17130 Transit-Oriented Development

Description

This subject focuses on the use of transit infrastructure investments to drive denser urban redevelopment. Transit investments (new rail services, new stations, and the development of intersecting light / heavy rail / express bus nodes) have potentially powerful impacts on local housing and commercial property markets. “Value capture” covers a range of public finance strategies aimed at diverting some of the property value uplift associated with a new or upgraded transport node to subsidize some of the public costs of the infrastructure. While these approaches date back to the 1980s (eg MTRC in Hong Kong, BART in San Francisco) and have been refined over time (eg UK Crossrail, NYC Hudson Yards), they are relatively new in Australia. TfNSW has used Special Infrastructure Contributions for specific stations on the Sydney Metro / Metro West lines as a proto-value capture approach. This subject critically evaluates transit-driven urban redevelopment, drawing together a review of the structure and functions of TODs, the urban structure/ design considerations they raise, the impacts of alternative forms of value capture on project feasibility, a detailed development feasibility analysis for a hypothetical TOD, and a series of case studies of the approach. A key element of this subject will be group work on some assignments.