Safer Auckland City
Introduction
| Safer Auckland City structure
| Projects
| Minimising crime through design
Minimising crime through design
Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is based on the concept that
crime and fear of crime can be minimised through effective planning and
designing of our built environment.
The safety of people within the city contributes to the liveability of the
city and the extent to which the public use particular areas. The concepts of
CPTED focus on the relationships between people and their environments; design
aspects which make people feel safe (such as good lighting) act as deterrents to
crime.
Change to the isthmus district plan
Plan change 141 introduces CPTED provisions and a set of guidelines,
which outline best practice in applying these, into part six of the district
plan - isthmus section.
The plan change process was finalised at the end of May and became operative
on 6 June
2005. This means that the proposals outlined
in Plan Change will become 'business as usual' practice.
Click here to view the
full details
of the plan change and associated guidelines.
CPTED assessment will be applied to certain building developments listed as
controlled and discretionary activities in the district plan that
require a resource consent. However, the
guidelines, Annexure 16 -
Safety guidelines in the isthmus plan, are available so that individuals and private landowners can
undertake their own assessments.
Activities triggering a safety assessment will be assessed against a range of
safety criteria to ensure there is:
- clear visibility and clear sight lines of building entrances and exits as
well as public areas within a development
- windows and doors overlook or interact with public areas
- walls and fences at the street edge have sufficient transparency to allow
informal surveillance
- appropriate lighting of public and semi-public areas including paths,
parking areas, plazas, building entrances and exits
- no entrapment spots and areas that may isolate user of public areas from
public view.
CPTED is not seen as a cure-all for crime prevention in the city, but will
enhance built environments to assist in reducing opportunistic crime.
Find out more about the steps Auckland City is taking towards creating
greater awareness and integration of safe design principles into the planning,
design, development, management and maintenance of the built environment and
public spaces of Auckland city in the Introduction
to crime prevention through environmental design.
Also check the urban
design strategy which outlines principles for good urban design and provides
a number of strategic actions to be used by council to embed those principles in
its policies and practices.
