CJ Grosvenor, New Albana

Aerial view of Port Grosvenor
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Today, the Metropolitan Planning Board (MPB) for Grosvenor and the City of Port Grosvenor municipal council both have released the new Local Plan for the Port Grosvenor area. The new local plan for Port Grosvenor was implemented under the direct planning order from the Federal Government of New Albana primarily to update the now obsolete 1997-2017 Local Plan.

Brief overview:
Port Grosvenor is one of the oldest British settlements in New Albana and, as the name suggests, it was a major seaport town serving Grosvenor and the region. Port Grosvenor is located 16 kilometres northwest of the Central Business District with Port Road providing direct transport connection in between. Port Grosvenor is home to a heritage-listed railway station with both express and suburban commuter train services to Grosvenor Queen Street railway station. There are also several tram and bus lines serving the area. Port Beach is located less than a kilometre from Port Grosvenor and is easily accessible by catching trams.

Between 1801 and 1979, Port Grosvenor was home to large terminals, cargo warehouses, dockyards and maintenance facilities all intended for the use of international cargo and passenger shipping services. Due to the opening of a new international container terminal 33 kilometres south in 1975, it had a significant impact on Port Grosvenor. Compounding the effect of a declining workforce on industrial and business activities, competition for shoppers arrived in the form of regional shopping centres. Up until mid-1970s, Port Grosvenor had been second only to Grosvenor CBD as a shopping and commercial precinct. The opening of shopping centres throughout the metropolitan region in 1960s and 1970s led to a drastic decline in retail turnover in Port Grosvenor resulting in closure and abandonment. Due to the decline, the seaport was finally closed down and demolished in 1979. Commuter train services between Grosvenor Queen Street and Port Grosvenor railway stations were cut short and terminated at Grange station (5 kilometres down the track) in 1981, but eventually extended back to Port Grosvenor in 1995.

Due to planning and the local redevelopment attempts between mid-1990s and now, Port Grosvenor have regrown back into major regional centre primarily due to a shift in focus of economy from industrial-based to service and finance based developments. This has resulted in significant improvement of the area with new buildings, redeveloped waterfront precincts, regentrified residential and commercial areas, improved parklands and new sports stadiums.

Pictures

Aerial picture of Port Grosvenor's town centre.


Port Grosvenor Railway Station (centre) with large train depots, maintenance facilities and stabling yards.


Harris Street - the main shopping and commercial road between Port Grosvenor town centre and Port Beach. All buildings on this road is protected under the heritage register (built before 1900).


Harris Jetty, Port Beach and Port Grosvenor town centre in the foreground with Grosvenor Central Business District (16km southeast) and Castle Hill (25km southeast) seen in the far background.


Aerial view of Port Grosvenor (facing northwest).

Port Grosvenor Local Plan 2017-2037
In order to effectively plan Port Grosvenor's future, implementation of the new 2017-2037 Local Plan is necessary. The current population of Port Grosvenor is 91,762 (out of 3.5 million within the Grosvenor's metropolitan region), and it is expected to grow to at least 150,000 in 2037. This will place significant impact and ongoing pressure on transport, development, services and general livability of the area. There is also a wide range of planning-related constraints within Port Grosvenor that generally restricts potential and other opportunities, these constraints are:

• Physical barrier, separation and existing social division between Port Grosvenor town centre (west side) and the suburbs (east side) in the other side due to railway tracks, large train depot and Queen's Park. There is no connection to either sides for approximately 7 kilometres from the Port Roundabout in the south to Gateway Road in the north.
• As briefly mentioned above, the entire road network of the metropolitan region is being funneled together into the notorious Port Roundabout which leads into Port Grosvenor. Due to the physical separation, there is no other way to get into Port Grosvenor for another 7 kilometres north via Gateway Road. This causes serious traffic congestion.
• Additionally, due to the physical separation, there is also a missing link in the metropolitan tram system and network. The Route 97 to Bundoora West terminates near Port Oval within just 800 metres to the nearest tram station used by other tram routes to Port Grosvenor from the CBD. The tram terminus is also located a shy 500 metres away from the Oval railway station. This causes a wide range of problems for the transport system such as zoning, fare differences and network integration problems.
• Although Port Grosvenor's town centre is quite developed with a handful of new modern buildings (since mid-1990s), Port Grosvenor is still predominately a low-density, low-rise neighbourhood which causes significant problems associated with transport, development, services and general livability. A vast majority of Port Grosvenor has already been zoned as low density residential which does not permit any new developments higher than two storeys - this causes issues with population growth forecast of 55,000 new inhabitants within 20 years. The area is full with no greenfield sites for new development.

The Federal Government of New Albana and the Port Grosvenor Municipality desperately needs your help. Please comment below your strategies, planning ideas and development proposals for Port Grosvenor. Whatever your proposal is, it needs to complement Port Grosvenor and the metropolitan region as whole. It also needs to actually encourage development opportunities in the area in order to achieve the 150,000 population target by 2037 in the most sustainable manner possible.