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

Visually sensitive receivers
Visual receivers are those people who would be affected by landscape and
streetscape impacts. They are assessed in terms of identifying places where people
regularly congregate and include residential property, public buildings, public spaces,
heritage items and key businesses. With reference to the proposal the visual
receivers include:
Occupiers of buildings fronting the proposal footprint and its intersecting roads
Passengers, drivers and other road users (eg pedestrians and cyclists)
travelling throughout the proposal footprint and its intersecting roads
Café, restaurant, hotel and retail customers using the amenities and
businesses fronting the proposal footprint and its intersecting roads
Public open spaces such as parks, gardens and pedestrianised areas.
The sensitivity of each receiver to the landscape and streetscape changes that would
be introduced under the proposal is affected by a combination of whether:
They would be permanently or temporarily affected (eg people that live in the
city versus people that work in the city)
The function and use of each receiver (eg a residential property versus a public
open space)
Their location relative to the proposal footprint.
In the case of the proposal ground-floor receivers adjacent to the proposal footprint
are assessed as being the most sensitive to change compared to those receivers
either further away or located above ground-floor level.
The above parameters were considered in this assessment such that the identified
receivers are typically restricted to ground-floor businesses, public buildings and
public spaces fronting the proposal footprint. It therefore typically excludes residential
receivers as they are generally located above ground-floor level and in some
instances set back from the proposal footprint. The few exceptions are described
below.
It was not feasible to assess the impact at every single receiver. Consequently, a
number of representative receivers were selected for assessment, as set out in
Table 6-42. These receivers are located adjacent to the locations in the proposal
footprint where the more major traffic capacity improvements would be installed (as
described in Table 3-2), specifically:
Intersection reconfigurations and geometry modifications
Kerb extension alterations
Footpath width alterations.
It therefore excludes receivers located adjacent to the following work sites (NW1:
Kent Street, R3: Sussex Street, S1: Sussex Street and F2: Macquarie Street) as the
proposal’s visual impact either during construction and operation is assessed as
negligible (refer to Appendix I).
Each receiver has been graded high (H), moderate (M) or low (L) according to its
sensitivity to change. As noted above, all the selected receivers are located adjacent
to the proposal footprint. Their sensitivity to change is therefore a combination of the
receivers use and function and consequentially whether the people who congregate
there would be temporarily or permanently affected by the change. Typically:
Business premises would have a low sensitivity to change as they are only
temporarily occupied during the daytime, evening or night and are already
exposed to the visual impact of the existing road
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 343
Review of Environmental Factors