By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
DANDENONG’S Lonsdale Street redevelopment has been shortlisted in the Melbourne Design Awards, much to the chagrin of the city’s people with a disability.
Awards director Mark Bergin said he had received several complaints about the project’s shortlisting in the urban design category.
Last week he fielded calls and emails from Disability Resources Centre, disability design consultant Travability and individuals complaining of access shortfalls in the street’s design.
As reported in the Weekly, users with a disability have concerns about cobblestone pavers, a lack of kerbside ramps in parking bays, steep kerbside ramps and a hazardous bus thoroughfare in Langhorne and Lonsdale streets.
But after speaking with the developer Places Victoria, Mr Bergin said judges would not mark down the design as it complied with Australian Standards.
He said the complaints created a dilemma given the design was not “meeting the needs of some stakeholders”. “It’s not a case where the architect has been negligent or forgotten to do something. What it shows is a gap in user needs and what’s in the code,” Mr Bergin said.
However, he said architects who went above the minimum standard faced another dilemma and could be accused of “being reckless with public money”.
Disability Resources Centre advocate Katrina Newman said “minimum standards do not always meet the requirements of people with disabilities”.
“We need to see that future projects, and work on this project, are budgeted to provide a best-of example, not an example that meets the minimum requirements and therefore do not always meet the needs.”
Travability’s Bill Forrester said urban design should comply with universal design principles — how it works in its entirety — and not according to individual ‘tick-a-box’ criteria.
“There’s no teeth to our Disability Discrimination Act,” he said. “Our starting point should be not accessibility, but equal access. How do we make it useable for everybody?”
The awards have a public voting category at melbournedesignawards.com. Winners will be announced on September 19.
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