Urban heat seminar in Cairns advocates for more trees and carefully designed development

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Cairns residents would be paid for planting trees on their properties under a set of policy priorities agreed to at a seminar about mitigating urban heat.

Around 50 delegates representing architecture, landscaping, planning, building, conservation, medicine and social services attended the Cairns Urban Heat Seminar late last week.

They developed a list of 13 resolutions which will be provided to Cairns Regional Council and the state committee for the Planning Institute of Australia to assist in future policy discussions.

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The need for more trees rates highly in the advocacy document.

Along with encouraging the Council to reimburse people for planting trees in their front yards, it promotes a trial to replace median car parking spaces in the CBD with trees.

Among those to speak at the seminar was Ryan McNeilly Smith, a PhD student at the University of the Sunshine Coast who is investigating bioclimatic urban design.

“Trees are really important in our urban environment because they provide shade and evapotranspiration - where moisture is put into the air -  which also assists with cooling,” he told Tropic Now.

“As a planning profession we are increasingly becoming more aware of these issues and the need to mitigate and adapt to urban heat and heatwave hazards.

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Council is also being encouraged to develop an Urban Treescape Policy, establish an arboretum to provide a diverse range of mature tree species and to consider allowing verge planting.

Development comes under the spotlight too, with the document advocating for subdivision planning to be undertaken by urban designers, rather than a response to engineering outcomes.

“We know poorly planned subdivisions can be real contributors to urban heat and poor heat health so in new subdivisions trees are really important but we also need to think about densities and layouts of subdivisions,” Ryan said.

“Breezes and wind patterns can be designed for to allow cooling through suburban areas and we’d rather see white roofs rather than dark roofs as well as suitable building materials.”

The seminar was organised by Chair of the Far North Queensland branch of the Planning Institute and Planz Town Planning owner Nikki Huddy.

She told Tropic Now it provided practical solutions to preventing the city becoming unliveable due to increasing extreme weather conditions.

“I’m going to give it to Cairns Regional Council and the Planning Institute not to necessarily action but to have that information from multidisciplinary people who felt these were the take home messages,” she said.

“If you’ve got 50 people in the room you really want to tap into their professional and community expertise and passion.

“It was a great opportunity to get a litmus test on what people are supporting and not supporting.”