illustrator vector format for publication purposes.

Scope of works 

There are three streams of work to be progressed as part of this engagement: 

Part A – infographics and graphs 

?Review the attached list of info graphics and graphs and in consultation with Executive Director City Plans agree prioritisation program for updating and analysis.

?Collaborate with the Strategic Planning branch, as well as the Data, Evidence and Insights team at the Commission, and other urban design and graphics contractors, to develop and follow a new style guide for the Region and City Plans that establish a consistent ‘look and feel’ across the plans.

Part B – Spatial analysis and maps 

?Work with the Commission’s Data, Evidence and Insights team to undertake GIS spatial analysis and convert the outputs into user-friendly maps and graphics. The priority outputs include:

o15 minute city analysis and visualisation (e.g. WPCA Blueprint Figure 10)

oAccess to open space analysis and visualisation (refer for example Figure 22 in North District Plan, and table 13 in ‘The Pulse of Greater Sydney’ 2019)

oEnhanced Metro and Strategic centres maps (e.g. refer, for example, to images on pages 72 – 77 North District Plan)

oTree canopy maps (e.g. refer Figure 52 on page 165 of Greater Sydney Region Plan 2018, noting the correct/current data set to be provided)

Part C – Policy Maps 

?Work with the Strategic Planning branch to confirm updates to existing policy maps for the Region and City Plans including:

oMetropolitan rural and regional rural area maps (for example Figure 20 in North District Plan)

oCentres hierarchy map (e.g. Figure 13 North District Plan)

The work is to be undertaken in Tranches with priorities for infographics, graphs, spatial analysis and policy maps to be agreed with Executive Director City Plans. It is further noted that as the Region and City Plan program will be progressing other policy or contextual maps such as required such as catchments, green grid and housing in parallel which may cause priorities to change.  

Note: The Commission will provide the consultant with all relevant GIS/Indesign/Illustrator layers and data sets that it has access to and/or has permission to share. 

Note: At this time, the scope does not include maps on Innovation Districts (separate engagement), social connectors (separate engagement), Housing Market Demand Areas 

(separate engagement), industrial areas and freight network (GCC prepared) and heat vulnerability (DPE sourced). 

Working with Theme / City Leads 

?The consultant will be expected to lead this work in collaboration with the relevant leads at the Commission to obtain their input and guidance. In this context

?Be available to work with the Commission in Parramatta office (minimum is for a half day once a week) to refine the draft maps/graphics in consultation with team members.

?Update content /analysis in collaboration with GCC Theme / City lead taking into account input from key stakeholders. This may include need to attend a series of in-person and online workshops.

?Support the Commission to prepare collateral and presentation of info graphics, graphs and spatial analysis and policy maps and graphics for a variety of outputs such as interagency /Commissioner workshops, presentations for engagement and/or working drafts of the plans.

Meetings & Engagement: 

At minimum the following is suggested, but will be negotiated with the successful applicant: 

?Inception meeting.

?Weekly check in on progress and priorities throughout the project to provide input into the scope and methodology and ensure agreed outputs  are being delivered

?Minimum one-half day in Parramatta Office to ensure coordination with the GCC’s data and graphics team and coordination with key Theme / City Leads and Directors