Best locations for employment hubs in Greater Sydney

City Planning within New South Wales is undergoing unprecedented transformational change, particularly in the Greater Sydney Region given its multidimensional nature. The Greater Sydney Region Plan, 'A Metropolis of Three Cities' has projected the creation of three interconnected cities with the aim that this will facilitate local economic growth and rebalance the character of Greater Sydney. This will boldly pursue; liveability, sustainability, and productivity of all sub precincts whilst ensuring suburbs, where appropriate, are within reach of major services and infrastructure. 

Our intention of this analysis is to identify the best locations within Greater Sydney that are suitable for employment hubs. Through undertaking network and spatial analysis appropriate locations were identified. It is our aim to illustrate that these areas have the potential to analyse their current growth in line with these findings in order to promote future investment through the enhanced accessibility of its location, as well as factors of liveability that will contribute to an improved employment sector.

To locate the best sites for employment hubs with strong transport connectivity within Greater Sydney.

To locate the best location, the site needs to be: 

• Zoned e.g. B4, B5, B6, B2, B3. 
• Within 800m of a transit station.
• A common size for an employment hub. 
• Have significant established infrastructure i.e. hospital, school, university within the suitable area. 

Parramatta is a suburb located within the City of Parramatta Council local government area in Western Sydney. The area houses approximately 25,798 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016) residents. Parramatta is a multicultural area, “the most common ancestries in Parramatta (State Suburbs) were Indian 26.9%, Chinese 16.3%, English 7.7%, Australian 6.5% and Filipino 2.4%” (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016). 

Parramatta is located within the bounds of the Central River City and is Sydney’s second-largest employment hub, with more than 82,000 (Greater Sydney Commission 2018, p. 104) employees traveling to work within the area each day. Within Parramatta diverse operations exist, “including significant government and civic administration, businesses, major health and education institutions and significant lifestyle activities such as restaurants and theatres” (Greater Sydney Commission 2018, p. 104). 

Given that there is significant activity within the area, connectivity to transport is key. “Parramatta CBD is easily accessible by train, bus and RiverCat. The Parramatta Transport Interchange provides a gateway to Western Sydney by linking rail services with the Western Sydney Transitway Network, local buses and other transport services” (City of Parramatta 2021). 

The snapshot below is technically the center of Parramatta’s employment hub. Western Sydney University, Westfield Parramatta, City of Parramatta Council etc. all are located within the frame of the map. 

As can be seen from the zoning map, the majority of land is characterised B3 (Commercial Core) and B4 (Mixed Use) and in close proximity is the train station. This zoning in the core of Parramatta allows for the development of an employment hub. Developers are inclined to take advantage of the zoning available and develop commercial/mixed use buildings which serve the needs of the area. 

Parramatta City Council is in the process of publishing a Planning Proposal. The Proposal intends to change the “Parramatta CBD boundary, land use mix, primary built form controls and the mechanisms for infrastructure delivery” (City of Parramatta 2021). This Planning Proposal will allow for the delivery of significant developments which will align with the vision of the area. The City of Parramatta will continue to enhance its already current status as a key “metropolitan centre” (Greater Sydney Commission 2018, p. 119). 

Parramatta is an example of best practice as it is an employment hub with a strong connection to transit and is situated among key assets. Parramatta's employment hub will inform our analysis - identifying potential locations of suitability for other employment hubs across Greater Sydney. 

A 'service area' is a tool that highlights all accessible streets within a specified distance (e.g. 500m, 1km), travel time (e.g. 1 minute from, 10 minutes from), or travel mode (e.g. walking, car) from a specific point (ArcGIS 2021). It differs from a 'buffer', which is more rudimentary in merely showing a radial shape from a specific region and not using realistic movement behaviours achieved by a service area analysis. For the project, map 4 was imported into ArcGIS Pro to create a 5-minute vs 10-minute service area around the train, ferry, and light rail stations in Greater Sydney.

'Intersect' is when two or more input features/layers are overlaid to calculate their geometric intersection. The entirety or only a portion of the feature/layer will be in the output where there is an overlap (ArcGIS 2021). For the analysis, map 5 was 'intersected' with map 4 using ArcGIS Pro. As such, all the zoning codes B2 through to B6 which are within a 10-minute walk from a transit station are highlighted; showing the potential employment hubs across Sydney.

Land Use Zoning 

• To find areas in Sydney that are zoned B4, B5, B6, B2, B3. To locate this data a EPI Land Zoning Dataset was acquired which details zoning across all of New South Wales. 
• On ArcGis Online the sorting function was utilised to ‘filter’ the required objective zones.

Transit Station Location 

• Imported shapefile into ArcGis Online for all transit stations available within Greater Sydney. The data was gathered from Transport NSW. 
• Then on ArcGIS Online the filter option was utilized to select the mode; ferry, train, light rail across Greater Sydney.

