An audience of around 200 guests packed Edinburgh College of Art’s main lecture theatre to observe the culmination of the DPZ charrette for Edinburgh’s Garden District at the closing presentation by Andres Duany. Many had attended the charrette workshops while others were listening for the first time. Andres talked the assembled crowd through over 140 slides demonstrating the thinking behind the development, what the team had learned from the input of local people and interested parties and ultimately the emerging masterplan itself.

Andres explained the context of the masterplan proposal – this is a prime area of land which is one of the best-connected of its kind in the UK and it is appropriate for its owner to draw up a potential plan for its future. He emphasised right at the beginning that “Yes the land is green belt; yes Murray Estates wishes to make a profit from development of the land” and “yes, it is against currently planning policy , however Murray Estates was seeking to work with emerging planning policy”. The benefits that a well-planned area including greenspace and affordable family housing amongst other things would bring to a city which will be growing into the greenbelt anyway, however, could offset this. He went on to explain that building on land West of the city bypass has happened before in Edinburgh (RBS headquarters, Edinburgh Airport, Heriot Watt University); that planning policy is changing and that even now the City of Edinburgh Council has plans to build some 3,800 homes in the green belt to the west of Edinburgh which will come forth via a major new planning document known as SESplan. SESplan, Andres explained, will map out how the council sees Edinburgh developing over the next 20-30 years and the council has invited landowners and developers in and around Edinburgh to submit proposals to the SESplan consultation. Edinburgh’s Garden District masterplan and indeed the entire charrette process will form a submission to that consultation.

Andres explained that the idea for final design of housing layout had been inspired by the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh and the developed town space in St Andrews – both of which had proved extremely popular with those taking part in the charrette. Residents of each residential area of the Garden District would also be within five minutes walking distance of public transport so the need for cars within the development would be greatly reduced. Likewise facilities such as education would be supported in that schools like Wester Hailes could be enhanced and possibly replaced.

After the presentation, which closed to enthusiastic applause from the patient audience assembled, questions were asked on various topics as follows:

Q: from a financial point of view, would Murray Estates fully develop this land or sell it off in ‘parcels’ to developers/housebuilders?
A: yes it would be parcelled up and sold off but bound by strict conditions that it would be developed according to the finalised masterplan as consented.

Q: there is a trend towards wealth leaving cities – won’t development like this devalue the centre of Edinburgh – why don’t we do something like the Garden District in Edinburgh or Granton?
A: Murray Estates is planning what might be done with this area because it is within their ownership. Statistics show Edinburgh must grow and especially provide many thousands of new homes in the coming thirty years and that brownfiled development in the centre of town alone is insufficient and unrealistic. This is because the values involved mean only flats can be built when what is really needed is affordable family housing. We believe planned development such as this is will not detract from the city centre as it would be integrated in a way bolt-on urban sprawl housing would not be.

Q: all development I’ve seen before is about apartments (eg Newhaven) – can’t we change the consent so that it is affordable housing instead?
A: the value of the land is more if developed as intensively as possible and money has been lent to buy many brownfield sites on the basis of pre-recession values meaning developers are effectively having to ‘sit’ on land until prices rise again in order to make a return on money lent. We have recognised the deficiency in allotment gardens and also in affordable family housing and built our plans for the Garden District around these two key drivers rather than intensive, flatted development.

Q: what happens next?
A: the SESplan process now requires submissions for ideas on where Edinburgh might develop in future. It requires representatives from six councils to agree a way forward so will take some time.

Further questions were asked and answered by the project team present. The Beechgrove Garden’s Jim McColl explained the significance of the Calyx and what it might bring to Edinburgh and indeed Scotland in terms of tourism and green credentials.

By the end of the presentation the audience left with a holistic picture of what the Garden District might mean for Edinburgh. An informative video clip of the charrette process will be coming soon, as will the final masterplan, which will be available for download from this website.