sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

6.6.2 Existing environment
Landscape character in the study area is a function of the composition of physical,
natural and human features and activities. The assessment of the proposal’s impact
on landscape character considered how the composition of these elements would
change as a result of constructing the proposal and once it was operational. This
included the associated traffic changes resulting from the introduced traffic capacity
improvements.
This study area’s landscape character can be defined at three levels:
Regional landscape characteristics across the city centre
Local landscape characteristics within each precinct and in some instances the
sub-characteristics of each precinct
Street-level landscape characteristics along each individual road (termed
‘streetscape characteristics’).
Regional landscape character
Appendix I describes the regional landscape character as comprising:
The historic Rocks, and its stark interface with the modern high-rise buildings
between Alfred Street and Bridge Street
The visually contained road corridors in the city centre, which are framed by a
mixture of juxtaposing high-rise modern and low-rise historic buildings and a
number of pedestrianised streets
The importance of the ‘green edge’ along the city’s eastern fringe, its value in
providing an important connected open space and its function in separating the
city from the adjacent residential areas in the east
The remnant evidence of warehouses, markets and laneways in the south and
western fringes of the city centre that combine to create a grained subdivision
pattern of narrow frontages, informal public spaces and low building heights.
Local landscape and streetscape character and value
Table I-1 in Appendix I demonstrates how Sydney’s development has created a
number of distinct landscape character zones and sub-zones over a small area.
Specifically within the proposal footprint, each of the five precincts has its own
landscape characteristics and in two instances (precinct 2: retail and precinct
3: southern) sub-zone characteristics.
Table 6-39 provides a summary of the quality of each landscape character zone and
sub-zone and its sensitivity to change in the context of the proposal. It also describes
the sensitivity of the streetscape of each work site to change, which would be
typically higher relative to the context of the proposal due to the immediate changes
within the road corridor.
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 336
Review of Environmental Factors