Map 1 shows all the tap on and tap off locations of the opal data shapefile, it is from this data set the specific modes of transportation that would best serve an employment hub can be filtered.

Figure 5 shows the filtering process done on ArcGis online; with the selected three modes of ferry, light rail and train stations being the target transit nodes.

Map 2 is the filtered result which shows all train, ferry and light rail stops in Greater Sydney.

Map 3 is the raw data of the epi land use zoning map, showing all plots of land and their respective zoning codes within NSW.

Figure 6 shows how Map 3 was filtered in to our key business zoning codes of B2 through to B6.

Map 4 shows the filtered results of Map 3 merged with the filtered results of Map 2. Here the relationship between existing employment hubs and transport become more apparent. 

Map 5 is a service area study, where a 5 & 10 minute walkability analysis is shown from our transit stations. 

Map 6 is the result of Map 4 and 5 intersected together to show all the zoning codes B2 through to B6 which are within a 10-minute walk from a transit station; as such, showing all the potential walkable employment hubs across Sydney.

Using the data from Map 5 network analysis (service area) in conjunction with the landuse analysis of Map 6 (intersect), a number of key sites are showcased to best serve a Greater Sydney employment hub.

These results work in tandem with the goals and development plans outlined in The Greater Sydney Region Plan, 'A Metropolis of Three Cities' in a desire to have more accessible workplaces. The data in these maps demonstrate the importance of transport to employment and stress the notion of greater connectivity driven through our transit network allows for more skilled labour to access employment.

Four sites in particular, them being Bankstown, Campbelltown, Macquarie Park and Hurstville, show significant promise in the size of land corresponding to our key zoning types, their walkable distance from a transit node and the pre-existing infrastructure established in the area.

Our analysis of both zoning and transport data has confirmed that within Greater Sydney there are several potential employment hub locations. The table below confirms the most suitable locations that fulfil this project's objective criteria.  

These locations present a multitude of opportunities to expand on existing business activity along major corridors connecting it to the Greater Sydney Region and align themselves with the imperative directions of current metropolitan plans. 

These sites have the ability to diversify their current site-specific features. However, the opportunity exists for these sites to also evolve uniquely whilst incorporating influences of development occurring in Parramatta, and thus its economic and social implications. 

As the Greater Sydney Region experiences exponential growth and development, the facilitation of the accessibility and liveability of its suburbs is imperative to ensure the strategic planning of the region and its precincts. 

Align with the overarching Metropolitan Plan 

In relation to the findings, these highlighted areas possess the potential to contribute to the economic and employment initiatives concreted by key metropolitan plans and take influence from Parramatta as an example to strengthen productivity through their transport networks and in correlation with their business corridors.

In doing this these areas will be able to strengthen their links to surrounding suburbs, provide sufficient employment opportunities to the public located there and build on local strengths through the renewal of existing centres and well-connected areas. 

Pave way to interlinking directions 

Areas with high accessibility and efficient transport increase the lifestyle of areas whilst providing services aligned with the growth of the area. By ensuring key transport is provided to the public within walkable distance increases the livability of the area which influences the dispersal of housing as well as connected open green spaces, retail precincts, and community facilities which tend to locate and thrive in locations with these transport assets, creating unique metropolitan centres.

Land Value

The EPI zoning data does not depict land values. Higher land values are reflective of a highly connective area that is in demand. As such, a developer is more inclined to invest and construct an employment hub in an area that they know is already highly profitable and is expected to appreciate in the near future.

Site Suitability 

Map 6 identified several locations which fulfilled our initial objectives. But there may be several locations that exist that have site-specific and surrounding constraints that we are unaware of. For example, there may be a perfectly zoned area, but it could be geographically constrained which would ultimately rule out/ hinder any form of employment hub development. Another thing to consider is that the current area may be suitable for an employment hub - but it is possible that the future use predicted for the area could be different.

Transport Data 

Transport for NSW data (train, light rail, and ferry) data was able to be extracted. Sydney Metro data was not available. This is a limitation, if Metro stations were included as part of the analysis other potentially suitable sites could’ve been identified. 

As Greater Sydney’s population increases and the city diversifies it is necessary that new employment hubs are developed. It is important to recognise that Greater Sydney has a highly skilled labour force and this is only going to increase in the near future. It is evident that there is a geographic and socioeconomic divide between the East and the West in Greater Sydney. By scattering employment hubs across the city, there is an increased likelihood that this disparity will decrease - more people will have access to knowledge-intensive jobs, areas will be exposed to greater economic productivity and efficiency, etc. 

The use of network and spatial analysis in conjunction with relevant data sets depict key areas within Greater Sydney that are suitable and will be able to exhibit great 'employment hub' features that are evident within Parramatta.

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